Hickory Creek Middle School, 22150 116th Avenue, Frankfort, IL 60423 Phone 815-469-4474 FAX 815-469-7930

Kevin Suchinski, Principal

Nikki Beck, Assistant Principal

April Mahy, Dean of Students Volume 8 Number 8 April, 2010

2010 Caudill Voting Celebration!

On Thursday, February 25th more than 530 students and staff voted for their favorite book from among the twenty nominated Caudill titles. Our school winner was Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham. Our votes were sent to the Caudill committee and added to the votes of other participat-ing schools and public libraries across the state to determine one winner for the 2010 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Book Award which was All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn.

HCMS students and staff read more than 3700 books; forty-two students read all twenty titles and three eighth-graders read all twenty titles for the third year in a row! A HUGE thank you to everyone involved including: The Education Foundation for funding our grant for the 6th year, fabulous parent volunteers who cheerfully give their time and effort to make our party a success, generous parents and staff who donate sup-plies, food, and prizes, and HCMS and district administrators, staff, and students for their support and enthusiasm! Please join us in congratu-lating all our official judges, especially the students who read all twenty titles! Visit the LMC for the 2011 list!

Sixth graders: Madeline Vaughan, Claire Chung, Kate Wardenburg, Kaylee Williams, Jason Ciabbat-toni and teacher Mrs. Fox.

Sixth graders: Tyler Krause, Megan Conry and Michael Lemmons.

Eighth graders: Rebecca Gerske, Karly Bunge, Tim Michuda, Traci Kuecher, Rachel Stone and Allie Yule. Andrew Haberman and Amanda Small are not pictured.

Rebecca read all 20 books for the third year in a row!

Seventh graders: Brianna McKenna, Abby Couwenho-ven, Natalie Gevaudan, and Annie Gerdes. Back row: Nick Cesario, Max Marietti, Nathan Drewes, C. Summer and Nick Ferracuti.

Seventh grader: Mackenzie Williams.

Seventh graders: Devin McCahey, Matt Stern, Hunter Shadden and Austin Blair.

Eighth graders: Andrew Covarrubias, Brigid Clark and Bailey Bartczak. Eighth graders: Shara Fisher, Danielle Deering, Hope

Ritter, Kara Schmidt, and Elaine Trinh.

Back row: Noah Benovic, Jake Kasmierski and Ryan O’Shea.

Not Pictured: Emmanuel Willis

Danielle and Ryan have read all 20 books three years in a row!

HCMS 2010 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Book Award Voting Celebration! Special thanks to Renee Grady and Connie Vogt!

On March 13th several eighth grade students participated in the Regional Science Fair. These students worked diligently and showed great dedication to the study of science. Congratulations to Outstanding Award winners Brigid Clark, Molly Noonan, Brooke Braun, and Rachel Chudoba. We wish Molly Noonan (alternate), Brooke Braun, and Rachel Chudoba the best of luck as they move onto the state level competition!

The eighth grade literature classes will soon begin their final novel study. Our last novel is Night, a moving memoir by Holo-caust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. To better help the students understand the setting of the novel, the Social Studies classes will be studying the WWII era. Please take the time to talk to your students about the atrocities of this time period.

This winter some eighth grade Language Arts classes participated in the Library of Congress’s Letters about Literature na-tional essay program. The essay contest requires students to write a letter to an author explaining how their book has touched or even changed the reader’s outlook on life. Students worked through a series of lessons to help develop ideas about their book and looked at both good and bad examples of letters provided by the Library of Congress which have been sent to the competition in the past. Once the final peer-edit was completed and all the red marks were accounted for and corrected, let-ters were shipped off to the Library of Congress and the students crossed their fingers.

The Library of Congress Letters about Literature program received approximately 70,000 letters this year from school chil-dren around the nation. Three-thousand of those letters were from the state of Illinois Level II category (sixth through eighth grade). Judges went through the initial 3,000 letters and narrowed the category down to 114 students. Three of our very own are part of that exceptional group of writers.

Stephen Pleasant taught by Mrs. Sommer wrote a letter about A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold which highlighted the loss of wilderness in our world. Stephen now appreciates the few trees in his backyard a little more and wishes that those trees were actually a miles of forest. Evan Sandmann taught by Mrs. Kalsh, the maternity leave sub for Mrs. Morack, wrote a letter about the book Heat by Mike Lupica. The book is about a young baseball player who has big dreams, just like Evan. He felt a connection between the main character’s mentality and how perceives the game – both love the game and try their hard-est to best. Anna Nowak, also taught by Mrs. Kalsh, wrote a letter to author Susan Beth Pfeffer for her book Life As We Knew It. The book focuses on the end of our world which made Anna think about how important it is to live each day to its fullest.

We are eagerly awaiting the results of the state judging and are hoping we have a state champion walking amongst us. Needless to say, we are proud of their hard work. Making the top 114 letters out of 3,000 is quite the achievement in and of itself. All in all, we hope their love for reading continues and that they keep find-ing books that make them think a little harder about themselves and the world around them. Great job Stephen, Evan, and Anna!!!

