Mar. 27, 2015 110 Park Ridge Rd Bellingham WA 98226 Attendance 647-6876 or 676-6450 ext 1# Athletics 676-6450 ext 2# Registrar/Counseling 676-6450 ext 3# Main Office 676-6450 ext 4# MORNING ARRIVAL School doors open 8:45 a.m. Breakfast 8:45 a.m. First bell rings 9:10 a.m. Late bell rings 9:15 a.m. Lunches 11:54–12:24 p.m. 12:28—12:58 p.m. 12:58—1:28 p.m. Table of Contents (ctrl & click on any green underlined word will take you to that page) Drop Off/Pick Up Reminders Events Calendar 8th grade Service Learning Happy Days Play Lost & Found Reminder Sports Registration Summer Opportunities Dear FMS Families, This spring, Bellingham Public Schools will be giving a new state test called the Smarter Balanced Assessments that will affect students in grades 3 - 11. Eighth grade students will take the Measurements of Student Progress (MSP) in science in addition to Smarter Balanced. IT IS TIME TO REGISTER FOR SPRING SPORTS Cross Country-All grades Football and Girls Basketball-7th & 8th ONLY Now is the time to register for spring sports for Cross Country, Football and Girls Basketball. The sports deadline for making payments is April 3, BEFORE Spring Break. All spring sports will start on Monday, April 13th. All details and required forms are available from the FMS website, under the Activities & Athletics tab or in the main office. IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you have already participated in a previous sport this school year then you ONLY NEED TO PAY the Sports fee before the April 3 deadline. It is very important that you and your parent sign and date each form, sometimes in more than one location. We need to confirm that you have insurance, and completed an emergency contact name and phone number. Your Sports Physical also needs to be signed and dated by your Dr. or family Physician. Sports Physicals are valid for 24 months. REMINDER TO PARENTS DROPPING OFF & PICKING UP STUDENTS Parents dropping students off in the morning for clubs, please do not use the upper parking lot to drop off. Please drop your students in front of the building by the stairs below the upper parking lot. They can easily walk up the stairs to the door to enter the building. Parents dropping off or picking up students after school, please remember to pull all the way forward to the end of the drive and please do not block the crosswalk. We want our students to feel safe walking home. This alleviates a tremendous amount of congestion for staff trying to park in the mornings and for parents dropping off and picking up students. Thank you for your help with this. 6th Grade Girls Basketball Beginning after Spring Break,6th grade girls are welcome to come play intra-mural basketball in the gym before school, from 8-9 am, Monday, Tuesday,Thursday and Friday. SCRIP Remember SCRIP is still available! We have lots of Woods Coffee and Pizzazza cards available. To order contact Deanne Kanenaga at [email protected] or go online go to the FMS PTSA website https://sites.google.com/site/ fmsptsa/ Just click the order SCRIP here link and it takes you to the form. There are paper forms in the front office at FMS as well. Materials needed for Compass Classes: Lost and Found at FMS... is overflowing! All Lost & Found items not claimed by 4pm on Friday, April 3rd, will be donated, so please encourage your student to check for any missing items. Lost and Found items are located on the left, just inside the main entry of the school. A perfect opportunity for both parents and students to look thru and claim them will be either The Evening of the Arts, April 2nd and Happy Days performances’ April 1st & 2nd! Thank you! TIME AGAIN FOR CROSS COUNTRY Spring is right around the corner and many of you are cleaning through your house. The Compass team at Fairhaven Middle School would love some of your old stuff. We will have a big art project coming up in May and are collecting the following items: buttons, construction paper, ALTOID tins, small fake flowers, stickers, any unused crafting supplies for scrapbooking. If you have something that we may be able to use but it wasn’t listed. Call Tanya Peckler at 360-676-6450 x. 4659 or email her at [email protected]. Thanks so much for your support! BHS WRESTLING FUNDRAISER Wrestler Auction & Alumni Duel FMS Cross Country season begins April 22nd. With the exception of that first week, practices Friday April 3rd, 2015 will be four days a week, excepting Thursdays. At Bellingham High School Meets are scheduled for Wednesdays. There will be one meet in May on a Tuesday. More Dinner and Silent Auction—6:00 pm on that later. The focus of our program at FMS Live Auction & Alumni Duel—7:30pm will be on teaching your child not only how to In need of some help around the house?Help us send our wrestlers to be a better runner—but also on how to work camp by putting them to work! Now is your chance to bid on a pair of hard with the mind to enhance all aspects of life. The working wrestlers. But, that’s not all! We will also be hosting the first ever program is low-key, low stakes, low pressure. Whatcom County Alumni Duel. We can work with anyone no matter their abilEnjoy Dinner and a Duel—$15/pp ity and interest level—as long as they are willTickets on Sale now! ing to do ‘the work.’ Practices will comprise of To purchase call (360) 676-5006 or email drill work centered around creating functional [email protected] strength and proprioceptive mobility—that is To view the duel line up please join our facebook event at: teaching the mind to contextually get better at www.facebookcom/events/802244779853998 doing the movements the body must do to run most efficiently. The run part of practice—will take us off campus on most days—from BouleTRIVIA vard Park, The Hundred Acre Woods—Arroyo 1. Mosquitoes have teeth. True or False Park, Marine Park, and Fairhaven Park. We aim to create the most positive, caring, nurturing 2. A sneeze flies out of your mouth at over 750 mph. True or False and inspirational climate possible—while also further educating your child on related aspects 3. Penquins can jump as hi8gh as six feet in the air. True or False of mind and body health. 4. If the month starts on a Sunday, it will have a Friday the 13th. True or False 1. True 2. False 3. True 4. True 5. 5. A wind with a speed of 74 Service Learning Eighth Graders Serving the Community This winter, all eighth graders at Fairhaven Middle School have been engaged in various service learning projects in our community. This collaborative learning experience has paired over 240 eighth grade students with over 60 parent volunteers and Western Washington University pre-service teachers at 30 community sites. Prior to working on site, students chose a service category in which they would like to participate. These categories included environment, youth, elderly, and social services. Students researched their service category through various current event assignments. Next, students worked to fulfill a specific need at their community sites on five different Fridays for a two-hour block of time. Each week they reflected about these experiences through several journal reflection questions that they discussed about in small groups. Now that the service learning projects are coming to an end, students will be considering a change they would like to see made by writing a bill for our Mock Congress related to their service category. It is evident that our students have benefited from this experience in diverse ways, including exploring their roles in the community and expressing their civic responsibilities. This service learning project would not have been possible without our parent volunteers, WWU pre-service teachers, and our community partners. Our 8 th grade teachers would like to formally recognize their participation. Parent Volunteers and WWU Pre-Service Teachers Elizabeth Henry Lisa Moulds Elke Incantalupo Andrea Dickerson Sarah Rose Taraleen Rosen Erika Palmer Sonja Duncan Leslie Burns-Grondin Gail MacDonald Mark Weathers Laura Henkel Sarah Wakeling Jane Dieveney-Hinkle Krista Morrow Kris Smith Karrie Keenan Pat MacDonald Tracy Cereghino Lena Anders Wha Kim Carol Johnston Taylor Hope Kerry Day-Krusniak Kierin Lund Bret Simmons Denise Gunn Trina Williams Nancy Cullinane Kai Farrar Tye Hulford Carrie Lanham Melana Sandeno Genevieve Delisle Sean Wilson Maggie Meader Marnie Hansen Quenby Peterson Elisa Barbone Robin Lancaste Cindy Antico Wendy Keneipp Diana Jacobs Andy Romanyshyn Heather Baker Luke van’t Hoog Annie Harris Whitney Frazier Heather Capristo Amy Gould Michael Karb Rich Hoyle Haley Anderson Community Sites Summit Place Salvation Army Geneva Elementary Sunnyland Elementary Wade King Elementary Happy Valley Elementary Emeritus Little Epistles Preschool Lowell Elementary Sunnyland Preschool Highgate Convalescent Center North Cascades The Willows Columbia Elementary Bellingham Health Care Rosewood Villa Alderwood Park Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Children’s Co-op Preschool Highland Convalescent Lighthouse Mission-Drop In Center WMBC Senior Center Larrabee Elementary Barkley YMCA WWU—CDC Woodway Senior Ctr Little Darling School Carl Cozier Mt. Baker Care Center Bellingham Parks and Rec. St. Francis Summer Opportunities: The Ecology Youth Corps The Ecology Youth Corps (EYC) is looking for hard working teens who want to help clean the environment and earn money this summer! The EYC has been hiring teens for over forty years and is state government’s largest youth employment program. Teens must be between the ages of 14 and 17 years old on the first day of employment. EYC has no income, academic or previous work experience requirements. For more information or PDF versions of the application and reference forms, please visit http://www/ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/eyc/nwro.html or visit the student services office department for applications. Application deadline: April 10, 2015 2015 Enrichment Scholarship Program The Assistance League of Bellingham Enrichment Scholarship funds the