ha r tle y? m e lvi n s a nb o r n c s d thecorridor

TheCorridorHMS Mission Statement

The mission of the H-M-S Community School District is to nurture andprepare students to become responsible citizens equipped to meet the

HMS competes at NASA Space Competition

By Terry Putnam

Sam Haack, Easton Thorn, Sam Heyn, Ben Haack and Adam Heyn, and their chaperone Terry Heyn, traveled to Houston, TX, March 21 -‐25, to compete at NASA’s Johnson Space Center Space Settlement Design Competition. The group arrived at the JSC Friday night and didn’t stop working until Sunday evening. The competition is an intense challenge to allow students to experience problem

solving skills and technology skills necessary for success in today’s world.The competition’s overview is to challenge to students to work with students with different backgrounds, skills and experiences. This experience was a challenge is to learn to collaborate, to be a part of a successful design team, with the same goal, to win the competition. The Design Challenge expected the teams to select their own company names, and self-‐organize,

select their own company President, Department Managers, etc., and make decisions where the team members would be most effective among the various discipline Departments.

Friday evening was busy getting briefed for the competition, unrolling their sleeping bags, getting dinner and meeting others from Iowa and students from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, New Mexico, and Colorado.

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Once all the students arrived, the competition started. The boys were separated into the four student companies. They stayed at the Gilruth Center, where they, slept, ate and worked on their presentations and company’s proposals. They had guidance from professional NASA and Contractor staff that helped with the training they needed for their plans. The boys were instructed in several areas : management processes; life support systems; structural concepts; automation and robotics concepts; and operations concepts, including transportation, power generation, and communication

concepts. All this training was to prepare these student companies to put together a responsive 50-‐page written proposal/plan and a 35 minute oral presentation of their proposal and be prepared to have 10 minutes of questions by a group of judges. The boys had the chance to visit Rocket Park and be able to sightsee for the afternoon at Galveston. The kids were fortunate to have met several NASA legends at the camp. They are pictured with Norman Chaffee. (Google his name!)

Jerry Woodbill, pictured above, was invited to talk and interact with the students about his experiences working at NASA. Sunday morning the student companies presented to a team of professional judges from NASA and Contractor companies. Sam Haack won at 1st place medal, along with his team, Grumbo Aerospace. We are waiting to hear if Sam will be one of the 12 members of the winning company from the JSC competition to be invited to participate at KSC (Florida!) in late July, in the International Space Settlement Design Competition Finals, at which time teams from around the world will participate. The boy came back to school the next day, exhausted but energized by the experience. They all expressed that it was an intense but enjoyable activity and planned to compete again next year. Our district is very supportive of opportunities for our students. Our HS Administration and School Board gave the approval of my plans for taking a group of HMS students to the Space Settlement Design Challenge at NASA in Houston, TX. The group of students that went have a strong academic background, experience as an academic team and their own individual competitive nature. This group has done an excellent job of representing our district and an excellent example how our school district is preparing our students for their futures. After talking with the kids, seeing their growth from this experience, they are all about making plans to go back and compete again. I have to thank and give credit to Terry Heyn, who volunteered to chaperone the group on this trip. Terry's professional background and leadership was a large part of the overall success for their experience. We are planning on going back next year and I look forward to taking another group from HMS back to NASA. A huge thank you to the parents, and our

school's support of the kids and this trip to NASA.

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FAREWELL By Beth Burley

There’s an old adage…”All good things must come to an end.” That has certainly been on my mind as I juggle the thoughts and feelings I’ve had since announcing retirement. Teaching has been beyond a “good thing”. In fact I couldn’t have been more blessed by the 39 years I have been teaching in this district. Yes, that’s right, “39 years”! Just think when I started in 1980 at Hartley Community School as “Miss Treloar”, President Jimmy Carter was defeated by President Ronald Reagan. Mount St. Helens erupted. Pacman was the most popular video game. Perms, fanny packs, mini skirts and shoulder pads made you look pretty stylish, Charlie’s Angels and Mork and Mindy might have entertained you on TV. Larry Bird, Joe Montana and Mohammed Ali were getting a lot of attention in the sports world. You could send a letter for 15 cents. Some things have really changed in that time. I’ve had reports that some students in my birst second grade class are now grandparents! Technology in the classroom has gone from a reel to reel movie projector and a small record player to one-‐on-‐one laptops from birst to 12th grade. We went from a single community school to a wonderful, blended district including Hartley, Melvin and Sanborn. And most recently we joined together to pass the bond issue that will insure amazing facilities for our students way into the future. Something that hasn’t changed is how proud and honored I have been to say, “I’m a teacher at HMS”! My heart is full as I think of the nearly 800 students I’ve had the joy of working with in 2A! I’ve been so inspired by the passionate and talented staff I’ve worked with. I’ve had the most meaningful connections and friendships as I’ve worked, raised a family and served in our community. It truly is a “good thing” that is coming to an end and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for trusting, supporting and allowing me to serve in the career that will forever hold a special place in my memories. God bless you all!

