Poplar Grove Post

Greetings PGMS families,

It's hard to believe we are already in February! While January had an extra week off due to the snow, we still managed to squeeze a lot of great things into the schedule. I hope your 2024 year is off to a great start, and we are moving forward into this semester preparing to see more and more success. Next week you will see the quarter 3 progress reports. If you have questions or concerns about those or other items, I encourage you to speak to your child and reach out to their teachers. Keeping open communication about what's going on in class is a critical part of student growth, so please don't hesitate to stay involved. Thanks for your continued support.

This month is short but busy! We will have a lot going on from week to week. Please be sure to note the calendar dates below.

2/1 - 8th Grade Exploration Day

2/5 - 3/20 Yearbook Sale Dates (See below for purchase)

2/6 - Quarter 3 Progress Reports

2/6 - 8th Grade Basketball and Basketball Cheer Recognition @ 5:15 pm

2/8 - Franklin HS Registration Information Night at FMS (6-7 pm)

2/8 - 2/12 - PGMS Competition Cheer @ Disney Nationals

2/12 - FSSD Board Meeting @ PGMS (6:30-7:30 pm)

2/16 - Pride Time and Early Dismissal @ 11:30

2/19 - Presidents' Day/No School

2/20 - 2/23 - PGS Homecoming Week (More Information Below)

2/21 - CHS Registration for 8th Grade

2/21-2/22 - Honors Testing

2/22 - PGS Alumni Basketball Game (6:30 pm)

2/23 - PGMS Homecoming Dance (7 - 9 pm)

2/23 - FHS Registration for 8th Grade

2/26-3/1 - Used Book Sale

2/29 - Best Buddies Valentine's Dance

2/29 - Family Literacy Night - 5:30 - 7:00 pm

Seventh Annual PGS Homecoming Week will take place 2/20-2/23. All PGMS students will have a chance to show their PGS Pride by participating in the grade level spirit competition, decorating a section of their grade level hallway, submitting a ‘shoebox homecoming float’, and dressing for Spirit Week dress up days. All PGS students and families are invited to attend our annual PGS Student vs Faculty/Alumni basketball game, Thursday, 2/22 at 6:30pm. This year’s Homecoming Dance will take place Friday, 2/23 from 7pm-9pm in the new gym (all PGMS students 5-8 are invited to attend). Please mark your calendars for this week of fun PGS traditions and be on the look out for more detailed information in the weeks ahead.

February 26th - March 1st

7:00AM - 2:00PM

- Hardcover Books $2

- Paperback Books $1

- Books for All Ages (Parents too!)

- All funds raised benefit both the elementary and middle school libraries.

Please remember to send money with your student to shop at school.

Please continue to donate gently used books. Collection bins are located in each school lobby.

We would love your help at the Used Book Sale. Click this link to volunteer:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0C4FA9A829AAF94-47262459-2024#/

Any questions, please contact Jenny Baer (jsbaer@bellsouth.net) or Gracie Bowman (graciehbowman@gmail.com)

Come join us for Family Literacy Night in the Performing Arts Center on February 29th in the Performing Arts Center from 5:30 - 7:00 pm. Lots of fun activities are planned with door prizes.

Parents, did you know that 6 out of 10 middle school students do not get the recommended sleep each night?

School aged-children ages 6-13 years, should be getting 9-11 hours of sleep nightly. Teens age 14-17 years, should be getting 8-10 hours per night. Sleep affects our overall health. Children who get enough sleep have a healthier immune system, perform better in school, have better behavior, memory and mental health.

Suggestions for good sleep include the following: Consistent bedtime and wake-up times. Keep the room where you sleep dark, quiet and at a comfortable temperature. Turn off all screens an hour before bedtime and keep them out of the room where you sleep. Avoid a large meal and caffeine before bedtime. Stay active during the day.

During the month of January, students have been absent due to illness after testing positive for Strep throat, Covid, Influenza and other respiratory viruses. Some students have had a stomach virus. Please feel free to email me at cowaneli@fssd.org, if you have any questions regarding your child's symptoms, or return to school.

Happy February, PGMS Families!

We have a lot going on this month and as life gets busy, I wanted to put out a reminder that helping others is one of the best ways to increase happiness and leads to healthy feelings of fulfillment. Saturday, February 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Day and the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation does a wonderful job of providing ideas of how to partake in this initiative. You can find 50 fun ideas here! If your child finds me during the week following RAK Day and tells me a Random Act of Kindness they have done, I’ll have a small token of appreciation for them. I love that we are building up our students to build up others!

Reminder for 8th grade families, please check out our High School Registration Smore for important upcoming dates.

Always here to support,

Caitlin Otto

The 8th grade Talent Development class competed in a regional competition through the University of Tennessee on Saturday, January 27th. We had 2 teams compete. Out of 16 teams, one team advanced to the finals-the top 3! The Bombastic Beavers team consisted of: Bridger Callahan, Eliza Bowman, Brooke Marchy, Lorelei Scherer, and 7th Grader Renee Moore. They took 3rd place! They also won, "Best Project Planning" over all 16 teams! Team Gymometree consisted of: Autumn Horel, Yiqing Huang, Joel Furlong, and William Strelecki. They earned an award for "Best Essay" over all 16 teams!

