 These photos show 7th graders working to |
 put their newspapers together. |
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7th Grade Spanish Many new things are happening in Spanish this year, but Mrs. Burks is gone right now so Mrs. Kolehmainen is her substitute. I asked Mrs. Kolemainen what her methods of teaching were and she said, "I enjoy using a lot of hands-on activities to support what the students are learning. In Spanish we use a lot of conversation and writing exercises, but I try to make it fun!". Mrs. Kolehmainen said that her favorite part of teaching is that she loves seeing students get excited about Spanish and learning, but she does not like waking up early. For the last few Fridays, Mrs. Kolemainen said they had been making piņatas and learning about their history. Also she said that right now they are finishing their map of places. Mrs. Kolehmainen's goal for her class are that "every Spanish student will have the ability to community with native speakers." Some of her Spanish students believe that it will help them in the future too. |
RTC RTC or responsible thinking center is a place where students that don't follow directions go. It is a process that is supposed to get students to stop and think about what they are doing. There are questions that the student is asked before they go to the RTC room
Those questions are what is supposed to help students stop and think about what they are choosing to do. If that srudent chooses to go to RTC they have a referral, and they have to leave the room and go fill out a plan. If they keep getting referrals for the same thing they have more paper work and learning packets to do. That is the process to RTC. |
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The Onekama
Ski Team The Onekama Ski Team is a lean mean speed machine team, consisting of the coach, Curt Mathieu, and the racers, Emily Harwell, Eric Somsel, Donny Olson, Parker Johnson, Brenner Johnson, Lucy Lee and their managers, Cameron Smith, Parker Sternberger and Paul Domes. Last Wednesday and Friday the ski team had two races. On Wednesday the race was scheduled at Crystal Mountain but was cancelled due to rain, warm weather and a loss of snow. Friday's race was at Caberfea, unfortunately we didn't make placement. Then on Monday there was a race at Crystal Mountain for Manistee, Harrison, Cadillac, Benzie and Onekama. The course was hard and hard to carve on, but they managed to get down it. Ski Schedule |
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Student
Council Student Council is a group of students who get voted President, Vice President, Representative, Treasurer, or Secretary for a class. The students in Student Council have meetings about once a month to talk about any activities that thy will schedule for students to participate in. The meeting are during seminar or maybe before before lunch when you go to the gym or media center Every year there are new people that run for these positions. People running for Student Council give a speech in front of the class that they are in and then you vote for the person that ran for that position. Sometimes there are more than one person that runs for a position. There are people in these positions in every class for middle school. The members of the Student Council this year came up with some fun ideas for the middle school students. One was a movie at the Vogue in Manistee. The Elementary went too. The movie was Alvan and the Chipmunks. Another activity that the Student Council is planning is a day on the hill. Which is when the middle school goes out on the hill and go sledding. Also they planned a Spirit Week in which you dress up according to what day it is. |
Shop Class with
Mr. Foster Shop class has been taught at Onekama for many years. The students in shop class are assigned a project to make and the shop teacher has to help them make it. The shop teacher, Mr. Lamm, left Onekama and went to Holton so we had a sub for 3 or 4 weeks. All we did with the sub was book work. It was really boring. Then Mr. Foster came to teach shop at Onekama. He has been hear for only about 3 or 4 months. Mr. Foster has been teaching shop for 6 years. Some of the college degrees that he has are a bachelor degree, industrial arts degree. The college Mr. Foster went to was California State at Fresno. It was hard for Mr. Foster to leave Buckley and the staff and student and come to Onekama. He had done many projects with students but his favorite project is the towel rack because the students are learning so much right now. The concerns for the students safety are being forgetful of safety and getting distracted. I was one of the first middle school students to have Mr. Foster for a shop teacher. Wed idn't have enough time to finish our original projects so we made a pig cutting board. We had to take safety quizzes about the machines so we know how to use them. Shop class was my class of the year. |
