Rogers Middle School Newsletter

The Rogers Rocket Rogers Middle School Volume 2, Issue 5

December 18, 2013

Today’s Hot Topic

In this issue:

Rainbow Looms

By Kathryn Guan and Summi Man

Today’s Hot Topic

1

Holiday Time

2-3

Thanks Goes Out to

4-5

Sumdog

6

Virtual Desktop

7

Career Day

8-12

Choir Concert

13

Band Concert

14

Food Drive Ends

15

World News

16-18

Principal’s Corner

19

Counselor’s Desk

20

Club Updates

21

Our Star Support

17

Red Carpet

18-19

Teacher Spotlight

20

Team News 5B

21

Acknowledgements

23

While walking up and down the halls, have you noticed anyone without a Rainbow Loom bracelet? Don’t you wish you just had a few more dollars to buy a Rainbow Loom kit? Sure, they give a great casual look to your outfit, and they are also nice, and cool; but they may be a distraction.

Industries LLC, for patent infringement, Toys ‘R’ Us tells Buzz Feed that it plans to carry Cra-Z-Looms throughout the holiday season. It’s also offering complimentary Cra-Z-Loom bracelet-making classes at its hundreds of stores every Saturday afternoon through October 26, a spokeswoman said in an email. The Toys ‘R’ Us version of Rainbow Loom undercuts the products price.

Do you know who made the Rainbow Loom? Cheong Choon Ng invented it in his basement in Detroit. The bracelets have many Which one do you like better? different colors and cool designs.

Rainbow Looms and its small rubber bands may have brought in more than $30 million in sales for Ng, so far. As with any trend, others have taken note.

Toys ‘R’ Us is carrying a similar product called Cra-ZLoom, which the chain added to its “Holiday Hot Toy List” last month. While the makers of Rainbow Loom are suing Toys ‘R’ Us and its supplier, LaRose

Page 1

HOLIDAY TIME

BY Summi Man

As you know, the holiday season is here and many of you guys must be so excited! Presents, festivities, and more. America is a diverse country, and it good for us to understand our different and unique cultures and religions. We know all of you guys celebrate different holidays, so here’s a snippet of each of the holiday’s of Hanukkah, Kwanza, and Christmas.

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Hanukkah: © Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights, is an eight day Jewish holiday starting anytime in late November to late December. This year, it started on November 27, 2013 to December 5, 2013. Every night of the eight nights, families light a candle and say blessings. After lighting the candle, they sing a hymn called Ma'oz Tzur. They also sing more songs, eat special Hanukah food in oil (preferably olive oil) because of the small oil flask that kept the flame burning for eight days. They also play with the dreidel, which is a top. The rules are kind of like this: Nun–nisht, "nothing"–nothing happens and the next player spins Gimel–gants, "all"–the player takes the entire pot Hey–halb, "half"–the player takes half of the pot Shinhttp: "put in"–the player puts one marker in the pot

Kwanzaa: Kwanzaa is a week-long African-American holiday that starts on December 26 to January 1. It was created by Dr. Maulana "Ron" Karenga to celebrate and honor the values of ancient African cultures and inspire African Americans. Each day of the seven days, they honor seven principles. The seven principles are: umoja (oo-MOH-ja) Meaning: unity Action: building a community that holds together kujichagulia (koo-jee-cha-goo-LEE-yah) Meaning: self-determination Action: speaking for yourself and making choices that benefit the community ujima (oo-JEE-mah) Meaning: collective work and responsibility Action: helping others within the community ujamaa (oo-JAH-ma) Meaning: cooperative economics Action: supporting businesses that care about the community nia (nee-AH) Meaning: a sense of purpose Action: setting goals that benefit the community kuumba (koo-OOM-bah) Meaning: creativity Action: making the community better and more beautiful imani (ee-MAH-nee) Meaning: faith Action: believing that a better world can be created for communities now and in the future They also have a feast called karamu on December 31. They light the red, green, and black seven candle each day.

