November 15, 2023

Conferences

This document is more about the new students at the school. To tell them about conferences. At your past conferences, it was just your parents and your teachers so it was a parent-teacher conference. But this is a conference, so it's you, your legal guardian, and the teacher. Conferences here are a big part of our school. Many times a conference can decide your parents' look at the school. Conferences are pretty simple subjects: just tell your parents about things that you're excited about and proud of. Explain how you did it to your legal guardian will enjoy knowing what their child is doing. You are going to have a blast telling your legal guardian about the things you've done. 

            By Pendelton the lawyer 

Cleaning at Bridges 

By Madelyn 

 At Bridges, we have jobs that we do every day. They usually happen at the end of the day but on the 14th week did a deep clean of our classroom. We had to do it because parent conferences are coming. We all chipped in. Some of us were given specific jobs. For instance, we had two amazing helpers for the library. The people who were put on the jobs were Sampson and Theo. They did an amazing job at the library. Most of us had jobs like cleaning the tables and making sure there was nothing like dirt or anything like that. Overall I think we did an amazing job in both of the classrooms and I'm so excited for parent conferences. This is Madelyn signing out.

Life at Bridges

 I'm going to talk to you about the school. So yeah, we are reading. It's an awesome book about a detective named Encyclopedia Brown. Let me talk to you about the school. If you're thinking about coming here, it's really exceptional and there are so many sweet teachers. My teacher is Miss Pritchard and my second teacher is Miss Hofeld. She is kind, smart, and pretty. Here's what we do. In the morning we do reading. We read books to improve our learning and it's really helpful. We are reading Encyclopedia Brown. Let me tell you about the book. There's a 10-year-old detective with 10 mysteries in each book. He tries to solve the case and it's really awesome. I recommend you try reading it but what we do after that is math. 

There are two math groups. Downstairs, It’s Mr Keenan And Miss Pritchard. I am in Mr Keenan’s group. Let me tell you about them real quick. Miss Pritchard is always there to help and she's so kind and beautiful. Her laugh just makes your day. Mr Kenann is very kind and he's in Flamingo South.  He always helps out too and he's super nice. Okay sorry about that, let me tell you about math.  In Mr Keenan's group, we are doing a program called Math Antics. Math Antics is a learning thing for kids of all ages and you can learn fractions, multiplication, and stuff like that. I've learned so much from that and I bet your kid would too and parents out there. 

This is the best school out there and we also do word problems on Wednesday for math. In writing, we get to talk about what we are doing in school. There are also choices like  Oregon Gardens, Darby, science, and social studies. Now it's quiet time and this will be the last one for now.  I will make part 2 coming soon so for quiet time we lay down, listen to peaceful music, and like get our bodies ready for the next class but yeah I recommend the school so peace out, and thank you for reading.

 by Braylee

Cleaning

By Dylan

This Tuesday Flamingo North and South initiated operation C.E.D.S.B.W.D.W.U.C.T.L.L.A.T.B.T.F.C.

This acronym stands for: Clean Everything Downstairs Because We Don't Want Our Classrooms To Look Like A Taco Bell Toilet For Conferences. Now you're probably asking how did you this. Teamwork + cleaning cloths + sanitary substances. You're also probably asking why did we do this. If you need the answers, I said it in the acronym. Now also you're probably asking where did we do this? Again, read the acronym. I'm surprised that cleaning was pretty fun. My favorite part was probably desperately trying to get near where people were spraying so that you could wipe the cleaning spray. In conclusion, it's good to be helpful and also make sure that your parents don't go to conferences in a dumpster.