Greetings from the High School Resource Room! Things are blying by and spring is upon us. The students continue to work on skill building in the area of math. We are using a new IXL math program in which the students are able to practice, gain feedback and learn valuable rules to aid in their understanding of particular skills in Algebra. The program allows for both group and individual work and will track students progress. Students have been working extremely hard and we continue to work towards mastery and solid recall of how to perform tasks. Students continue to work on quality assignment completion as well. The resource room allows for smaller settings, greater one on one feedback and help in areas the students might have questions. Our teacher aides continue to do a fantastic job of going with students to classes and helping in their understanding as well as test, assignment and project completion. Students continue to improve in all areas and we continue to strive for probiciency for all students. If there any questions and or thoughts, that you might have please do not hesitate to contact me.

Have a great Spring!,

Mark Japenga Resource Teacher

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"In Like a Lion and hopefully Out like a Lamb!" Ms. Habben and 3C students

We are ready to get outside and play on those snow hills or even better what is underneath it... the playground. We just have to remind ourselves we live in Iowa!

The 3rd grade has been busy inside with our new curriculum. H-‐M-‐S students enjoy the FOSS kits for our Science standards. They just binished a 'Motion and Matter' unit that provided many hands on and investigation opportunities. They just started an Immigration unit in Social Studies and discovered that they are all descendants of grandparents that came from all around the world but most of our students are of German descent. H-‐M-‐S Elementary has also adopted the Lucy Calkins writing curriculum this year. It's amazing what the students are producing! They started the year learning about Narrative writing and continued with Informational text. Each student composed a binal draft to teach others about their subject. We are currently learning about opinion writing. They are formulating a plan to persuade their audience to hear their point of view on a topic. We practiced this approach when their letter to the School Board and Superintendent was acknowledged and publicized in the local paper about items they would bind valuable in our new building!

Preschool Students Have Fun Seeing the Stars By Lorie Queck

We heard many “oohs” and “aahs” from our preschoolers as we learned about science through an inblatable, portable planetarium. The students were very excited to get to take a tour of the night time sky without even leaving the school. We are very fortunate to have Charlene Elyea, O’Brien County Naturalist, bring the Star Lab to HMS every year. The Star Lab is an inblatable dome made of opaque vinyl that will hold an entire classroom of children. Inside the dome is a digital projector that displays constellations and planets onto the ceiling. It is so impressive to watch constellations be displayed across the dome shaped ceiling as we are all sitting on the bloor gazing up just like we would as if we were outside at night time under the stars. The preschool students were able to view the solar system, including the sun, planets, moon, and constellations. It is a really cool way for students to explore the stars and solar system as they sit through a star gazing session with Charlene. All of the HMS elementary students received the opportunity to experience the Star Lab. Charlene does an awesome job to bit the curriculum to meet the level of learning of each group. It was inspiring to see young children gain a better understanding of the world around them.


Art Classes By Dani Hackett

Elementary At the elementary school the 4th graders have been learning about what things look like from different perspectives and that things appear smaller the farther away they are. They are using one point perspective to create a 3D Aquarium tunnel. Students are using rulers to measure and make straight lines to create their aquariums. They are excited to be able to pick and choose different sea creatures to include in their drawings. Some have decided to use their favorite bish themed movies as inspiration for their Aquariums.

Middle The 8th graders are learning about grafbiti art. Students learned about different styles of Grafbiti lettering. They then created their own style and were able to choose their name or a nickname for this project. Students had to think about the color wheel while choosing the colors for their design. They had to be able to explain why they chose the colors that they did using color relationships (primary, secondary, complementary, etc.). Students used paint as a base layer on their grafbiti style and then created texture and shading using chalk.

High School The high school painting class is creating relief paintings. They are using drywall plaster to create a 3D image. Layers are built up to create the different layers of relief. The top layer is given a texture that goes along with the subject of this project. Once all the layers are completed, the students will begin the painting process.


