December /
January
2016
From the Desk of the Principal Important Dates:
Monday, December 12th:
Middle School Orchestra and
6th Grade Band Concert
Johnny Carson Theater
7:00 pm
Thursday, December 15th:
Middle School Choir Concert
Johnny Carson Theater
7:00 p.m.
December 23rd—January
1st:
No school for students-Winter
Break
Monday, January 9th:
School resumes
Monday, January 23rd:
No School
Monday, January 30th
PTO Meeting @ 6:00
February 6th & 8th: 5:00pm –8:00pm
Parent Teacher Conferences
February 9th:
11:30 Dismissal
1:00-4:00 Parent Teacher Con-
ferences
Friday, February 10th:
No school
It is hard to believe December is here, and the end of the first semester is
near. Our Middle School staff has enjoyed getting to know your child. Please
help your child wrap up the semester by checking their grades on Infinite Cam-
pus. If you need information on how to do this, please contact the office.
Weather: Students will be going outside, weather permitting, during the win-
ter months for activity time. Make sure your child comes to school with warm
coats, hats, and gloves. If you know of a child that needs a coat, hat, or
gloves, contact our guidance office and we may be able to help out that child.
Lost and Found: Our lost and found is overflowing right now. If you child is
missing something, please have them give our lost and found a look. The three
clothing bays are located right outside our office.
Drop off and Pick up: Continue to be courteous drivers to one another at
drop off and pick up times. Keep reminding your students to utilize all cross-
walks as they walk to and from school.
Supervision: We do not have supervision for students until 7:40am. Please
keep that in mind when you drop off your child in the morning. Our after
school supervision ends at 3:40pm. Make sure that your child is picked up prior
to that time, unless a teacher has made arrangements with you.
Northeast Community College Basketball: At our October Character Educa-
tion Assembly, Dan Anderson and the Northeast Men’s Basketball team visited
with our students about courage. Dan is the current Men’s Basketball Coach at
Northeast. The Men’s Basketball team then went through some drills and put
on a great show for our students. As I have continued to talk to Dan and his
staff, they would love to host a Middle School day at Northeast. On Saturday,
January 28th, they will allow any Middle School student into the games for
free. More information will be coming home in the future for this event.
Thank you for all your support this school year. On behalf of
the Middle School staff, we would like to wish each one of you a
wonderful holiday season.
Mr. Hughes
Norfolk Middle School 1221 N. 1st St. Norfolk, NE 68701 402.644.2569 402.644.2576 Fax
Thomas Edison said that he did not fail at making the light bulb one thousand
times, but rather that “the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games.
Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot….and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. That is why I suc-
ceed.” (Michael Jordan)
“Making mistakes is a natural part of all learning. Those who we consider to be
“great” are clear that mistakes lead to learning.”
The latest research on mathematics shows that mistakes are a very important part
of learning math! When a person makes an error in math and they have the oppor-
tunity to learn from it, the actually develop a much stronger understanding. In
fact, the research states that students learn more from making mistakes than from
getting all the right answers. When your child makes an error, it offers insight into
what understanding your child has about a mathematical idea. It allows parents
and teachers to talk to the child about what they know, and ask questions to stretch
their thinking around where they are currently developing their understanding.
Parents can ask, “How do you know that? What was your thinking here? Is there
another way you could solve that?” This conversation helps to develop the crucial
skills of reasoning and communication and is therefore more helpful than simply
showing a child how the math is done. When you support an attitude that values
learning from mistakes, you are telling your child that, mistakes are a valuable and
natural ingredient in learning and lead to deeper understanding. Research shows
that this attitude supports stronger achievement!
From the Principal
Reminder to Parents:
We will be taking your children outside
for activity time unless it is raining or
there is snow on the ground. Please make
sure they come to school with coats,
gloves, hats and proper shoes.
Come one, come all!
The Middle School choir will be performing their winter program on Thursday,
December 15th at the Johnny Carson Theater. The performance will begin
promptly at 7:00pm. Students need to be at the Senior High no later than
6:30pm.
Box Top Contest Ends December 22nd
Boys vs Girls!!!!! Winners will be allowed to go first in the lunch lines for an entire week. Keep saving those box tops!! Good
luck!!!
Don't forget that Artsonia can help you with your Christ-
mas Shopping. You can buy personalized gifts featuring
your child's artwork or even order your Christmas Cards.
My personal favorites are the blank cards, for my kids to
write thank you's, and the snap my art jewelry.