This was an intense mutli-month project consisting of research, planning, design, a 1500 word essay, and building a model with a moving part. They also had to present in 7 minutes and then were questioned about their city for another 8 minutes.

Congratulations to both teams! You will see both teams with their projects on announcements next week!

- Lisa Onusaitis, M. ED, Accelerated Learning Teacher

Mr. Habegger's 6th graders had their Shark Tank App Competition with special guest judges - Mrs. Onusaitis, Mrs. Duel, Mr. Fuller, and Mrs. Holtz. The winning team was "Pick 'n Choose Foods", an app that helps you create easy meals at home with items you probably already have in your pantry. Congratulations to Bryce, Gemma, and Anthony! The runner-up was "School Translator", an app that helps non-english speaking students communicate with their teachers. This included helpful, introductory questions/phrases used in the general school setting. Way to go Dagmara, Marjorie, and Lizeth!

Thank you to Angello Peña and his family for coming to our 5th grade Spanish class to talk about Colombian culture. Students enjoyed hearing all about the rich and diverse Colombian culture. We learned about the flag, popular dishes, music, futbol, and so much more. The presentation was so beautiful and students learned a lot! Thank you for sharing about Colombia!

STEM students are checking the safety of the water for their personal guppy ecosystem using aquarium strips (nitrate, nitrite, chlorine, water hardness, carbonate, and pH) and Arduino sensors (dissolved oxygen, turbidity, temperature). They have described their guppy ecosystem on the diagrammatic model (poster/large sticky note). Next, they will create a computational model with guppies, cichlids (predators), killifish (competitors), oxygen, carbon dioxide, energy and more with the challenge of balancing newly formed ecosystem by adjusting populations, energy levels, and other pieces of the computational model.

STEM students use coding and Makey Makey to create games. The Makey Makey is used as an interface to the game on the computer. Students create their own homemade sensors with wire, copper tape, aluminum, cardboard, and other materials. We invite students from the Elementary end to play the games with us!

Coming soon... February's Invention Convention will be held at MTSU on February 22 (5th grade students) and February 27 (6th, 7th, and 8th grade students). We wish our innovative STEM Team the best of luck in making it to the finals to be held in Dearborn, MI in June of 2024.

Several PGS students are participating this season on the Freedom Middle Bowling team. This is the second year that Freedom has had a bowling team and they play in the Williamson Middle Athletic Association vs Williamson County middle schools.

We are a third of the way through the season right now and both the boys and girls teams have a record of 1 and 3. Players from PGS are Adriel Robles on the boys team and Lizzie Cole, Eliza Bowman, Kylie Bowie, Bristol Cox and Victoria Farnsworth on the girls team. Victoria leads the team in highest average with a score of 127 and Eliza Bowman has the second highest with a score of 107. All matches are played at Franklin Lanes, see schedule for future dates. Matches start at 3:45.

The boys team is coached by Bernard Jones and the girls team by Randy Stevens.

The Poplar Grove Competition Cheer is heading to Nationals in Orlando, Florida next week! If you would like to watch them live, they will be on Varsity TV at varsity.com. They will be competing in the Recreation Division. We wish them the best of Luck! Go Lions!

Our Annual Best Buddies Valentine's Dance will be held on Thursday, February February 29th after school from 3:45-4:00. Students will meet in the middle school cafeteria and enjoy snacks and dancing.

Stay tuned for an announcement regarding our March event. We are planning a meet up at Mellow Mushroom on a Saturday sometime in March.

We can't thank you enough for all of your contributions to help make our events successful! - Mrs. Nash

This years musical performance is Stockington, Maine! Stockington, Maine is a musical that is written and performed by current students at Poplar Grove. The show takes place in and around a sock factory in Stockington, Maine. As Stewart and Maria Sawkson are retiring and to find an heir to take over the sock factory. They entrust the company to their daughter Lucy. This decision is not acceptable to Lucy's twin sister, Fausta, who plans to sabotage Lucy's efforts.

Performances of Stockington, Maine will take place on March 21, 22, and 23, 2024. Each night there will be a performance at 6:30 pm and on March 23 there will also be a 2 pm performance. Tickets are $8

February is finally here and we are excited to bring back the PBS “Vending Machine” this month. Students will be able to enter their PBS tickets into a drawing every Friday for their chance to win a snack and drink. The students love this incentive! As always, we will be celebrating students who go above and beyond our expectations: Be Responsible, Be Respectful, and Show Pride by announcing Super Tickets every Thursday. If you haven’t ever heard about our Super Tickets, this would be a great time to ask your child!

This month we will be meeting in our Advisor Groups twice. The entire month we will be focusing on the character trait - responsibility. We will have a House Day on Friday, February 16th and already have a lot of fun activities planned for that day. Please encourage your child to wear their House colors and come decked out ready to have some fun. It will be a good day building community amongst the students and staff!

You can start purchasing the 23-24 yearbook starting Monday, February 5th and sale will run through Wednesday, March 20th. Please don't delay and order your yearbook TODAY! Click on this link to purchase. https://jhacompany.com/collections/poplar-grove-elementary-school