December 2009

Students in Mr. Rob Bentley’s ninth-grade geography classes have been working on presentations about specific countries in Africa. They do the presentations because, according to Mr. Bentley, there isn’t enough time to talk about all 53 countries in Africa. Students had two weeks to work on the presentations, and they presented their reports on Monday, December 14. Before making their reports, they did two class periods of research on Africa.

The Springville Junior High boys' and girls' basketball teams at played games on December 3, 2009. Both teams played against Murray Junior High School.

The girls played hard, but lost their game 33 to 35. The boys won their game 62 to 56. Cole Bertelsen, a member of the boys basketball team, said, “We played pretty good against Murray. Our defense was really good against the team.” 

Jantzen Dalley had the most points for his team with a total of 18. Mindy Stapel had the most points for her team with the total of 21 points. Mr. Shaun Blakey, the boys basketball coach, said, “We would love to see more students at the games to support the basketball teams.”

Every year around this time Springville Junior High has their Christmas Dance. This year the dance was on Thursday, December 17, 2009. The Service Learning class made posters for the dance, and the student council decorated. The dance was filled with Christmas lights and Christmas posters to help with the Christmas spirit. The D.J. at the dance played Christmas songs, old songs, and new hip songs.

“The dances at SJHS help support the school with the money the students paid to get in. So everybody should come!” said Sara Ripley, a member of the student council. The people who chaperone the dances are, teachers, parents, and PTA members. Carson Giles said, “ My favorite part of the dance was dancing with the ladies.” 

Christmas time is all about traditions, and one of the traditions held at Springville Junior High School is that the service learning class hosts a Christmas assembly. This year the assembly will be a Christmas Game Show. 

“We’re going to have student council hosting, special judges, and people from the audience all interacting,” Katie Bair, a member of student council explained. “This is going to be a lot more interactive with the audience than usual,” Katie went onto say.

The assembly is full of surprises and lots of contests for the audience to get to be involved in. “Hopefully it will put everyone into a Christmassy mood.” Katie explained.
 

Model UN is working hard to represent our school in the BYU Model United Nations Competition 2009. They are training with parliamentary procedures, speaking techniques, and common courtesy for the Model UN competition. However, to perfect these skills, the Springville Junior High Model UN Team 2009 will also attend the BYU training session.

This year the students of Springville Junior High sold cookie dough as a fundraiser to raise money to help our school look nicer. Students received prizes for selling cookie dough.  If students wanted the big prize then they could sell 20 tubs of cookie dough and be rewarded with a limo ride and lunch.

On December 3, 2009 all the students who sold 20 tubs of cookie dough or more went to The Pizza Factory, the students who sold 24 or more got to bring along a friend of their choice. The students traveled by black Hummer Limousine.

The jazz band is coming to SJHS after Christmas break. The jazz band is made up of ninth graders that are in Mr. David Booth's band class. Mr. Booth, the jazz band conductor, said, “Jazz band is a fun way to give ninth graders more performing opportunities.”

Ninth graders that are in band have to try out to be able to get in, but this year the jazz band has an orchestra student playing the piano.  The jazz band will start meeting once or twice a week for one hour after school in the band room. Instruments that are played the jazz band are trumpet, trombone, saxophone, bass guitar, piano and drums. 

Springville Junior High just finished a food and clothing drive.  Natalie Shaw, Liz White, Taylor Martin, Shawnee Henderson, and Thalia Berriel, members of the service learning class, were in charge of the drive.

The drive went from Monday November 29 through Monday December 7.  The winning class gets a donut party from Reams in Springville.  According to Natalie Shaw, the party is used to encourage students to donate. 

Mrs. Bird, service learning teacher, said, “The purpose of the drive is to help people less fortunate than us.”  Tyler Ercanbrack, a first period student in Mrs. Rebecca Murdock’s class, said “It helps other people.”

Winter Guard tryouts took place in mid-November, and two ninth graders from SJHS made it in. Kara Dunn and Makaiah Williams worked hard to learn the routines and dances, and they were excited to make it into Winter Guard.

The girls had to go to the high school and learn an eight count flag routine and a dance. Then they had to go perform it for girls that were in Winter Guard but are now graduated and came back to help.
 
Winter Guard does many things. They do flag and rifle spinning and dances. They have competitions where they get to show off their dance and routines to the other schools. Their first competition is January 30th at Orem High School. They also do the salute at the basketball games.

Out of all the different genres in reading, science fiction is one of the largest. Stories from this genre can contain anything from time travel and stories about the future to alien invaders.  Many of these stories were inspired by the writings of H. G. Wells. Mrs. Mary Rice’s eight-grade English class is reading War of the Worlds, which is a book about invaders from Mars by H.G. Wells. According to Mrs. Rice, the class will be reading and analyzing the many different facts and philosophies used by the author, along with studying its interesting and exciting narrative.