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HOLIDAY TIME

BY Summi Man

Christmas

Christmas is the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The holiday is on December 25. There are probably a bunch of ways you guys celebrate Christmas, but here are the main ways: Mostly you guys set up a Christmas tree and put gifts under the tree to represent the gifts of the Magi (3 kings, or wise men from the east) . You may sing Christmas carols, eat traditional food, decorate your yard and attend church, or mass.

Revandy.org

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Thanks goes out to

H-E-B Logo

All of Rogers’ Middle School teachers and staff would like to thank H-E-B grocery for providing 12 delicious turkey breasts for our Thanksgiving Feast. The turkey was delicious and we really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

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Thanks goes out to SOUTH PARK FUNERAL HOME

Rogers’ students and staff would like to express our thanks to South Park Funeral Home for donating our beautiful Christmas tree that is located in the cafeteria. All parents that came to the Choir Concert on Monday night were able to see it, too.

We also appreciate Mrs. Hinshaw’s 6th grade art students who made the decorations and trimmed our beautiful tree.

Page 5

NATIONAL SUMDOG COMPETITION The largest National Sumdog Competition ever held started Dec. 6—12. Rogers’ students competed against over 850 other schools in the U.S. Some students also noticed they were playing against students in Canada and the United Kingdom. How awesome! Students got to choose from these cool avatar costumes. We LOVE Sumdog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rogers Rockets are having fun while increasing their confidence in their math skills.

Www.sumdog.com

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Kenley Huynh Dalton Hitt Isatu Gassama Ja Ja Wang Morgan Smith

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VIRTUAL DESKTOP

FASTTMATH You can do it at home!

To finish the competition, you can do Fasttmath at home now on your “virtual school desktop”. The instructions are found below. Really old computers may not be compatible.

Virtual Desktop Instructions: go to 

New directions are now on the Power Class webpage. If you go down to the bottom of the page, you will see the file “Directions for Virtual Desktop for Students”.



We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

Add yo ur to the F name as Hero’s ttmath 5th or 6 th Grade P osters.

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By Mrs. Wright

CAREER DAY A HUGE SUCCESS

The Friday before Thanksgiving break, Rogers’ students and staff were treated to a fabulous career day. Several parents came to share details about their professions. Mr. Dixon, our sixth grade counselor, and Ms. Beckworth, a 5th grade reading teacher who is finishing her counseling degree this December, worked with parents, students and teachers to provide an outstanding experience for all.

Classes traveled from career to career while keeping a record of facts about each speaker and profession. The speakers were wonderful and proved to be very “flexible” when all of our technology went down for the day. They also encouraged questions from the students. While traveling down the hall, I heard one student say that “he had been thinking about a career for quite a while and didn’t realize that there were so many unusual choices”.

Rogers’ students and staff would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all of the parents who gave up time in their busy schedules, to come and share not only their fascinating careers, but also the importance of education.

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These are just a few of our speakers.

CAREER DAY A HUGE SUCCESS

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CAREER DAY A HUGE SUCCESS

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CAREER DAY A HUGE SUCCESS

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CAREER DAY A HUGE SUCCESS

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HOLIDAY

CHOIR CONCERT

On Monday, December 16, the Rogers’ choir performed in the morning for all 5th and 6th grade students, as well as at 7 p.m. for parents. They did a wonderful job and put everyone in the holiday spirit. We know that they spent hours working on these songs, and want them to know how much everyone enjoyed their performance.

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HOLIDAY

BAND CONCERT

By Mr. Co On Thursday, December 12th, our Rogers Middle School Rocket Band took to the stage for their first performance. Under the direction of Mrs. Schwamb, Mrs. Massey and Mr. Parsons, the band presented, A Holiday Concert. While the temperature was dropping outside, their music kept things inside the Pearland Junior High South Auditorium festive and warm.

The auditorium was full of proud parents, teachers, and administrators, excited to hear some great holiday music. The Rocket Band more than delivered. Starting off the program with, Up on the Housetop, it was obvious how much time and effort our band and their conductors spent getting prepared for this performance. The brass section sounded warm, while the woodwinds’ sound was crisp and refreshing. The percussion section sounded solid and upbeat.