Fitness 

On Monday we went out for fitness. I think it's been since October since we had outdoor fitness. It’s not like I have a problem with indoor fitness but being outside there's not much I can compare with that. And because it was so long we got a special fitness. I'm sure you read the Halloween party articles. If not, what Mr Keenan did this thing called The Pumpkin pendulums. It's where you wear a nylon sock with a pumpkin at the end and you have to knock over bottles of “blood”. Either way, we got a non-Halloween version. It's where we got the nylon socks And Tennis balls and we used water-filled bottles. We didn't do any warm-ups to start it was just straight into this and it was very fun. At the moment  it is Wednesday 11\15\2023 and I really hope that we have outdoor again. 

by Rory

Please stay in your seats the show will begin momentarily: Theo 

We have made cards for Conferences. We have DEEP cleaned the classroom. I helped clean the library. It was hard. For starters, I had to take the NOVELS with some pictures out of the GRAPHIC NOVELS and put them in the NOVELS zone and that is just an example of how hard my job is. We also had to clean the BINS. Also, the Dog Man books do not go in the big books only. After the conference, I will tell you about it.

 The Cubes

By Rowan 

So basically how the cube thing works is that every week or two The flamingo North and South gather up right In the flamingo North classroom. If a teacher thinks that one of the students has contributed to the core values then that student will come up and pick out a cube. I don't know what happens when all the cubes are pulled.

  It was a smart choice for the teachers to do that and honestly, it's fun because the satisfaction the students get will motivate them to do better and a party is very motivating. 

I haven't pulled one of the cubes yet. 

Fitness by Mati  

In fitness, we did freeze tag with 30 students.  For the first round, Mr. Keenan was it.  We ran for our lives.  He was so fast. I survived that round barely. 

To be continued…

Reading

By Sam S, and Bryson L

Hi I am Sam, we are going to be talking about our reading classes. Bryson is in Miss Pritchard's reading class and I am in Mr Keenan's reading class. In  Mr Keenan's reading class, we just finished learning about people who commit crimes and now we are learning about the different seasons of weather. Right now we are reading about The Autumn season. We just read a story about this house that was for sale and the government bought it and this kid loved to go over there and look at the backyard and the tree.  He did not like that the house was going to be taken down along with the tree and he loved the tree it was an old house it was really cool. I'm Bryson and I am reading about monsters under my bed. It's a kid that believes in the monsters and he knocks on the floor and monsters come out. Gabe was his first friend a monster. And Gabriel's a lot also every time monsters eat human food they get bigger. 

Recess

 by Tessa

At recess, me and Freddie play tag with other people. On the other side of the parking lot is where me and Freddie talk and draw, and we are making a movie. People playing tag are running as fast as they can. When it is raining outside we have indoor recess. We can play giant Uno, mini Uno, or chess, or we could draw, or just talk, or eat some more food. 

 Reading - Mrs. Jex

By Abby 

In Mrs. Pritchard’s reading group we do a read-aloud. We are currently reading Half Magic by Edward Eager. (My mom read this book to me when I was younger but since I was younger, I do not remember any part of the book. So I have completely forgotten and reading this book has helped me refresh my memory.) This book is about four kids and they find a nickel (at least I think it's a nickel) and they find out it's magic! They go on until a big adventure and they have to make sure things don't get out of hand because this magic could be really chaotic. First, they go into another fantasy land when King Arthur still existed or at least pretended to exist. But the characters that come to life find out that the nickel is magic. Then when they go to the theater things get more and more troublesome because Catherine wishes she wasn't a part of the family. Then her arms and other limbs and body parts have run away but her body entirely is still intact. She is running around the city like a baffling maniac. People believe that there is a ghost or aliens have finally arrived and are attacking them. The three children must save their sister or else… 

We also read this book called Encyclopedia Brown. You know the type of Encyclopedia, the book where you can search for words. It is about a boy who has earned the title encyclopedia and he can solve cases and mysteries. 

My father and I like to do encyclopedias except I am an encyclopedia and he will give me a case to solve. Sometimes we do theft, kidnapping, or murder. Cases can be really really long or really short. Sometimes my brother would join the encyclopedia except since I am the encyclopedia I banned him. Why you might ask, well it's sibling and family stuff. I can do that even though I'm younger but you know stuff. 

