BANTAM PRIDE NEWSLETTER- May 22, 2009

Dear Parents, 

We are rapidly approaching the close of this school year and I want to say thank you for the privilege of teaching your children. They reflect the best of you and our community and it has been truly another good year!  

I know we have prepared the 7^th graders well for next year and the 8^th graders for a successful high school experience. Please read this page carefully as it contains many important dates of final events.  

Thank you to all of you who attended our Open House on May 13.  We had a great turn out, and many incoming 6^th graders came as well. The BBQ, student entertainment, and History day were all well received and provided a good backdrop for this important event.  I also want to say congratulations to all one hundred twenty members of our PJHS band and chorus, who sang the National Anthem at the S.F. Giant’s Game in front of a sold out crowd of forty thousand, on Friday May 15. It was quite an experience, one I am sure they will never forget. Thank you to all staff and parents who helped out and attended!  

The Six Flags (Marine World) trip for 8^th graders is scheduled for Tuesday, June 2 and we should be back on site by 6:30. The 8^th grade dance is Thursday, June 4 from 6:30-9:30 in the MPR. This is not a formal dance so please save your money for college! We anticipate lots of fun and thank you for volunteering to help the PTSA make these events possible.  

Please note that Wednesday through Friday June 3-5 are minimum days with dismissal at 12:45 pm. The 8^th grade promotion is Friday, June 5, at 10:00 am in the PJHS gymnasium. We recommend that in order to have enough space that attendance be limited to parents and grandparents.  No 7^th grade siblings will be allowed to attend the ceremony. The ceremony will conclude at 11:30am followed by a half hour social in the MPR and courtyard where cake and juice will be served. The 7^th graders will be dismissed at 12:45pm so please plan to leave by 12:15 pm to avoid traffic.  Parking will be available on the lower blacktop from 8:40am to 9:45 am.  

Keep in mind that this is an 8^th grade promotion and not a formal graduation. Therefore, boys should be neat and dressed in a shirt and slacks and girls in a dress but not formal. Girls may wear spaghetti strap and halter top dresses, but no strapless tops to the dance or to the promotion. In order to be able to participate in the ceremony all students must have successfully completed a minimum of one hundred and ten semester credits and not be currently under a suspension. If your student was in jeopardy of not promoting due to deficient credits the counselors would have already communicated this to you.  Final report cards will be mailed the week of June 8 

Unfortunately, the current economic situation does not allow for summer school this year.  There are some summer programs available through Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State but I recommend that you investigate these soon as they will no doubt fill up rapidly. 

In spite of the economic downturn there will be quite a bit of construction here at PJHS during the summer and into next year. Bond money that was passed over ten years ago has been allotted in three phases at PJHS. The construction will start this July resulting in a newly furbished admin office with space for teacher’s workroom and offices. A new library will be constructed in the open space between the current office and G-wing.  The new office will be much more open and easier to navigate with student services and attendance functions clearly delineated and spaciously designed. Our temporary office will be housed in rooms E-2 and E-3. The library will be housed in room C-4. I do not anticipate any interruption of services and it promises to be an exciting time! 

Included in this edition are the 7^th and 8^th grade Orientation Day flyers with important dates and times regarding registration material pick up and return for the coming year. Please note that PJHS will not be mailing home a registration packet in an effort to save money but packets will be available for you to pick up here on site August 10-13. Please refer to the flyers included in this newsletter for all this information. As always the school is assessable to you all summer long. If your child is feeling anxious about coming to junior high for the first time it is reassuring to walk the campus with a parent just to gain confidence and familiarity. You are always welcome to do so. 
 

Principal,
John Lehmann 
 
 

LIBRARY NEWS

End-Of-Year Library Information 

All library books will be due on Friday May 22nd, but the library will remain open for student use until the last day of school. Students who have overdue books will not be able to attend the 8^th grade Marine World trip or the 7^th grade fun day. Overdue books and library fines will also keep students from receiving their yearbook. Please help your children in rounding up their library books and paying or working off their library fines by the deadline. 

There is an exception for seventh graders who wish to check out books for summer reading. If they bring in a letter, signed by the parent and student and promising to take care of the books, they will be able to check out books for the summer.  

