January 2010

Almost everyone has heard of someone who plays instruments like the violin, flute or trumpet.  There are many junior high students that play these instruments, especially since students can learn how to play them in band and orchestra.  But not that many students play instruments like the mandolin, harp, guitar, djembe, and oboe. SJHS has its fair share of these unique musicians who have all found great ways to express themselves through their music.

There are many unique sports played at Springville Junior High, and one of those sports is lacrosse. In lacrosse, there are ten players on the field at a time. For each team there are two defenders, two mid-fielders, and an attacker. The purpose of lacrosse is to score more goals than the other team.

Lacrosse is played in the spring by many members of Springville Junior High. One of those people is Jesse Martinsen, a defender on his team.  Jesse said, “I would say my favorite part of lacrosse is getting to hit people with a six foot pole!” As some people know, lacrosse is a high impact sport. You have to be in pretty good shape to play this sport, and you also have to be able to take hits from six foot poles.

The Princess and the Frog is a movie about a girl named Tatiana who dreams of having a restaurant, but finds herself as a frog. She ends up going through the bayou and meets a few new friends.

According to Savannah McNitt, an eighth-grade student, she liked the movie because it was cute, funny, and enchanting. She loves Ramon the firefly because he always made her laugh.  “I would totally go see it again! I went with my friends the first time, and I just laughed and had a lot of fun!”

Maddie Joyner, an eighth-grader, said “I love this movie because Tatiana has to work for her dreams. Unlike the rest of the princess it was just handed to them. It has a good story line for kids.”

Mr. Michael Parker, the boys P.E. teacher, and Ms. Carrie Parker, the aerobics teacher, both did snowshoeing for their classes. Snowshoeing is where you walk around in the snow with snowshoes on. Snowshoes are web type shoes that make you walk on snow without sinking in. Mr. Parker tries to do it every year. He said, “If there is enough snow then we do it every year.” 

Mr. Parker did games with snowshoeing. They did relay races and walking backwards. Andrew Sa’u, a seventh-grade student, said, “Walking backwards on snowshoes was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done through my experiences with snowshoeing.”

Every year at Springville Junior High there is always a very special concert, The Winter Choir Concert.  This year the Winter Choir Concert will be held on January 14th.  It is a prestigious honor for the choir students to be in. They have been practicing since the beginning of the year to bring students and staff members a rich and life filled-concert with a variety of musical styles and well known songs.

“The Winter Concert has a lot of variety in the types of songs we sing. I think people coming to see it will enjoy the different styles of music that we sing,” said Mrs. Leslie Walker, choir teacher at Springville Junior High.

In the world today, we are faced with many different challenges and problems that weren’t in the world a hundred years ago, or weren’t as threatening. One of these many dangers is drugs. “I think most people in the world today are affected by drugs, even if it’s not directly,” Mr. Ryan Chambers, the health teacher at Springville Junior High explained. “Even family members participating in drug use can affect a person’s life.”

In health, students are required to learn about the dangers of drugs and ways they can refuse them. Mr. Chamber’s health classes, just recently finished their unit on learning about drugs and the dangerous threat they can be to a persons life.

At Springville Junior High, Mrs. Koriane Maughan has come up with something called Friday Incentive.  The incentive occurs every Friday.  For twenty minutes of the period an activity takes place.  The activity is a surprise.

Students earn the activity by accomplishing the task Mrs. Maughan writes on the board every Monday.  If the task is not accomplished the students who did not complete it have to do something else while the other students get to take part in the activity.

January 20th is the first concert of the year for Springville Junior High’s eighth and ninth grade orchestras. They will play many different songs. Alex Hawker, a seventh grader in the eighth-grade orchestra, said, “We will play six songs, and one we learned it without any music!” Dr. Tsugawa is the director of these orchestras. Students in his eighth-grade orchestra think he is funny. According to Yamina Castro, Dr. Tsugawa teaches music concepts well and jokes with them.

In orchestra, the students learn many songs and do music theory. Dr. Tsugawa helps them with everything they do. Alex Hawker said, “Dr. Tsugawa is nice and funny. He makes learning theory fun and exciting.”

Springville Junior High students are excited for the new semester, but most kids are really going to miss a few of their classes. According to Maddie Joyner, an eighth-grade student, she is going to miss “the friends I won’t get to see as much.”  Another thing most students are going to miss is foods, an elective class.

But there are a lot of classes students are very excited for. Savannah McNitt, an eighth-grade student, is excited for “photography, because I get to take pictures!”  Maddie said what she’s most exited for is “foods because you get to eat your work!”

Every Christmas morning, little kids and others who wish they were little kids, wake up early to rush downstairs to see what presents are peeking out from under the Christmas tree.  They tear the wrapping paper off as fast as they can, after all, who cares about the wrapping paper, right?  This would describe everyone who completely loves Christmas and can’t wait to see what they received.  Coming back to school after the Christmas break is when many students compare what they got and what their friends got.  Every year there are certain items that it seems everyone has received for Christmas.