HLWW Middle School Newsletter

Welcome to the HLWW Middle School Monthly Newsletter! We hope this will provide additional insight on the many activities and events taking place at HLWW.

If you wish to be added to the mailing list, please email adamlakerpride@hlww.k12.mn.us

• January 2: Classes Resume
• January 17: End of 2nd Quarter
• January 18/21: No School
• February 6: 2 Hour Late Start
• February 18: No School

Erica Mauk, Coral Schwin, Addison Onkka, Samara Burnett

Emma Huss, Sam Lueck, Jimena Vazquez, Deagan Kolleck

Each student is being asked to do service projects to raise a goal of $20 per student. Please discuss this project with your student. Some service project ideas include: shoveling driveways, selling used toys/clothes to a consignment shop, doing extra chores or babysitting.

The advisory that raises the most money will win a pizza party!

Holly Hughes, Samantha Grandahl, Rylie Kadlec, Charlie Mumford

by Andy Hertwig, 7th Grade Health/PE Teacher

During the first semester of the school year, the 7th grade health students spend a majority of their time learning about the anatomy and functions of their body systems. With many of the state and national health standards relating to how the body reacts to certain substances, diets, lifestyle choices, or heredity factors, learning the basics of what each body system does is vital for future learning in 8th grade and 10th grade health classes.

To start the unit, the 7th graders look at the skeletal and muscular systems and make the connection on how those two units and their 206 bones and 605 muscles interact and allow us to move (We only focus on approximately 20 bones and 20 major muscle groups). From there, the focus turns to the digestive system and how our bodies breakdown (digest), absorb, and eliminate food. Currently, the focus is on how our bodies cardiovascular system and respiratory system work together to deliver all the nutrients your body needs to survive. In the coming weeks, they will dig deep into some more complex body systems like the nervous system, endocrine system, and reproductive systems.

Throughout the unit the students are able to engage in many hands on activities and labs to help further their learning. In the end the students have a cumulative body systems project where they will give a presentation to their classmates on a body system of their choosing.

For students to understand how the body works and how personal decisions may affect their future health is vitally important. Everything the 7th graders learn during their class time is something they can and hopefully will use for a lifetime!

Before Halloween, 7th graders create noodle skeletons to help familiarize themselves with the major bones of the body.

7th grade students play a blood type matching game.

by Amy Kornovich, HLWW Middle School Counselor

At Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted Middle School, we acknowledged National Bullying Prevention for a week in October to help raise awareness. Bullying has been viewed as a “childhood rite of passage” that “made kids tougher,”. However, the reality of bullying is that it can create emotional distress. This can leave long-term effects such as; a loss of self-esteem, increased anxiety, and depression for those who are involved. Bullying can be prevented and stopped through education and awareness. (PACER.org)

HLWW Middle School Students spread acts of kindness that week to encourage a safe school atmosphere. Students wrote kind messages in Chalk in front of the School and on post-it notes to display on the Media Center windows. The students did great by spreading positivity within our school with inspirational quotes and kind messages.

In addition, students participated in dress up days such as; Pajama day- to show they are comfortable with who they are, Role Model day- to display who encourages them, Laker Pride Day- to show respect for their school, Mismatched Shoes- to go a day in someone else’s shoe, and Wear Orange- to acknowledge Unity Day.

On Friday, October 27th 2018, the Author; Jonathan Friesen came to our school to discuss his story of being bullied as a kid. He shared messages of what bullying does to a person, and how we can all impact one another by being kind. We were so grateful to end our anti-bullying week with Friesen’s visit. This helped inspire students to be kind to each other and to ourselves.

We have a collaborative team of students and teachers at HLWW. Advisory teachers did a great job incorporating anti-bullying activities for students throughout the week. The Laker Leader’s organized an anti-bullying pledge that we displayed in our school as well. HLWW School District acknowledges that we have to continue to be proactive as educators and continue to spread awareness. Our mission is to continue to spread awareness on Bully Prevention throughout the school year and encourage a safe school atmosphere.

Middle School Students made a "Kindness Wall" in the Media Center.

Author Johnathan Friesen with 6th Graders Alex Maus, Shelby Mengelkoch and Julia Swartzer.