Other Summer Reading Information

For other summer reading, visit the Petaluma Public Library. They have many recommendations for students. For those that like to look online for recommendations, here are some web sites: 

1. Recommended Literature: Kindergarten through Grade Twelve is a collection of outstanding literature for children and adolescents from the California Department of Education

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/ll/ 

2. The Database of Award-Winning Children's Literature has over 7,000 records from 79 awards across six English-speaking countries.

http://www.dawcl.com/introduction.html 

3. Reading Rants is a website featuring out of the ordinary booklists for teens written by a librarian.

http://readingrants.org/ 

4. Hennepin County Library’s “TeenLinks” page features reading lists, recommendations, and reviews.

http://hclib.org/teens/read.cfm 

5. Our own Sonoma County Library has started “teen space” with teen events, book reviews, reading lists and more.http://sonomalibrary.org/news/ya/

Library Activities

Mr. Lamansky and Mr. Murphy’s eighth grade classes came to the library to do research on a lesser-known person of the Civil War for History Day. The library has a collection of books and an electronic database and eBook that work well for this assignment. Senora Peabody’s classes also used the library this month. Eighth graders do research on a culture from the past and write a report in Spanish using the preterit tense. They will then teach their classmates a new fact about the culture that they studied. Seventh graders do a report in English on a person of Hispanic heritage. The students were happy to see the many new books I was able to purchase for this project. Ms. Alverez’s English class reviewed the library’s collection of biographies in order to select one for their women’s history report.  

We were very fortunate in having two authors visit the library in March and April.  Julie Crabtree, author of Discovering Pig Magic, was our second visitor. She is the winner of the Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature, which provided funding for her visits to schools that also included a craft or writing project. Many classes were able to see one of her three presentations, ask your student if they saw her! 

Library Lovers Needed

Petaluma High School has an active library booster club which needs parents for its activities as well as some fundraising.  Join an exciting, involved group of parents to help them spend their money to improve the library. Neither regular meetings nor a major time commitment is required.  Visit phslibrary.org for more information about the Petaluma High School library, and/or contact Teacher Librarian Connie Williams at 778-4662 or by email at cwilliams@pet.k12.ca.us for more information or to volunteer. 

TV Turnoff

Do you wish your child would play outside, read, do their homework, spend more time with family, and even clean their room? Then next April, require them to take part in TV Turnoff Week! I am happy to report that 60 of our students participated this year, and those were the kinds of things they did instead of watch TV. The participants were rewarded with an extra-long break and a treat on Monday May 11, and received extra-credit from the teacher of their choice.

Congratulations to: 

SCIENCE NEWS

After an introduction to physics and chemistry, the eighth grade students and teachers are going far out with astronomy.  The relationship between the earth, moon, planets, and stars gives a sense of awe, a sense of the Cosmos.  The students are learning that the sun is a nuclear reactor that is 150 million kilometers away—is that a safe distance?  Heat, gravity, tide and time affect us all.  Let us look at the sky and wonder.

Seventh grade science ends the year exploring the systems of the human body.  We started the year learning about cell organelles, then organs and organisms.  It is hoped that the organ systems culminate with a sense of organization.

The science department always enjoys setting up for Open House.  It was good to see parents, students and future students on the evening of May 13, 2009.  Teachers find it a joy to have students show and explain the activities of the year to their parents.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION NEWS

www.pjhspe.com  

7th Grade

All of the 7th grade classes recently finished up all of their state FITNESS TESTING.  MR. DEE'S classes have moved from team handball and orienteering to the comforts of the gym to begin badminton.  MRS. TEETER'S classes have gone from Frisbee tricks and skills to finishing the year playing pickle-ball.  MRS. MC GAUGHEY's 7th graders recently concluded Frisbee and will finish with a variety of games including team handball, orienteering, and flicker ball. 

8th Grade

MRS. MCGAUGHEY'S 8th graders have been designing their own plays and formations during the football unit and have now moved into archery to finish out the year.  MR. TUCKER'S students learned about the game of Netball and will finish the year playing softball with MR. GRAGG'S classes (who just concluded their floor hockey unit).  Mr. Gragg's zero period will close out the school year with badminton skills and games. 

PE Make-ups

All PE Make Ups must be completed by Friday May 29th!  Check www.pjhspe.com for the current make up schedule. 

HISTORY NEWS

Students in Mr. Hermann’s, Mrs. Nelson’s, Mr. Murphy’s and Mr. Lamansky’s history classes participated in an extensive research project based on the theme: The Individual History. The teachers and students wish to extend their sincere thanks to the PTSA for their generous support.  Thanks to their donation, we were able to purchase medals, certificates, ribbons, and movie gift certificates for the winners of the school competition.