Anyway, I really like encyclopedias because encyclopedias are cool and I like to solve mysteries. Especially if it's a murder mystery. I really like the ones where it's a murder mystery or kidnapping. If it's a stolen mystery I like it but not as much as murder mysteries or kidnapping. But that is just my opinion. There are 18 books in total. Sometimes Chief Brown (encyclopedia's father) the chief of police joins in on these cases. And one of the cases that I remember Chief Brown was the one who actually solved the case and not Encyclopedia and so that was a first. Encyclopedia's parents and his teachers were the only ones who called him by his real actual name: Leroy. Otherwise, everybody else in the entire neighborhood or everybody who knows him would call him Encyclopedia. He was so knowledgeable because he read dictionaries and lots of books so that's how we got his knowledge. That's all I have for now, see you next time!

                       Puzzle 

                                        By Scarlet

Hi, my name is Scarlet. I'm talking about the puzzle that Braylee brought in. It’s really fun puzzle pieces and it's so much fun to work on. There are two hummingbirds and then there are four flowers. We haven't finished it yet but I think we're going to soon. Anyway, right now I'm looking at what the puzzle will look like when it's finished because It comes with a representation of their flower buds hanging down from the top of the puzzle to grass when it fits. That's going to be what it's like when it's finished.  Now there are no buds hanging down but there are remnants of the vines that they will use when they are hanging down..

 Signing off bye 

Fitness 

by Riley and Nelson 

Riley

In Fitness we are playing a game known as the pendulum. In the game, we have big socks that we put over our heads. Inside those socks, at the very end of them, we have a tennis ball. We then swing our heads back and forth to get the pendulum to swing. Our goal is to have the pendulum hit Mr. Keenan's protein drink bottles. AKA Blood bottles. the bottles are Water with red dye, not really blood. Anyway, there is also the co-pilot. Or as I'd prefer to call them the co-collector. When you knock over a blood bottle, they will pick it up and that is a point for your team. You should keep your co-pilot/ collector near. Or else you'll probably lose. There are many strategies in the pendulum. One of them is to just run straight at a bottle and hope the tennis ball hits it. Or you can pull and hit slowly. It depends on your strategy.

Nelson

While Riley was writing about the pendulum, the game that I'm writing about is called freeze tag. It's a pretty common playground game. The kids at the school usually play it for recess. But instead of a student being a tagger, Mr. Keenan and a couple of other students were it. It was kind of chaotic! It was also hilarious. It's kind of fun to watch everybody screaming like headless chickens. But anyway, besides that, it was super fun. The only downside was you could slip easily on the gravel in the parking lot. (Objection! This is Riley the editor. It is a lot harder to fall in the gravel than it is to fall on the bark chips. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.) Riley! You're not supposed to be in here. You're the editor. Get back in the editor’s closet! Wait, I wasn't supposed to say that… Sorry! Got to go… 

Remember the editor is always the winner, the editor controls everything… Thank you for reading. :)

Pull a Cube

By Daniel

Today we had another time to pull some Cubes. You may wonder what it means to pull a cube. Pulling a cube is the school system to give us all a reward for following the core values. Three teachers will choose the three students to pull a cube that they have seen doing good work. Some students are a little embarrassed while other students are thrilled. At some point when all the cubes are in the bucket we get a cute party. Last year they got to play games for an hour. That's all I have for now. Have an amazing day 👍

CONFERENCES

By: Austin

The conferences are where our parents learn about how we are doing at school. Both we and the teachers tell them about it. This is my first year here and first conference so this article is short. I’m looking forward to my first conference with my parents, and I think they are too. The conferences are a HUGE opportunity to show our parents the work we don’t bring home, which in my case (and probably only my case) is very little.

Bridges Middle School: Conferences 

By Ben

(WARNING: this article may contain unconfirmed information) 

Bridges is a great school with even greater people in it. It is an environment where students (like us!) can find that they have many opportunities and possibilities and can present them as gifts to the world. Bridges lets students thrive, but how do the seeds of success get planted? To show the amazing ideas of a Bridges kid, that is where conferences come from. First of all, you [the reader] probably know what conferences are. They happen in schools normally every semester to reflect on how you or your child's academic growth. They happen in pretty much every school including this one, so I am going to tell you about getting ready for conferences. 