Our Rocket Band closed the night with a holiday classic, Jingle Bells.

It was a spirited version of the well-known song, and it brought smiles to the many faces in the crowd. After the final notes were played, the band was given a raucous round of applause. Their hours of studying and practice definitely paid off. Our three great directors told the crowd how proud they were of their students. They reminded the crowd that not too long ago, the students were just learning how to open their cases and put their instruments together! Everyone had a great time that evening, and talked about how great the music sounded. Congratulations to all of the students and directors for putting on such and entertaining concert!

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Thanks to all of Rogers for par cipa ng in the

FOOD DRIVE

The Rogers’ Food Drive has just ended. Mrs. Benedix wants to thank all students for giving items to help others. She just received the following thank you note from Mr. Joe Castro KIDS MEALS: Meals on Wheels.

“We can't thank you enough for the great job you did for our kids. We have events throughout the year. Please check on our website: www.kidsmealshouston.org where anything we do will be posted for your future consideration.” Also, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you again and we want to wish all of you a blessed holiday season. “ Joe Castro Director of Operations- KIDS MEALS 205 W. Crosstimbers St., Houston, TX 77018 Office: (713) 695-5437 * www.kidsmealshouston.org

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WORLD

NEWS

Commuter Train Derailment

By John Rawlinson

www.abcnews.go.com

On Monday, December 2nd, a commuter train derailed off its tracks in a wooded area where the Hudson and Harlem rivers meet in New York. This accident killed 4 people and injured over 60. This crash happened on a sharp turn where trains normally get through safely. There were initially several different theories about what might have happened. Some believed the engineer, William Rockefeller, was possibly intoxicated. Others thought that the train could have been going much too fast. When the train association tested the engineer, and the tests were negative, intoxication was ruled out. So the other theory seemed more likely. The train association has now estimated that they were going 82 mph is a 30 mph zone!

The conductor said that he was tired and briefly zoned out. That is a thought because the conductor of this train made two round trips every day.

He recently shifted from night duty to day duty. Mr. Rockefeller has been employed by Metro-North Railroad for 15 years.

On Thursday, December 5th, a spokesperson for the New York Transit Authority stated that Mr. Rockefeller has been suspended, without pay, since the crash. The case is ongoing and investigators continue to search for more clues and answers Â

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WORLD

NEWS

Deadly Typhoon in the Philippines and My Family

By Hailey Placek One of the most deadly typhoons in the past few years has recently struck the Philippines. Typhoon Haiyan left thousands dead, injured, along with damage to their cities. Tacloban, the city that was hit the hardest by Haiyan, was struck on both sides by huge surges of water.

The Philippine military and U.S. Air Force are helping with aid and are trying their best to get crowds of survivors on any available flight out of Tacloban. It would help greatly to make any kind of donation to the Red Cross, UNICEF, CARE, or World Vision. These are just a few places to donate but there are many more.

My mother’s side of the family lives in Palompon, a city in the Philippines that was also hit by Haiyan. In the few weeks after Haiyan hit, we had no contact with them whatsoever. All of us were desperate for even the tiniest bit of information telling us that my family was safe. We were finally able to talk to them after what seemed like years for us. They were perfectly fine. They had evacuated before the typhoon hit to a relative’s house outside of Palompon. Luckily, the only damage that was done was to their home.

We are all still praying for the safety of the citizens in the Philippines.

See more pictures on the next page.

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WORLD

NEWS

Deadly Typhoon in the Philippines

By Hailey Placek and My Family

My family’s home after the typhoon.

(photo credit: Lance Cpl. Caleb Hoover-U.S. Marines)

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Principal’s Corner / Mr. Hagar

By Megan O o

In my recent interview with Mr. Hagar, he and I discussed how exciting it is to get a new set of 5th graders each year. He is able to see them grow into well-developed 6th graders, and then successfully move on to junior high. He also mentioned that we have some upcoming events that are very important. We have benchmark tests, STAAR simulation tests, and the real STAAR tests in April.