tuition for a qualifying summer enrichment program or camp ($500 for grade 6-8/ $1000 for grade 9-11). The Assistance League does not offer or suggest a list of summer camps. If you are in grades 6-11, and going to attend a summer camp or summer program this year, then consider the Assistance League of Bellingham’s Summer Enrichment Scholarship! You may win up to $500 (middle school) or $1000 (high school) towards tuition for U.S. based summer camps and programs in a wide range of qualifying subjects. The specific summer program is up to the individual student. The AL will help scholarship awardees with the cost of tuition, providing the camp qualifies. Qualifying programs do NOT include sports camps, programs involving foreign travel, private lessons, or religious studies. Programs which do qualify include a wide range of possible subjects including debate, chess, orchestra, band, dance, robotics, theater, writing, art, leadership, ecology studies and more. Students may apply for only one scholarship per year. Previous years’ awardees may apply again. Relatives of ALB members are not eligible Application materials are now available on the ALB at http:// assistanceleaguebellingham.org; click on the link “our programs” at the left of the page or visit the student services department for applications. Application deadline: March 20, 2015. GIRLS GO TECH WORKWhat? Fun-filled day of technology including robotics, forensics, computers and a campus scavenger hunt. Meet Captain Wendy Lawrence, former NASA astronaut! Where? Whatcom Community College, Syre Student Center When? April 25, 2015, from 9am to 3pm Who? Middle school girls PLUS a parent or guardian Cost: $10.00 (includes 2 lunches and a T-shirt) Questions? Email [email protected] or call 360-383-3190 You can also pick up a registration form from Mrs. Bacon or Mrs. Penner at FMS or visit www.whatcom.ctc.edu/girlsgotech DEN THE GRIZZLY DEN IS OPEN FOR ALL FMS STUDENTS The FMS Grizzly DEN Afterschool Study Center Program is open for all FMS students. DEN is an acronym for Do Everything Necessary. This program is availablefor all students that need or want a quiet place to catch up on class assignments, work with a small group, and receive tutoring help. DEN meets MondayThursday, 3:45 – 5:00 in the FMS school library. DEN is financially supported by the Brushfire Foundation which has provided the program with an ample supply of drinks and snacks for each student that attends DEN. DEN has recently acquired three extremely capable Sehome High School student volunteer tutors that are available most days to help support FMS students to achieve academic success. Please stop by anytime to check it out. Talk with your teacher for more information about the Grizzly DEN Afterschool Program! The program is monitored by Mrs. Martin, 676-6450 Ext. 4606 PTSA Nominating Committee Apr 1 - Happy Days Play 7:00 pm Apr 2 –Happy Days Play 2:30 pm & 7:00 pm Apr 6 –10 –Spring Break Apr 14 –Smarter Balance Testing Begins Apr 15-17 –Future Problem Solvers State Comp. April 17 –Spirit Assembly 3:05 pm April 20– Washington DC parent info night 6:30 April 22– Fairhaven READS! 6:30 April 27– 5th Graders visit FMS April 30– 12:15 Dismissal May 1– No School/Teacher Workday May 8- Spirit Assembly 3:00 May 25– No School/Memorial Day Our PTSA Nominating Committee is actively seeking candidates to fill open board positions for next school year. Please contact Rachel Williams at [email protected] or Deanne Kanenaga at [email protected] for more information. Participating in the PTSA board is a great way to know what's going on at school and to shape PTSA programs and priorities. New perspectives and ideas are so important! It’s time for another… Spring 2015 This is one big book club, made up of kids, adults and good reads. We get together to build community and connections through our discussion of a common book. Our meeting will be held this spring. Prior to the meeting, participants read the current pick – on their own or with a friend or family member. Then, we all meet up one evening in the Commons for refreshments, activities, and to share our thoughts about the book. By the end of the night, readers achieve a greater appreciation for the book and one another! This spring’s meeting will be held in the Fairhaven Middle School Commons on Wednesday, April nd 22 , 2015, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. We look forward to seeing you there! This year’s book is Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. It is the recipient of both the National Book Award and Newbery Honor Award. You can pick one up in our FMS library, your language arts classroom or at a local bookstore. Mention you part of Fairhaven Reads at Village Books and you’ll receive a 15% discount. We’re looking forward to seeing you there! The PTSA has purchased extra copiers for Fairhaven Middle School, and copies are also available at the public library. If you want to purchase the book go to Village Books and mention “Fairhaven READS” for a discount!