6th Grade Team 1 would encourage all parents to start a Twitter account with your son or daughter. Once you have joined the Twitterverse, we hope you follow @NMS_6thGr_Team1. By following us, you will be treated to notices about upcoming tests, project due dates, pictures of projects, and students, and info about students. Team 1 teachers would love to see you follow us. Mr. Lichty, Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. Priebe, and Miss Uttecht
Dear Parent(s),
Team 2-6th grade is now a user of Twitter. Follow our handle: at:
@Team2_6th_NMS
We will be posting announcements regarding homework, tests, quizzes, special projects, and other
great things your children are doing here at the Norfolk Middle School. Join today and stay in touch.
Looking forward to your follow,
6th Grade-Team 2 Teachers
Mrs. Brummond, Mrs. Dinkel, Ms. Mimick, Mr. Skiff
Challenge/HAL Program
(High Ability Learner)
Highlighting the 6th grade Challenge classes in the first semester included students competing in the “Great Plains Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl.” States competing in this division included Nebraska and Kan-sas. This on-line competition included 100 multiple choice questions based on various subjects: math, sci-ence, history, current events, spelling, government, sports. Teams receive two tries on each question, but speed and accuracy on the first attempt build the highest score. The winning team for the Great Plains division was Gretna Middle School scoring 1277 points. Four teams from the Middle School competed and our top scoring team only missed 2 questions and fin-ished a strong 5th out of 27 teams in the Great Plains Division. The following includes the scoring of the 4 NMS teams: 5th (1214 pts) 8th (1130 pts) 13th (1067pts) 22nd (977pts)
Fifth Grade Team 1A is connected. Please follow us on Twitter as we use this social media tool to share our work,
learning, and life at school.
Follow Class Tweets @ afullclassroom
Catch a glimpse into our classrooms and your child’s learning in a new exciting format.
“Tweetfully yours,”
Mrs. Full and Mrs. Pieper
Dear Parents,
We live in a world surrounded by technology. And we know that whatever field our students choose
to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly hinge on understanding how technology
works. But only a tiny fraction of us are learning computer science, and less students are studying it
than a decade ago.
That’s why our entire school is joining in on the largest learning event in history: The Hour of Code,
during Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 5-9). Last year, 15 million students tried computer
science in one week, including Norfolk Middle School. This year, we're again joining students world-
wide to reach 100 million students!
Our Hour of Code is a statement that Norfolk Middle School is ready to teach these foundational 21st
century skills. To continue bringing programming activities to your students, we want to make our
Hour of Code event huge. I encourage you to volunteer, reach out to local media, share the news on
your social media channels and consider hosting additional Hour of Code events in the community.
This is a chance to change the future of education in Norfolk].
See http://hourofcode.com/us for details, and help spread the word.
Sincerely,
Nancy Polodna
Keyboarding/Technology
Norfolk Middle School
Bring computer science to your school. Start with an Hour of Code
Computers are everywhere, but fewer schools teach computer science than 10 years ago. Good news is, we’re
on our way to change this. If you heard about the Hour of Code last year, you might know it made history. In
one week, 15 million students tried computer science! The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to com-
puter science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics. Sign up to host an
Hour of Code this December 8-14 during Computer Science Education Week and help reach 100 million stu-
dents by the end of the year. Add your school to the map, go to http://hourofcode.com
Nancy Polodna
Keyboarding/Technology —-Norfolk Middle School
November 2015 At Norfolk Middle School we have created a character education program
with a monthly emphasis on various character traits. This months character
trait is empathy. These are the students that best exhibited the character
trait of empathy this month.
5th Grade Team 1A: Coleson Barritt
5th Grade Team 1B: Rachel Basabe Cruz
5th Grade Team 2A: Kayla Bobeldyke
5th Grade Team 2B: Tanner Bloom
5th Grade Team 3A: Tasha Eisenhauer
5th Grade Team 3B: Caiden Bredehoft
6th Grade Team 1: Michael Barritt
Makenzie Splater
6th Grade Team 2: Ruby Mitchell
Mason Dixon
6th Grade Team 3: Jack Armbuster
Ashlynn Millikan
Specials: Daxton Dickey
Ashlynn Millikan
Haley Felgate
Gage Schwartz
A reminder for Jump and Hoops for Heart partici-pants....the envelopes and donations are due to their PE teacher the week of Dec. 5, 2016. Thank you once again for allowing your child to be involved in saving lives! *Did you know...the pacemaker was developed with the use of a $500 grant from the American Heart Associa-tion?