My HMS Morning Routine By Russ Spier

I have been a teacher in the Hartley-‐Melvin-‐Sanborn School District for over 15 years now. I actually started my career at HMS as a long term sub and then worked my way into to becoming a sixth grade language arts teacher. After a few years of teaching language arts, I had a superintendent come to me one day to have a chat. He said to me, “What do you think about teaching science tech and then getting your endorsement in Industrial Tech?” I jumped at the chance! Teaching for a half a day at the high school in the Industrial Tech world meant that I got to do hands on activities almost the whole time. You see in the fall semester, students get to build things out of wood. They would select a project they would like to make and away they would build. Some of the most memorable woods/carpentry projects that I can think of, are a completed cofbin car, gun cases, show cases, and an ice shack just to name a few. A year long class in the Industrial Tech world is Drafting I and Drafting II. To tell you the truth, this is the one class that I teach that probably has advanced the most in the time that I have been here. We had the honor of helping with some of the designs of school projects. We purchased some 3D pens with the idea of exploring what they could do. We caught the 3D bug. We now have four 3D Makerbot printers. We are currently re-‐creating the 7 Wonders of the World in model form and printing them. Not to mention, some of the coolest Sketchup drawing I have seen made have been the twin towers, a chess set, tourist attractions, and their own dream homes. In the Spring semester, we switch from Woods class to Metals class. Helmets on, safety gloves worn, and JEANS just to be safe. Welding is an experience all on its own. I have seen students face their fears and create a project they thought they never could do. Welding projects have included, catnip gardening boxes, metal tables, a frame for an actual car, benches, farm equipment repair, artwork, and weight benches. Energy Tech starts out with learning about the different kinds of energy and what that type of energy can do. A few clips of how to take apart a small engine and then put it back together are introduced through an older video. We then dive in, students get their very own small engine to take apart and put back together by themselves. Once they complete that task, bring in the sleds, the lawnmowers, the motorcycles, generators, and small engines. Students take something that was broke, bigure out how to bix it, and then put it back together hopefully bixed. On the 3rd or 4th pull, the lawnmower starts, the smile of success spreads across their faces, that is when you know they are hooked. The above paragraphs describes my mornings at the high school. Not to mention all the relationships that have developed over binding the correct drill bit, running the table saw, getting the right wire speed or volts on a SMAW welder, or even a spilled bottle of oil. I can tell you that when I had that talk with the Superintendent, I never thought I would be getting to teach what I do. Industrial Tech is my world and I would not have it any other way. Then I get in the car, and drive to the Middle School where my second part of my life starts….but that is for another day.

4th Grade Rocks By Kayla Dagit

In science 4th graders have been studying soil, rocks, and landforms with our most recent Foss kit. We learned soil is the top layer of the Earth which we live on. Students got to examine several soil samples to determine the different elements that make up soil from a variety of locations. Soil is made up of a mixture of different sized rocks, organic materials, water, and air. Soils differ from place to place such as those you’d bind in a desert, mountain top, river delta, or forest land. Rocks naturally break into smaller pieces through weathering. We weathered rocks by using peanut butter jars and our own strength to break up rocks by shaking them violently. This represented physical weathering with abrasion. Next, we tested chemical weathering by using vinegar to dissolve a mineral called calcite from two rocks. This represented weathering caused by acid rain. One of our favorite parts of the unit was creating stream tables to test erosion. Using a mixture of sand and clay, students tested out a variety of scenarios to see how land reacts to both standard and blood water sources. We ran the experiment with multiple water sources, dams, river deltas, and even tested what happens to houses built on a blood plain. The last portion of our unit covered landforms. We learned that natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, and bloods play a major part in how some landforms appear on the Earth’s surface. Other landforms take millions of years to form slowly. In Iowa some landforms we have include hills, wetlands, and plains.


News from 2B Mrs. Molly Steinkamp

Have you ever heard of the Iditarod: The Great Alaskan Race? Well, the second graders were learning all about this race in late February and early March. The dogsled race began on March 2nd this year. The racers are called Mushers and they lead their dogs on a dog sled. The race started in Anchorage, Alaska and ends in Nome, Alaska.

Each child randomly drew out of a ”boot” a Musher’s name to follow in the race. We made the “trail” in the hallway and each child had its mushers’ name on a dog and the place they were in the race. They moved it daily until they got to the finish line. At times, a child’s musher they are following may disqualify so then they are out of the race. It upsets the child but it happens. That student’s dog stays in the town it finished in and they don’t move it anymore like the other students. It is a fun; interactive unit and the students look forward to it! Last year, I had students come ask multiple times during the day: “Can we check the race?” or go home and ask their parents if they could watch the race. This year, I had 3rd and 4th graders coming up to me in the hallway and say I remember my musher and had so much fun watching this race!! They loved this unit!! We checked our musher’s progress each day at the same time until the race was over. Next late February or early March our trail will be up and the race will begin so if you are in the Elementary building come check it out!!!