Eighth Grade students in Mr. Murphy’s and Mr. Lamansky’s classes completed an exhibit about an individual in the Civil War. The students are to be commended for their excellent work which they completed while also preparing the CST History exam.  A total of 58 projects were submitted from which the following are recognized for their superior achievement:

Seventh Grade students started their research, on a particular individual in our curriculum, at the beginning of the semester. Students in all classes did extensive research using monographs, newspapers, periodicals, expert on-line sources, data bases, and more.  Then students organized their notes and decided what type of project to complete.  Options included a web-site, power point presentation, exhibit, historical paper, documentary or performance.  Students could work individually or in groups. 

Project based education allows children to go beyond rote facts.  This is especially true for GATE students.  In the History Day competition, students were asked to not only research a particular individual, but to put that person in historical perspective and show the impact he or she had on history.  This required extensive research on the part of the student and higher level thinking skills.  This type of project teaches time management, cooperative social skills, display quality neatness, accuracy, paraphrasing, note taking and other research skills and oral presentation skills. 

After weeks of work, each classroom had its own competition, the winners of which went on to the school competition.  The teachers are proud to announce the winners of the school competition:  

Historical Paper

• 1^st Place: Julia Adams for Galileo
• 2^nd Place: Alexander Leoni for Sir Francis Drake 
  

Group Documentaries

• 1^st Place: Spencer Abbott and Avery Okamura for Harold IV and the Battle of Hastings
• 2^nd Place: Bryce Aston and Rachel Graff for Renaissance Jeopardy 
  

Individual Documentaries

• 1^st Place: Khalil Schwartz-Omer for Kublai Khan
• 2^nd Place: Dante Licata for Marco Polo 
  

Group Power Point

Honorable Mention: Joe DeMars, Alex Waters, and Patrick Bailey for Attila the Hun

• 1^st Place: Sana Kenner and Celine Rogers for Lalibela
• 2^nd Place: Tillman Schmid and Nick Pruett for Viad III, the Real Dracula
• 3^rd Place: Max Shelley and Jesse Lingana for Genghis Khan 
  

Individual Power Point

Judges Award for Animation:  Max Cowell for Pope Leo IX

Honorable Mention: Blake Midtlie for Marco Polo

• 1^st Place: Marco Cecchini for Mozart
• 2^nd Place: Sabrina Kirk for Isaac Newton
• 3^rd Place: Sequoia Rahlfs for Murasaki Shikibu 
  

Group Websites

1st Place: Rachel Goree, Malena Lechon, and Jenna DeNatale for Leoanardo da Vinci  

Individual Websites

1^st Place: Ben Kaplow for Hegel 

Group Performances

• 1^st Place: Saydee Dickinson, Tatyana Miatchine, Mariah Hake, and Molly Hohle for Queen Elizabeth 
• 2^nd Place: Angeleah Childress, Erin Lepori, Leslie Mejia, and Maiya Newsome for Queen Elizabeth  
  

Group Exhibits

• 1^st Place: Hailey Souza, Hanna McCarthy, Molly Okamura, and Mirissa Whisman for William Shakespeare
• 2^nd Place: Laura Gouillon and Janice Park for Beethoven
• 3^rd Place: Katelyn Shadbazian, Audrey Behen, Allyson Carstarphen, and Laura Marston for Samurai

Honorable Mentions

• *Samantha McCready, Kylee Nelson, Jordan Fahlenkamp, and Rose Jensen  for Titian
• *Shelby Firebaugh, Jennifer Gamba, and Meaghan McMahon for Joan of Arc
• * Devin Allen, Kirra Hooper, Maya Raymond-Bernes, and William Salter for Marco Polo
• * Caitlin Christensen and Julie Jenkins for Mary Wollstonecraft
• *Nick McCloskey, Stone Barone, Austin Clayland, and Ryan Spohr for Sir Francis Drake
• *McKenzie Moreda, Carly Sullivan, and Raquel Tomrose for Martin Luther 
  

Individual Exhibit

• 1^st Place: Jennifer Rustad for Queen Elizabeth
• 2^nd Place: Camerson Meyers for King Charles
• 3^rd Place: Bruce Baker for Isaac Newton

Honorable Mentions         

• *Adam Ferrick for Francisco Pizarro         
• *Iain Gors for William the Conqueror         
• *Zaki Shadeen for Isaac Newton          
• *Summer Hall for Queen Victoria          
• *Dante Del Prete for Galileo          
• *Daniel Boles for Constantine          
• *Brandon Marweg for Galileo

ART NEWS

The students are currently finishing the anatomy & portraiture unit.  Over the course of this unit, the students have developed their observational drawing and blending skills.  They learned that the addition of value and attention to detail create the illusion of realistic, three-dimensional forms.  We began the unit by practicing value scales and shading techniques.  Next, the students drew the proportions of the skull and added value to make it look realistic.  These skull drawings helped the classes to understand the underlying structure of the face before we learned portraiture.