Mr. Hagar loves getting the scores back to see just how much we have improved! Mr. Hagar says that these tests do come with a little stress, but in the long run they are all for the best.

He also mentioned that a lot of little improvements have been made to improve our school. Some of these improvements are switching around teams to make each team consist of three teachers. There have also been some dress code improvements that have been put in place. All of these improvements are helping Rogers become an even better school!

Mr. Hagar said that he takes a lot of pride in our newspaper. It is just one more thing that sets us apart and makes us unique.

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Counselor’s Desk / Mrs. Peel

By Isabella Mata

Like you saw in the last paper, we are doing our topic on bulling. In this issue, Ms. Peel will talk to us about her thoughts about bullying.

Bullying is a powerful thing and needs to be discussed if you are a bystander, a victim, or if you are the bully.

Bullies are usually people who have issues in their life or/and are jealous. Bullies like to tease people because they are looking for a reaction. It makes the bully feel tough, strong, or powerful. Instead of taking offense to the bullies taunting, you could just let it roll off of your shoulder or even ignore them. Don’t let it get to you; understand that the problem isn’t you, it’s the bully. Sadly the bullying lasts from about now until high school by people who think they are better than someone or if they feel that they aren’t as rich, as smart, as popular, or as cute as someone. It usually happens when adults aren’t watching and you are not being supervised by someone that is more powerful than them. To help solve this problem, you could help others when being bullied and like I said earlier you could just let it roll off your back. This is a big issue in school because of insecurity and jealousy. I feel that this needs to stop because you’re more amazing than you’ll ever know!!

“HELP EACH OTHER AND DON’T LET OTHERS’ WORDS MAKE YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT YOURSELF!!”-Ms. Peel Page 20

CLUB UPDATES

By Katie Puperi

Press Club For this week’s Club Updates, I have chosen the Press Club. You may think that this club is nerdy or such, but it is actually very fun.

The Press Club teaches you to search for the 5 W’s of a news’ story: who, when, where, when, why. This club is more of a real “job” than just a club. To get your “beat” out you might have to work hard at home and before school, as well as attend the Monday meetings. Our staff is trying to get out a newspaper every 2-3 weeks. This takes a lot of time and effort.

Being a member of the Press Club requires commitment, dependability and integrity. We expect all of the members of the Press Club are hard-working and responsible. If you don’t have these qualities, then this is not the club for you.

We hope you appreciate the Press Club and its commitment to bring you our school news. If you are a current fifth grader and are interested in doing the newspaper next year, we would love to invite you to a Monday meeting.

If you are a fifth grader who is interested in working for the newspaper, please contact Mrs. Wright or Mr. Co. Page 21

Our Support STARS

By Jack Cook

Mrs. Suarez

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Mrs. Suarez is a special education teaching aide that works with science teachers in fifth and sixth grade.

When she knew that she wanted to be a teacher, she

came to Rogers Middle School and was looking for a subject that she wanted to teach. She fell in love with science and is currently working on her teaching degree at Lamar University will graduate with her teaching degree in December of 2014.

Every day, she visits ten classes and helps students be successful. She tutors, helps with classwork, along with several other things. Mrs. Suarez says the best parts of her day are doing science experiments with the students and her lunch break so she can get off of her feet. Her favorite part of the school is anywhere that the students can make her laugh.

Thanks for all you do, Mrs. Suarez!

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Red Carpet

By Isabella Mata and Jordyn Taylor

Megan Sood

In this issue of Red Carpet, we interviewed Meghan Sood. Meghan is a talented actress, who performs in plays during the summertime. She says that her elementary school music teacher inspired her to act in plays. The teacher gave Meghan an ad, so she decided to try out for a play, and loved it. She says that to memorize her lines, she reads over her parts and practices them.

Her most recent play was last summer when Meghan acted in the play Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. The play was rehearsed and performed in a church in Friendswood. Meghan told me that whenever she is up on stage acting, she feels very comfortable and calm with all eyes on her. She also said that when she tried out for sports, she didn’t like it that much; but when she acted for the first time, she loved it.

Meghan Sood is a fellow Rocket, and we are proud to have her here at Rogers Middle School!

