March 2013

Mrs. Bird’s eighth-grade sewing classes at Springville Junior High are sewing up pajama (PJ) pants. From the first week of February to the twentieth of February, the sewing students have been hard at work with their projects. The purpose of the sewing classes is to teach students how to sew. Chloe Wilson, an eighth grade girl at SJHS, said, “Mrs. Bird gives us projects to do and you choose the fabric to make them. I love adding my own little bits of design to my work.” Mrs. Bird, the sewing teacher at SJHS, said, “The sewing class is my favorite to teach.” Some of the other projects the class makes are aprons, drawstring bags, stuffed animals, and more.

Imagine walking down the halls of Springville Junior High School and smelling dinner from your childhood. You follow your nose to a classroom filled with students enjoying themselves while creating a beautiful masterpiece of pasta. That is what the ninth-grade food class looked like on February 14 and 15. The students in foods 1 class are studying countries from around the world, and that week they were studying Italy. Since pasta is a big thing in Italy, the classes made it!

You may have heard by now about something called Mock Trial. Mock trial is a club at SJHS that anyone can join. A common misconception is that it is age restricted to ninth grade, but anyone in the school can join. Mock trial is led by Mr. Hansen, a history teacher at SJHS.  He said, “It is a simulation of a real court case, and we compete with other schools. There are fake lawyers, fake witnesses, and real judges.”

Carter Call, a seventh-grade mock trial member, said, “Mock Trial is kind of like a fake court, we need to study our case, and practice our parts for when we compete against another team. One side of the case is prosecution, they need to make the defendant look guilty.” 

Ninth graders taking Mr. Hatfield’s biology class this year got to see what worms look like on the inside when they did dissections on Thursday, February 14th.  According to Dylan Park, a ninth grader at Springville Junior High, ironically enough, they dissected their worms on Valentine’s Day.  It was a long-awaited day for many SJHS students. In fact, according to Betsy Vega, another ninth grader at SJHS, the date for the worm dissection was pushed back about two weeks.  After dissecting the worms, the classes also got to dissect crayfish on the 21st of February. 

On January 25 and 26, freshmen at Springville Junior High School went with the Springville High School swim team to regionals. The swim team went to compete at the Orem Recreational Center to swim against Orem High School, Timpview High School, Payson High School, Salem High School, Maple Mountain High School, and Spanish Fork High School. The freshmen who swam at the meet were Halle Acor, Wyatt Bateman, Eleah Coral, Adam Wight, Matt Duncan, and Kelty Cope. All the SJHS swimmers did very well. According to Adam Wight, he had taken some time off his highest swimming record at regionals and is very happy about it.

Every year in the spring a new student council is elected at Springville Junior High. The new student council officially started their job helping out the school on January 14th, the start of the second semester. The student council will be helping out the school for the rest of the school year. We would like to welcome the new student council. Bailey Bird is the president. Kyle Paynter, Ciarra Snapp, and Roxie Chambers are all vice presidents. 

Have you smelled the dumplings?  It’s the Chinese New Year in China, and the students in the Chinese class have been celebrating.  Here, at Springville Junior High School, the Chinese classes have warned the evil spirits out from our classrooms banging gongs and chanting.  It has been exciting for everyone.  The Chinese New Year, known as the Spring Festival in China, is here to once again declare springtime after a cold winter.

About once a month students from all the schools in Springville are nominated to win an award from the mayor.  These are called Mayor’s Awards.  Anyone from elementary school to high school can be nominated for one.  Teachers look for students that are a good influence on the school or others around them.  “We want to recognize outstanding students who maybe aren't being recognized enough,” said Mr. Mikesell, the dean of students at Springville Junior High.  Every month someone from the city contacts Mr. Mikesell, and he gives out nomination forms to the counselors and teachers.  The teachers and counselors can nominate any student they think deserves the award.

Another month has passed at SJHS, and we had the Super Knight Assembly on January 25th.  Students were excited to find out who won the Super Knight award. The Super Knight award is an award given to students at SJHS at the monthly Super Knight Assembly. 

A few weeks ago, the eighth graders at Springville Junior High went back to World War II with Anne Frank in their English classes. According to Mrs. Bass, an eighth-grade English teacher,learning about Anne Frank can help students think about important questions. Mrs. Canar, another English teacher,said, “It helps students appreciate the blessings and advantages in their life and in history. It also teaches them to have respect and to be unprejudiced.”