Sound Bytes

Sixth and seventh grade students gather around the microphone to share their after-school extra-curricular schedules during the week and then discuss their opinions as to whether they are “over-scheduled” or not. Opinions differ and some students offer a rare glimpse into their parents’ perspective in trying to juggle the after-school schedules of multiple children in the family. Are kids today really over-scheduled? Listen to the podcast and then you decide. Are Students Over-Scheduled? You Decide…

The “Cry Wolf Chronicles” is an on-line newspaper written by seventh grade students (and.. with a bit of help from some very talented 6th graders) at Hanes Middle School. Using CuteNews flat-file blog technology, the single sheet web page incorporates eight panels, each hosting a different blog window.

Topics for the newspaper include: News, Sports, Guess Who, Dear Abby, Reviews, Cartoons, Rants & Raves, and Riddles. The newspaper operates as an after-school club on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Visitors to the newspaper can read current and past articles in each section as well as post “comments” about articles posted.

Student authors love to read the “comments” about their articles and often guage the effectiveness and timeliness of their article by the number of comments that visitors post. To visit the on-line newspaper click on this title:

Cry Wolf Chronicles

Seventh grade students on the Wolf Team held a farewell celebration today for their favorite social studies teacher, Jeannie St. Clair, who is retiring this year. Students gathered outside after lunch to present Mrs. St. Clair with flowers, a singing balloon, and a plaque expressing their appreciation for her thirteen years as a social studies teacher with the seventh grade HAG team.

During the morning students made farewell cards and created a giant door decoration. After working on the giant card students gathered around a microphone to share comments about their year in social studies.

Catherine Hayes acted as the moderator for this “Sound Bytes” broadcast. Student contributors included: Frankie Opperman, Kaity Anstrom, Virginia Campbell, Shannon Hildebrandt, Hannah Jackson, David Harrison, and Max Cullen.