P- Pride

A—Attitude

W—Work

S—Service

MARCH Awards

Ryan Humenik

Nicole Melby

Maddy Bloomfield

Sam Crumpley

Alex Kraft

Brianna McKenna

Julia Mauser

Jack Christensen

Jake Johnson

Caroline McCahey

Heather Lorenca

Jake Peterson

Nathan Van Dellen

Katy Shaw

Amy Golaszewski

Billy Webb

Caleb Henstein

Lauren Szara

Brooke Braun

Seventh grade has just wrapped up the second trimester with our team awards assembly. These included Honor Roll, PAWS, and Science Fair. Congratulations to all the students that competed in the Regional Science Fair. Brianna McKenna received a 1st place, Katie Lahey, Brigid Clark, Molly Noonan and Natalie McCray received Outstanding Awards. Brook Braun, Kenichi Haynie and Rachel Chudoba received Outstanding Awards and will be going on to state competition. A special award went to Brianna McKenna who received the “Best Project in Optics” and a check from the Optical Society of Chicago.

Devin McCahey

Austin Winkler

Mike Rossetto

Jake Juracka

Blake Anderson

Megan Mauriello

Zoe Spada

Erin Couwenhoven

Brandon Corydon

Jonathan Thomas

Kayla Reda

Stephanie Zobel

Max Vaundry

Brandon Bauer

Abbie Hasson

Jodan Perkins

Ein Essex

Danny Provis

Hunter Shadden

Danielle Zivo

L.J. Horneij

“SPRING” INTO GOOD CHARACTER

Sixth graders are “hopping” to help others. Good character is “springing” up every where. Mrs. Lopez’s sixth grade advisory class raised over $100 for the “Hope for Haiti” fund. Students were so shocked by the news of the devastating earthquake and more than willing to help out. Money raised was used to purchase tents to ship to Haiti.

As a school, money was raised for the Frankfort Children’s Museum. Mr. Ferraro’s and Mrs. Rutovic’s advisory classes won a pizza party for collecting the most complete sets of state quarters and the most change from their students. The change was do-nated to the children’s museum. Hickory Creek students donated over $3,000 to the museum. Students were very proud of themselves and to reward them for reaching their goal the entire school got to watch Mr. Suchinski have pies thrown at his face by Student Council representatives!

Many students and parents came out to watch the staff be defeated by the students in both volleyball and basketball for the March Madness event. Admission to the event was the donation of canned food items for the local food pantry.

Sixth Grade dates to remember: April 14th: Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra

field trip at Lincoln-Way East

April 30th: Brookfield Zoo field trip

 

Helping Your Child Stay Motivated

Spring fever has arrived!! As the days become longer and the weather warmer, your child may experience more difficulty stay-ing focused on school. Here are some tips to help keep your child motivated as the school year winds down. By implementing these strategies, you can help your child complete the last months of school on a successful note knowing they did their best.

Set realistic goals Don’t let projects or tests sneak up. Help your child plan out what they need to do to be prepared. To avoid becoming over-whelmed, break bigger assignments into smaller ones.

Create a study space Create a place where it is easy for your child to concentrate. The area should be comfortable, quiet, and stocked with necessary supplies. Designate a time period for homework, and try to have your child work at the same time each day.

Countdown: seeing your goals Hang up a wall calendar and have your child write down important assignment and deadlines. Sometimes what children per-ceive as a lot of time is actually shorter than they think. Once your child has reached their goal, encourage them to cross it off the calendar. This way they will have visual evidence of their accomplishments and their remaining responsibilities.

Break time Allow your child some down time. They will come back from their break refreshed and ready to work. By implementing these strategies, you can help your child complete the last months of school on a successful note knowing they did their best.

 

 

All sixth grade students at HCMS will be attending the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra’s interactive youth concert Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at the Lincoln-Way East Fine Arts Center. Each student has already received their permission slip and payment information. This trip is an excellent introduction to the orchestra and is a fun and engaging way to promote a love for orches-tral music.

Mr. Smit and three eighth grade students are heading to Springfield in May to present at TECH 2010. The students will be dis-cussing their Tour Company "website" built in PowerPoint using hyperlinks, PhotoShop, Blue Screen Movie Making, Podcast-ing, and more.

Once again, “Sportlink” will be performing Sports Physicals at Hickory Creek Middle School. All 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students, who are enrolled in Frankfort School District 157c, may participate in this clinic. The physicals may also be used to meet 6th grade and 9th grade State of Illinois school physical requirements, if the students are up to date on their immunizations. Please be certain to tell the “Sportlink” doctor that you will be using the physical to meet grade requirements and bring a copy of your childs’ immuni-zation record with you. “Sportlink” also offers EKG’s, Echocardiograms and Cardiac Life Screening with the physical, for an additional cost. For more information and to sign up for the physical and/or cardiac screening, please log on to www.sportlinkusa.com and use the school code HKCMS. Please call me at Hickory Creek Middle School, for further details or if you have any questions.

DATE: Wednesday, May 17, 2010 TIME: 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PLACE: Hickory Creek Middle School gymnasium

We ask that you NOT send any type of medication (prescription or over the counter) to school with your child. All medica-tion must be locked up in the nurse’s office and may only be given at school if there is a medication form filled out and signed by both physician and parent, and on file in the nurse’s office. The parent/guardian may come to school to give their own child medication, should the need arise. If a student is found to have any medication on their person or with their possessions (without proper authorization), the medication will be confiscated and the parent will be called to pick it up. The student may also be subject to disciplinary action. Thank You, Arlene Pawlak, R.N. HCMS Nurse