November 2012

Every month at Springville Junior High School a knightly virtue is chosen.  Having a knightly virtue challenges students to strive to become better people.  Throughout the month, teachers look for students that are good examples of that month’s virtue.  The students that are chosen by the most teachers receive the Super Knight Award.  At the beginning of each Super Knight Assembly, a video is shown on the virtue for the next month.  In the video, the student council narrates a few famous quotes on the subject.  The virtue for November is knowledge.

Every month the teachers at Springville Junior High carefully select six Super Knights. They choose two students from each grade, one boy and one girl. The teachers at SJHS nominate these students and vote. According to Mr. Krebs, a math teacher at SJHS, he picks students that “reflect the attributes of what a Knight should be.” Teachers base their choices on SJHS’s Desired Results for Student Learning (DRSL’s) and the monthly virtue. The DRSL’s at SJHS are: learning to be Effective Communicators, Responsible Citizens, and Successful Learners. The monthly virtue for October is courage. Ms.

Ms. Hamilton, a veteran teacher at SJHS, is very nice and a lot of fun to talk to. Ms. Hamilton teaches eighth and ninth grade English and math. She has been teaching at SJHS for fourteen years. She also does a study hall for the students at SJHS, and is in charge of a after school program for some students SJHS that have health problems or for some reason can’t come to school. On top of all that she helps with the Super Knights. Ms. Hamilton wanted to be a teacher because she wanted to help kids who struggle. “My favorite part about teaching is the kids, I love all of the personalities,” said Ms. Hamilton. 

On September 24th, Mr. Rencher, CTE teacher at Springville Junior High School, talked to his students about a new project that they were required to do. All tudents in the Technology Education class were assigned to construct a mechanical arm out of certain materials like pvc pipes and whatnot. The seventh graders would then test them out on October 18th.        

Who can play over 10 different instruments? Who can make even tedious and repetitive practices cool and fun? Who is the best storyteller in the school? Introducing Mr. Booth, Springville Junior High’s band director!

Mr. Booth said, “My favorite part of band is seeing the students improve their talents and watching pieces of music come together.” He loves teaching and playing his guitar, and he tries to pick fun songs that students will enjoy. Josh Rasmussen, an eighth-grade band student, remarked, “The pieces that we play are fun, and I like being challenged so that I can get better.” 

Here at Springville Junior High we are Effective Communicators, Responsible Citizens, and Successful Learners.  Well, Mrs. Packer, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade math is also all of those things. Savannah Grant, an eighth-grade student in Mrs. Packer’s seventh period class, said, “She’s a really good teacher, she doesn't lose any of our assignments.’’ 

How many students know where our country’s regions are? What about major lakes? Or even the names of those lakes? Well, one thing's for sure, history teacher Mr. Shields’s students at Springville Junior High do!  This project is a big part of students’ grades, and is intended to give students an experience of what it is like to make an accurate map. 

This assignment comes with some requirements. Students needed to draw the outline of the United States, draw some major rivers, lakes, mountain ranges, bodies of water, physical regions, and a key. This assignment helped students with knowing where important things are, knowing the names of those important things.

4H is a gathering for students in SJHS. 4H is a bunch of clubs for students to have fun. “It means meeting new students and helping them find what they are interested in,” said Mrs. Davenport, a tracker at SJHS, and a leader in 4H.

4H helps students from seventh to ninth grade learn new things and have fun after school in the cafeteria. There are many of clubs to choose from and every term the club leaders have new clubs. The clubs now are: Edible Arts, Outdoor Sports, Mad Scientist, Yoga, and Trivia. 

Every Tuesday during Quest Time many of the eighth-grade and ninth-grade Knightingales sing their hearts out to prepare for their Candlelight concert this December. The Candlelight concert is on December 5th. The Knightingales are performing with the Master Singers (9th graders) and the Journeymen (8th grade boys). The Knightingales have been working diligently with Mrs. Walker, the choir director, to improve their singing skills since the start of school.

At Springville Junior High, students get to show what they’ve learned in Mrs. Luke’s foods class by preparing a food of their choice in front of the class for their classmates to sample.  “There are two main reasons we do food demos,” said Mrs. Luke. “First of all, so I know that the students know how to measure.  The other reason is so that I know that students have learned in foods class.”  Food demos take place on Thursdays and Fridays near the end of each term.  According to Mrs. Luke, she wasn’t the one who came up with the idea; the school was already doing food demos when she started teaching here.