(to be continued)

Conferences By A Second Year

It is Wednesday, 11/15/23, conferences are from Thursday, 11/16/23 to Friday, 11/17/23, and here is advice from a second year. Students will have about ten minutes to talk with the teachers and parents in conferences. Parents will have longer, but remember, it's all about the students! The tables will be 100% clear apart from the student’s work and some labels, so get your tables clean. Conferences will be on the wooden table closest to Ms. Pritchard’s desk and the windows to the outside on Ms Pritchard’s side of Flamingo North. There are no electronics (apart from audio devices with headphones that can not be connected to the internet, which means phones are not allowed) when students are waiting, PERIOD. I will probably bring a cassette tape player with headphones, which is okay. Just check with Ms Pritchard about what is okay beforehand.

-Conference Kalman

                First semester conferences.

As I'm sure you're fully aware, first-semester conferences are rapidly approaching. We've all been working very hard on getting all of our work ready for conferences. Such as math writing, reading, and much more. Looking over everybody's work, everybody's done amazing. There's a clear improvement from the beginning of the year. Yesterday we did a deep clean to prepare for parents coming. As of now, the classroom is squeaky clean. Emphasis on, As of now. Even Almighty Pritchard's Desk was cleaned. And by the time you're reading this, it's already probably been conferences, although at the time of writing these conferences are tomorrow. And we did a deep clean in order to as we've already said prepare for everything deep cleans are basically about it's basically we'll clean both classrooms like crazy every single spot it's kind of annoying but hey we have to do what we have to do in comfort. The parents and the teacher will meet with the kids and talk for 10 minutes and then US children will get kicked out of the room and your parent will talk behind our back about us and then the parents see what you have to work on and so do the teachers and that's what a conference is all about. The only thing I do have to add would probably be that you can not complain or have a phone or any sort of screens while the parents are doing the conference and you can bring a book you can have a game toy just no screens.

This reminds me of last year when we spent more time talking about how atrocious it would be not to have a screen than it actually was. We're all very excited for the conferences and we hope to see you tomorrow or the next day. Thank you for taking the time to read this. We wish we had more time to add more. Thank you. 

by Sampson and Adam

Fitness

Pendulum

15/11/23

By Sam L.

In Fitness this week, we played a new game. The game is based on Mr. Keenan’s Halloween game Pumpkin Pendulum and is now just called Pendulum. We started off the last fitness by playing it and skipping warm-ups. To play the game, you split the players into four teams. Mr. Keenan had the teams be arranged into groups of two. Like Pumpkin Pendulum you have to knock down bottles but unlike it, all the team can knock down any of the bottles. There are twenty-five bottles that you can knock down and in the last game Freddie knocked down ten bottles. The reason there are two people in a group is because there needs to be somebody to pick up the bottles. That also helps count how many bottles the person with the tennis ball pendulum knocked over. Once the person with the Pendulum knocks a bottle down the helper puts it in a bucket, they are carrying. Once you go through all the teams in a group you change the pendulum person with the helper person. To end the round either they knock all the bottles over or Mr. Keenan says that the round is over. The game ends when everybody has used the pendulum if they choose to. There are not a lot of rules and they are: you may not touch the pendulum and you may not touch the bottles. Also, obviously, you can not push people. That is the new game Pendulum.

    Social Studies

                                                        By Abiir

Hello parents, and welcome to this last exciting article about Social Studies. Now we had a blast of social studies because we now know a lot about the prime meridian and the equator, cartography, and all that's left to talk about is the temperature. So here’s what you need to know. Have you ever heard of a thermometer, if not it’s a type of ruler, now not the ruler you measure for solid things, it’s what you measure the liquid with.

            So there you have it folks and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving break.

 Abiir out!