Lost Art 4C

Writing letters is a lost art. With technology at our bingertips, handwriting letters and sending them in the mail has faded away. Instead we text, email and snapchat. In 4C we have been practicing the art of writing letters to places as far away as Sweden and as close as Sheldon. The excitement that boils up inside each individual in anticipation of receiving a letter in return is HUGE! The common question I hear is “Have you checked your mailbox Ms. DeMey?” Majority of return letters have been sent to the Elementary and a few have been sent directly to their house. Students are given the choice to read them aloud to their classmates. It is interesting for them to hear the different activities and schedules of various people throughout the world. We worked through their birst letter together as a good reminder of just how a letter is set up. They were given the choice of writing to a friend or relative, as long as they knew the individual would write a letter in return. It has been a beautiful experience on both ends.

Band Notes By Jerry Klein

This has been another busy year for the band department at the high school. They started out the year performing at the 4 home football games. They concluded the marching band season with their Annual Fall Extravaganza. This features the drum line, blags, cheerleader dance, dance team, and concludes with the band marching their show. They quickly transition into pep band and concert band season. They get ready for the upcoming pep band season and also perform at the veterans day program. Jazz band also starts this time 2 mornings a week at 7:30. They concluded the birst half of the year with the holiday concert which includes the always popular Christmas Sing A Long. Alumni are invited back to play on this song. The second half of the year continued with pep band. There was also a combined 7-‐12 instrumental concert in February. The 7th and 8th grade band and jazz band performed as well as the high school band and jazz band. They concluded the concert as a 7-‐12 band playing a concert march. In march, the jazz band attended 2 contests. At the Augie Jazz Festival they placed birst and at the USD Coyote Jazz Festival they placed 5th.

Some up coming performances are solo/ensemble contest April 6th. The senior recognition/ spring concert will be April 30th. Large group contest will be Friday, May 3rd. The Senior music trip to Chanhassen Dinner Theatre will be Wednesday, May 8th. The band department also had some students receive individual recognition. Emma Brower and Joe Ahlers were selected for the Northwest Iowa Bandmasters Association Honor Band which performed in January. Emma Brower, Easton Thorn, and Adam Heyn received outstanding soloist citations at both jazz band contests. Payton Kamradt, Brenton Thomas, and Lydia Harders were

selected for the FFA All State band which will be performing during the state FFA convention. Joe Ahlers was selected for the All State Jazz Band sponsored by the Jazz Educators of Iowa. He will perform with the state jazz band during the Iowa Bandmasters Convention in Des Moines in May. Finally, as many of you already know, I will be retiring at the end of this year. I just wanted to say what a great opportunity it has been to be teaching at HMS for the past 32 years. I have worked with some terribic students thru the years. It was also great to have our sons be a part of this district and community.


Elementary Students Participate in Kids Heart Challenge

The 2nd-‐4th grade students at HMS Elementary participated in our annual Kids Heart Challenge...otherwise known as Jump Rope for Heart. Did you know that heart disease is the leading cause of death in America? Did you also know that 80 percent of risk factors for heart disease are preventable? Well, students took it upon themselves to help create an awareness for heart disease by raising money for the American Heart Association. While learning how to help others by raising lifesaving donations, they also learned jump roping skills, how their own heart works and how to keep it healthy. Exercise and good eating habits are great ways to keep your heart strong and healthy! Kids were rewarded for their fundraising efforts by collecting members of the Heart Heroes. If you want to know more about the Heart Heroes, ask your child about Echo, Oscar, Sprinkles, Splash, Fiery, Finn and Ruby. There were also many cool prizes that the kids could earn depending on how much money they raised. The students had a great time participating in this event and more importantly, they helped save many lives! Thanks to everyone who supported our kids in their fundraising efforts! It was appreciated!

The next event that our entire elementary is looking forward to participating in is our end of the year Field Day! We are hoping the rest of our school year is full of lots of learning, fun and nice spring weather!

Janet Prins Elementary PE

Hello from the High School SCI Classroom! By Stephanie Bronstad

This year in our science class we have been studying different parts of Earth Science. One of the students’ favorite sections of the class was Space and Astronomy. The students spent a few weeks studying the Earth, Moon, Planets and the Seasons. They also spent time engaging in labs within the classroom on the Orbit of the Moon and Sun, Angles of Light and Seasons, and researching different planets and constellations. At the end of the unit, a trip to Cherokee, Iowa to the Planetarium was planned. The students were very excited to visit and sit in on the Planets and Constellation presentation. While they were there, they also were able to observe other sections of the building where they had displays set up on astronauts, animals, fossils and rocks. It was a very memorable bield trip for the students.