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Teacher SPOTLIGHT

By Mia Vannoy

Mrs. Schultz

Mrs. Schultz teaches math. Her classroom is in hall 6D at the end of the hallway where she teaches resource math. She became a teacher here at Rogers when Mrs. Brooks, who was the assistant principal when she was at Jameson, asked her about working at Rogers the first year it opened.

On the first day of school, she said that she felt “excited, joyful, and eager when she met her students”. She teaches Special Education because she absolutely loves to help struggling students succeed in their work and also loves teaching different math strategies to help solve problems. She said that her favorite part of her job is working with the students who need help and watching them become successful.

Mrs. Shultz has a lot of varied teaching experience. During her first 5 years of teaching, she did not teach Special Ed. She first taught reading in Beaumont, Texas. In Alvin, she taught 2nd grade and in Pasadena she taught kindergarten. Next , she taught 1st grade in Friendswood , then she went to Alvin to become an assistant principal. She finally became a special ed. teacher for the first time at Jameson when she heard there was an empty space to become one, so she immediately became certified to teach special ed. Then she was hired to be the principal at Pace Academy and eventually made it to Rogers to teach here.

Thank you for helping our Rogers Family become better in Math.

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By Lauren Cooper

Mrs. Martin

Team updates: 5B Ms. Meador

Mrs. Long

We are happy to share a little bit about Team 5B’s teachers. Mrs. Martin teaches math, Mrs. Long and Ms. Meador teach reading, and Mrs. Ham teaches science. We appreciate these very talented teachers.

Mrs. Martin was born and raised in Texas. She graduated from Deer Park High School and Stephen F. Austin State University. She was a teacher for 15 years and she lives in Pearland with her husband and two dogs. She is a proud aunt of six nephews and one niece. She loves her career and she is privileged to work with children every day!

Mrs. Long was born on April 3, 1956. She graduated from A&M and M.S.U. She likes her job because she enjoys working with kids. She has 3 dogs, 1 cat, 2 mice, and 6 fish. She was first a teachers’ aid and she went back to college to become a teacher. Her mom and stepfather inspired her because they were teachers.

Ms. Meador was born on July 19, 1985 and went to Collage at Texas Tech, U of H, and Clear Lake. She likes her job because she gets to be with kids. She does not have any pets and she became a teacher from hard work at school. Her 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Dial , inspired her to become a teacher.

Mrs. Ham was born September 1, 1981 in Houston Texas. She has lived in Texas her whole life, and moved to Pearland in 1993. She is a graduate of Texas A&M, and she studied Political Science and History. Her favorite thing about being a teacher is that every day is different. This means that every day can be frustrating, exciting, and almost always filled with laughter. She has two classroom pets. A guinea pig named Mr. Nibbles and a leopard gecko named charlotte. Her mom was a teacher and she always tried to keep her out of education. She wanted her to be a doctor or a lawyer so she never thought about studying education in college , instead she chose the law school track. However , after she started working in the legal field , she decided that she did not want to be a lawyer and started working on teacher certification program in 2007.

Mrs. Ham Page 25

ROCKET REPORTERS

SPONSORS Mr. Gil Co, Reading Teacher Mrs. Georgeann Wright, Power Math and Power Science Teacher

Rocket Publishers

Summi Man

Our Graphic Ar sts

Alyssa Grover Kathryn Guan Hailey Placek

· · · · · ·

Mia Vannoy Megan Otto John Rawlinson Lauren Cooper

Rogers Middle School Pearland, TX

Jordyn Reynolds

Katie Puperi Hailey Placek Mia Vannoy Sophia Wilson John Rawlinson Mrs. Wright

Katie Puperi Isabella Mata Ian Mattingly

Rocket Editors

Jordyn Taylor

Rocket Press.

Sophia Wilson

Emily Wright

· ·

We’re on the Web. http://pearlandisd.org/Rogers.cfm

We have lost two press club members.

Quinton Sykes and Jack Cook.

They are

We want to thank

them for the work they did this year.

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Mr. Co Mrs. Wright