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Ski Club The Onekama ski club is in charged of Dennis Zupin and Nikki Torrey. The Onekama Onekama Ski club has been around for many years. To be exact its been around for 20 years or so. The ski club gives students of all ages along with their parents a chance to learn how to ski, snowboard, cross country ski at a minimum price with free lessons. The ski club goes to Crystal Mountain every Thursday night. Crystal offers a prepay pass that students can get that allows them to ski for all ten weeks at a certain price. If you have your own skies or snowboard then you only pay for a lift ticket. ...If you need to rent skies or a snowboard you can get a seasons pass for that. ...All these prices are by December 1st after that they go up between $15 and $20. From the school to get to the Hills you can ride the Bus to Crystal or you can get your own ride there. If you want to have fun skiing or snowboarding you should pack your stuff up and go. |
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Guitar Class This year the 7th and 8th grades get to take Guitar Class. We have Guitar Classes on Tuesday and Thursday for 7th hour because Mrs. Eichberger teaches Young Fives on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. First Mrs. Eichberger tunes our Guitars for about 30 minutes. While we are not getting our guitars tuned we practice our cords. When all of our guitars are tuned we start practicing our songs. We are learning the songs "Amazing Grace, Tom Dooley, Worried Man Blues, Buffalo Gals and I'll Fly away". Here is what one student said about guitar, "It is a good experience." A third student said, "I think it will be really cool." The last student said, "It was fun but I thought it would be more fun than it is." Mrs. Eichberger calls us her guinea pigs because we are the first class to have guitar so it was a little harder for us. The first semester class has less expectations because it took a long time for everyone to get their guitar, so not every one had the same amount of playing time. Now our guitar class is getting ready for our exam. WE have to pick a group and play a song for our exam. We are almost done with Guitar Class and I have to say it was okay after all. |
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8th Grade Boys
Basketball The 8th grade boys basketball is a great team and their record is 8-2. Competing teams that the 8th grade boys basketball team played were the Brethren Bobcats, Bear Lake Lakers, MCC Sabers and Baldwin Panthers. I took some time and asked the coach of the 8th grade team some questions. One was What was your teams' record. He said "the 8th grade boys had a very good season this year. Of the nine scheduled games we won the first 7 and lost # 8 and unfortunately forfeited #9. The took the first tournament game and lost the championship game to Bear Lake And I also asked him what made him coach. In response he said, "I've always loved basketball and played it when I was in school. When the opportunity to coach came up I was excited about the chance of working with the kids." Then I asked him how long he had been coaching. In response he said, " I started in 2001. I started coaching elementary in 1997. I asked him what conference Onekama plays in. He said, "Onekama plays in the West Michigan D league which includes Big Rapids Crossroads Academy, Mason County Eastern, Baldwin, Brethren, Pentwater, Bear Lake, Walkerville and Onekama. And then I asked him what's your overall coaching record. He said in response, "Not sure. I'm not really big on keeping records. I think its more important to focus on attitude and learning fundamentals at this level. My job as 8th grade coach is to prepare athletes to move up to the JV level. Once you play at the JV level records become more important. Ant that is all the questions I have for him. And that's my report for 8th grade boys basketball. |
Winter Break This year we had winter break. I did many things on my winter break like, visit family, fix my bathroom, and play Wii games. It was not very fun, but I had to help. My Aunt Susan, mom, and I went to see my Aunt Minnie and Uncle Robert in Kalamazoo. We were planning to stay one night but we ended up staying two. The first day we went shopping at Kohl's, and then we all went to the store until 11:00 at night. Then we went for a walk at midnight, it was all fun except for when a dog from the neighbor's house started barking and chasing us. The next morning we went out for breakfast. Later that day we had a party, and after that we went home. We got home at 10:00 at night. The next day we worked on my bathroom, we put in new tile and new wall paper, and put in a new sink. Then it was New Years Eve, and all we did was work until midnight to see the ball drop on T.V. The next day was New years day and we pretty much did nothing the whole day except for get ready for school for the next day. That is what I did on winter break.
Outside School Activities The things I do outside of school are mostly do homework and talk to my friends on the phone. The one thing I don't like about those two things is doing homework. When I am not doing those two things my mom and I usually visit family. We have a lot of family to visit so when we do visit family it takes pretty much all day. Usually on school nights I do homework all day, but sometimes I get done quick, so it is not that bad. My favorite thing to do in the summer is go outside and water the garden, because that is the only thing I have to do around my house, otherwise I am bored most of the time. In the fall I have to rake leaves. In the winter I have nothing to do, and in the spring I always go outside and find something else to do. |
