Spring is here! A mix of sunny days and rainy days, and sandal-wearing, jacket-free students in the halls. With that, of course, comes a flurry of end of the school year activities and ready or not, it's time for those to begin! Here is what is on the agenda next week in the middle school:
On Monday each advisory will be a part of helping Harvesters to prepare for their annual "Stamp Out Hunger" campaign. Click here to watch a video about this wonderful initiative and check next week's blog to see how Pembroke Hill students are involved!
Tuesday will be busy as well! Our 5th grade students will visit that morning to get an inside look at the workings of the middle school. Student tour guides will show them the ropes! We can't wait to have the 5th graders in the building! Additionally 7th grade students will meet for Wellness. The topic will be responding to peer pressure. The lesson will begin with an interactive activity called "Acceptance and Rejection" In this activity students are assigned to fake "cliques" and given some instructions to carry out about how their clique operates. This will be followed by a discussion about our natural desire to feel a sense of belonging and how that can make peer pressure a challenging force to respond to. Students will work together to create a list of areas in which middle school students experience peer pressure. We'll examine the list and discuss ideas to respond to each scenario. Students will practice these responses using role plays. In next week's blog I will share with you the scenarios the students list as where they experience peer pressure and the strategies that were taught. 6th and 8th grade students will meet for Wellness the week of April 13. 6th grade will focus on assertiveness skills and 8th graders will hear MOCSA's middle school Healthy Relationships program from the staff at MOCSA. Details will be in my next blog entry.
Wednesday afternoon I will be on the Wornall campus again to talk with the 5th grade students individually. I have started meeting with students in this manner already the last few days. I really enjoy getting to know the students in this way. It is much more difficult to get to know them if I wait until the school year begins and they are busy adjusting to a new school! We talk about what they like to do, their favorite subjects in school, challenges they face at school and they have an opportunity to ask questions about middle school privately. I use this information to do my best to match them with their middle school advisor.
Thursday will be a very exciting day for us! Haley and her family will be at Pembroke Hill so we can celebrate her upcoming trip to swim with the dolphins. We will present the Make-A-Wish Foundation with our money raised, present Haley and her sister with a surprise, enjoy a musical performance from the middle school band, have a relay race and share cookies and lemonade together.
The week will end with the Spring Fling dances after school on Friday. The parents association is generously offering this event for our students and should prove to be a very fun afternoon/evening of dancing and fun --- I hear there will be a velcro wall :)
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