End of the Year Message for 8th Graders

The 2010-2011 school year is drawing to a close. We want to wish all 8th graders continued success at Ames High School. We have enjoyed working with you!  Your enthusiasm for learning, commitment to excellence, and willingness to work hard to achieve goals inspired us.  Please keep in touch.

We wish you all the best!

Mrs. Staniforth and Mrs. Dixon

End of Year Message for 7th Graders

Congratulations on a terrific year!  From Math Challenge groups and Science Fair projects to puppet skits, vocabulary study, and research projects you have grown in your abilities and understanding of the world. We are already excited about next year. Until then read some books, listen to music, learn a new skill, and continue learning until we see you in August! Have a great summer!

Mrs. Staniforth and Mrs. Dixon

Multi-modular Origami Cubes

Students learned to create multi-modular origami cubes at an ELP Lunch in May. Here are some of the projects they brought in after the ELP Lunch. Additional patterns for the cubes can be found on the internet.

Congratulations 7th WordMasters!

AMS 7th Graders Earn Sixth Place Nationally in the 
WordMasters Vocabulary  Competition for the Year 


A team of students representing Ames Middle School recently won   
highest honors in the WordMasters Challenge, a national vocabulary   
entered by over 27,000 seventh graders from 291 schools nationally. 

Competing in the difficult Blue Division the Ames Middle School group   
earned sixth place in the nation in the year end cumulative standings.   
Two of the school's students won highest honors for year long   
individual achievement as well, each of whom made only two 
mistakes in the course of the year's three meets. Both placed among the 
27 highest ranked  seventh graders in the entire country in the year-end 
standings.  

The WordMaster Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking that   
first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting   
new words( considereably harder than grade level) and then challenges   
them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds   
of relationships. 

The WordMaster Challenge has been administered for the past 24 years   
by a company in Allendale, New Jersey, which is dedicated to inspiring   
high achievement in American Schools. 

Math/Science Competition Results

National Science League

The results are in for the National Science League.  All 8th grade students took part in the competition during their science class.  The Ames Middle School team (top ten scorers) placed 7th among 44 participating schools with a team score of 468, out of a maximum possible score of 500.  The top score of 493 was earned by Hopkins Junior High School from California.  The contest is a 50 question test with one point per question.  The  questions measure solid conceptual understanding of physical science, and almost all of the topics are part of the Ames 8th grade curriculum.  Our top scores were 49 (1),  48 (1), 47 (3-way tie), and 46 (5-way tie).  The median score for AMS was 31.5.  Scores for ELP students have been entered in the ELP grading detail in Infinite Campus.  The graph shows the distribution of scores at Ames Middle School.  Congratulations, Ames Team!


Continental Math League

All  8th grade students taking Algebra or Geometry and all 7th grade students took part in the Continental Math League competition.  The five meets, consisting of six problems each, were administered once a month from November through March during the math classes.   Eighth grade students took the more difficult Pythagorean level of the competition and seventh grade students participated in the Euclidean level.  Both require  creative problem solving and mathematical insight, and neither requires knowledge of algebra.  These are team competitions, and the ten highest scoring students for each of the meets contribute to the team cumulative score.  The Ames Middle School 8th grade team placed 2nd out of 15 in our four-state region (IA, MO, WI, and MN) and  31st out of 155 nationally, with a score of 165.  The 7th grade team placed 7th nationally out of 134 schools with a score of 171 out of a possible 180, and second out of 20 in Region 6.  Nice work, Ames team!

DNA unit in 7th Grade Life Sciences

During the week of April 18 all of the students in Ms. Kurrle's and Mrs. Glenn's Life Science classes investigated genetics and DNA through a variety of activities.  Mrs. Glenn and Ms. Kurrle regrouped some of their students for three days to explore DNA through different lab work in each classroom.  Ms. Kurrle's group extracted DNA from strawberries and kiwis while learning about the structure and function of DNA.  Mrs. Glenn and I staged a mock crime scene ("Which Dog Chewed Farmer Brown's Boots") and had students conduct DNA electrophoresis to find the culprit.  These students also read science articles from Science News, Scientific American, Discover, and various high quality online sources to learn about current issues concerning genetic analysis.

It's Show Time!

The 7M Puppeteers will culminate their study of puppetry by performing the puppet plays to seventh grade English classes on Thursday, May 19th, 2011 during their English period. Parents are welcome to attend. 

Purple Comet! Math Meet Results

Several teams of AMS students participated in the Purple Comet Math Meet on April 7 as a MATHCOUNTS activity or a 7th grade Math Challenge Group activity.  This is a very difficult competition and students who are taking Algebra have a distinct advantage.  All teams rose to the challenge and worked creatively and persistently at solving the problems.  One of the MATHCOUNTS teams received an honorable mention for scoring in the top 10% of teams nationwide (score of 14), and a mixed group of Math Challenge and Algebra students came within 2 points of the top 10 % with a score of 12 (top 14%).  The chart below shows the distribution of scores nationally.  Team scores have been entered in Infinite Campus under ELP grades for students participating through the Math Challenge Group.

Library g Congress/ Archive It Project

Thirty-eight students from Mr. Esslinger’s 8^th grade American Studies class met periodically with Mrs. Staniforth (7-8 ELP) to archive websites for the Library of Congress this year. Digital content is lost permanently when websites are updated unless the sites are archived. The Library of Congress started this program three years ago to give students an opportunity to select what is stored for future generations to see. This project connected to the primary source training students received as part of the research component to American Studies.

Nationally, fourteen schools in thirteen states participated in the program. They created 56 collections and archived 149,925,000 documents. A majority of the sites archived were not being archived by other institutions, risking the permanent loss of those resources as digital content changed.

AMS students brainstormed how they used the Internet and selected three main areas to collect primary sources.  The Educational Resources collection illustrates sites commonly used by students for school projects.   The Popular Culture collection represents sites used for fun outside of school. The All About Ames, Iowa 2011 illustrates what students valued in our community.

This is the third year AMS has participated in the program. The archived sites can be viewed at the following site: http://www.archive-it.org/k12/10AmesMS.html.

Puppets!

Seventh grade ELP students in Mrs. Parson's English class have spent the past week creating puppets for the puppet show they will  give later this month.

Students wrote a short story, selected a story to turn into a skit, collaborated with the group to write the skit, and are putting the finishing touches on the puppets and the puppet set.

ELP Lunch: HexaFlexagons! Friday, May 13

Come to the ELP room for lunch on Friday, May 13 to make and decorate your hexaflexagon.  Can you find all of the faces?

May Learning @ Lunch Seminar

May 
Learning @ Lunch Seminar


Interested in learning more about student life at  Ames High School? A panel of ninth grade students from Ames High School will discuss their experiences at  AHS during 8th grade lunch on Thursday, May 12, 2011. Join us! 

National Science League Exam May 6th

All eighth grade students will participate in the National Science League exam in Science class on Friday, May 6th. The fifty question, multiple choice exam assesses basic physical science knowledge as well the students' understanding of scientific processes. The exam takes 35 minutes. Our top ten scores becomes our school score for the competition.

The test allows comparison with other high achieving students and schools in the United States. Last year, AMS placed second nationally out of 55 competing schools. Good luck on the competition!

WordMasters

It will be a few weeks before the final WordMaster results are in and we meet for our final session.  Test scores have been posted on Infinite Campus. Please stop in and look over your test this week.