For the portraiture section of this unit, the art classes learned how to draw facial features step by step.  Next, a portrait was drawn based on the measurements of their skull drawing.  This difficult task was simplified by completing each step of the drawing with the class.  I have a camera project each step as I draw, then the students draw the step independently.  Visual aids are also at each table, so that the students have reference material.  By breaking down complicated subjects into simplified steps, the students have been able to create drawings that they never thought were possible.  I have seen great progress in every student this semester.  This achievement has given students a real sense of pride in their work and greater confidence in their abilities.  I am very proud of the work that my students have created over the course of this semester. 

INDEPENDENT LIVING NEWS

We are winding down the school year with our Sewing Unit, and by completing our mouse and cat pillows in Independent Living. Students now know how to sew a button, repair clothes, and sew patches onto clothing. 

By the time of this reading, our “Guest Chefs” have demonstrated their incredible culinary skills to various classes, and students have sampled delights concocted by our very own staff. 

In April, students were thrilled to hold the newest version of Baby Think it Over, called RealCare Baby. Students learned how to feed, burp, rock, change, and hold newborns, the importance of supporting an infant’s neck, and why they should never place a newborn down on its tummy while sleeping. The new babies communicate via wi-fi to Mrs. Nugent’s computer, where she can monitor and program the Babies. Students got a great example of the results of fetal alcohol syndrome on an infant through observation of the “Fetal Alcohol Syndrome” baby. 

In April, students took on their own version of “Extreme Home Makeover” by designing their “Dream Bedrooms”; which were on display during Open House. 

As our school year comes to a close, there are many people to thank for the countless ways in which they supported the Independent Living program. Parents: thank you all for your contributions of classroom supplies, bake sale goodies, and cash. Thank you, PTSA for your support of the bake sale during Open House, the classroom supplies, and the many fundraising efforts you conduct to allow us to continue our programs. Thank you Penny Dawson for your work in the garden this spring, as well as a huge thank you to Mary Jane, and Michael Cavalli for two tireless years of keeping our garden beautiful. (It hasn’t been the same since you went on to other volunteer work this school year.)Thank you, Maria Pereira and Alfredo Medeiros for the countless ways in which you toiled keeping our classroom neat and clean, and for always coming through when a crisis hit. Thank you, Mrs. Adayan, Mrs. Burbank, Mrs. Shockey, and Mrs. Jayne for cupcakes, sewing needles, patience, and the extra set of eyes that are always needed in a room packed with activities and exuberant teens. Thank you, Petaluma Education Foundation and Andrea and John Barella of North Bay Construction for the grant to purchase another Real Care Baby and the Shaken Baby Syndrome Simulator for next year. Thank you, Mr. Lehmann for apples and peppers. Thank you staff and thank you students for an awesome school year!  

Culinary Garden

Volunteers are needed to weed and water all summer! Contact Mrs. Nugent at cnugent@pet.k12.ca.gov. 

Culinary Arts for Middle School Students Class at PJHS this Summer

A great introduction to Culinary Arts and organic gardening will be taught this summer on our PJHS campus in room F-1 by Mrs. Nugent. There are two classes offered for a week at a time, during June. The flyer and registration form is in this newsletter. 

HEALTH NOTES

Healthy Summer Fun 

Summer is a time when we think of vacations and fun things to do.  But it's important to keep in mind ways to keep healthy.  Here are some easy things to do: 

1. Always wear a helmet when riding a bike, skateboarding, roller blading, climbing, or any other sport where wearing a helmet would help prevent a head injury. 

2. When swimming, be careful where you dive.  Make sure a lake or pond is deep enough in which to dive before diving, and don't dive into the shallow end of a swimming pool. If you don't know how to swim, summer is the perfect time to take swimming lessons. 

3. Wear sun screen.  You may have to reapply it during the day if you are out all day or in and out of water. Repeated sun burns or long exposure to the sun can cause skin cancer. 

4. Wear your sun glasses.  They protect your eyes from sun damage. 

5. Drink plenty of water when you are exercising or in the sun for long periods of time. 

Enjoy your summer, and stay healthy. 

I will be retiring at the end of this school year.  It has been a joy to watch many of your students from kindergarten to 8th grade and beyond, grow and mature. I want to thank you for all of your support over the years.  This is a difficult time for those of us in education, and continued parent support is what we count on.  I wish you and your families health and happiness in the years ahead.      Judi L. Baker, School Nurse