Middle School Leadership Team By Kristin Triplett

The middle school leadership team has been busy this year! Indoor Beautibication has been working on a mural at the entrance of the middle school featuring words that encompass the character of our building. The mural will be an ongoing project, however, stop by to see the committee's great work so far! The leadership team is also responsible for keeping the information house behind freedom rock well-‐maintained. Students check and clean the house several times a week to make sure brochures are available to anyone interested. Additionally, student council is in planning a middle school dance for the birst part of May. Leadership team looks forward to binishing the school year strong!


Why Do You Teach Then? By Amy Arrick, SCI instructor

A couple of weeks ago when I was thinking about writing this article I was really struggling with what to write about. It is sometimes really hard to come up with something new and meaningful. I always like to write something that I hope someone gets “something out of”. I sent out an email to my colleagues at the elementary school that asked them what the most rewarding and most frustrating thing about teaching are in their opinion. The answers I got were not surprising to me, but helped me refocus a bit on the important things. The most frustrating things were things like: all the state requirements, not having enough time in the day to get everything you want/need to get done, classroom behavior getting in the way of the learning of the student and those around them, the beyond contract time that is put in, not being able to “bix” the home lives of some of our students, binding a balance between home life and school life, as well as a lack of funding provided to public schools. These are all legitimate concerns; these things are truly frustrating to teachers in schools. A lot of these things are things that we don’t have a lot of control over and battle with them internally and externally on a daily basis. Things like these can really bog you down mentally and physically at times. It can be depressing to think about all the things that you can’t change that you wish you could. Why teach then? I mean if there are so many things that you can’t change and that you are frustrated by, then why do you do it? Those are good questions, let me try to explain. EVERY teacher that replied to my email said that the RELATIONSHIPS with the students was the most rewarding part. We get to see students who struggle daily binally have those “AHA” moments, not only academically, but emotionally and socially as well. We get to see the students having fun while learning, seeing the excitement on their faces and hearing it in their voices when they discover something new or can do something independently for the birst time. We get to see frustration turn into joy, sadness into happiness, and blank stares into sparks of knowledge. We get to experience the love of students both inside the school atmosphere and out in the public. We get to hear, “Thank you!”, “I did it!” and “You are the best teacher ever!” We get to develop relationships with both the students and their families. We get to provide support (academic, emotional and social) to students in the classroom and extend that out into the community. We get to literally see changes in students every single day. Some of those changes seem extremely small, but we get to have a part in every one. Teaching can be so exciting and some of the relationships built can last a lifetime. Teaching is hard. There are so many things that we can’t control, but it is one of the great professions that makes a lifetime of difference. Investing in students lives where they are, in all areas and helping them learn the skills they need to be successful in school and life, changes the world for them and hopefully betters the world for all of us. The answer to “Why do you teach then?” for most teachers would be building those relationships with students and watching them grow into conbident, caring, compassionate people who strive to do their best no matter the circumstances. We teach for the little things that hopefully turn into big things later on. We teach to try to make a difference for that one student who will someday change the world.

We build relationships through having fun, laughing, working hard, talking, discovering new things, making mistakes, smiling, hugs, tasting homemade dog biscuits (on occasion) and making a difference in the world one student at a time.


DesMos

In August of 2018 I attended a 2 day workshop in Adel, Iowa to learn more about a computer application called DesMos. For several years we have used the DesMos program as a graphing application in a variety of middle school and high school mathematics classes. Students can type a function or equation into the program and it will then produce a graph of the equation. These graphs can then be analyzed, compared and studied. While we still value the traditional paper and pencil techniques for graphing functions, this program is a convenient way for students to both check their work and analyze more complex functions that would be difbicult to handle with a paper and pencil approach.

The August workshop, however, focused on a different aspect of the DesMos program known as DesMos activities. These are topic based simulations or “games” that teachers plan and organize for students to review and reinforce concepts learned in class. The list of topics covered and activities available is extensive and comprehensive. During the 2 day workshop teachers received experience and training with many of these activities and developed conbidence to take them back for use in individual classrooms. During the 18-‐19 school year I have experimented with several of these activities in my classes, and students have really enjoyed them. Although these activities are not designed to be a substitute for every day instruction, they do provide a nice break in our daily routine while maintaining a focus on a particular topic.

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