Reading Competition - Jill C.

Reading is a great way to go on an adventure without even leaving the house. If you want to go on an adventure through a book, you should join Reading Team. It is a fun way to converse with various books that other people have read that are on the team while attending after-school meeting on Tuesdays until 4:00 or 4:30. Miss K and Mrs. Weaver are our GREAT, PHENOMENAL, AMAZING (there aren’t enough adjectives in my vocabulary to describe them.) coaches.

In order to become a member of the Reading Team, you had to have signed up in Miss K’s room. Then you have to have a minimum of 8 books read by the competition date. You also have to complete a character sheet and 5 question cards for all of the books you read in the 42 books previously selected by IU8. (The character sheet consists of the name of the book, the author, setting, at least 3 main characters and their traits, and a summary of the book.) All of the books that were chosen for Reading Team are on a book cart in Miss K’s room. YOU MUST COMPLETE THE CHARACTER SHEET AND CARDS BEFORE YOU GET A NEW BOOK!! This is very important because when it comes time for the competition, it is EXTREMELY helpful to look over your character sheets to refresh your memory on important details in the books that you read. Also, if is very fun and effective when you and your teammates quiz each other with the note cards previously written for the books.

In previous years, the competition has been amazing. All members leave early from school (missing ninth period) in order to arrive at Meyersdale School to have ample time to eat an early supper and have time to be organized into the various classrooms in the building. Meyersdale School is huge because the building consists of the elementary, middle, and high school. The food at Meyersdale is great. After dinner, all of the teams are assigned to the many rooms and are matched up with an opponent. There is also a moderator (person who reads the questions and/or interprets the answers given by the teams) and a scorekeeper assigned to each room as well. The moderator will then alternate questions to each team. If the team answers the question correctly then they get the point, but if they answer incorrectly, the other team has a chance to steal the point. However, if no one gets it right, no points are awarded. The only bad things that have occurred in the past were some of the answers to tricky questions were either too specific or completely incorrect. This happened because the moderator hadn’t read the books, and they were just banking off of the people who wrote the questions to be correct. If the moderator was unsure of the answer given by the teams, they ask the scorekeeper for their opinion.

After all of the 20 questions per team, whichever team has the most points wins the round and moves on to the next round. There are three rounds of questions. After all of the teams have completed their three rounds, all of the points are tallied up to choose first, second, and third places. (Various teams are awarded first, second, and third place because of different age groups.) After the awards ceremony, members head for Johnstown and return to Westmont Middle School around 8:30 p.m.All in all, Reading Team is an awesome club to join if you love to read. The books, practices, competition, the coaches – everything about it is great. Reading Team disciplines and improves your reading skills by a mile. This year’s reading team did extremely well at the competition this year. Both teams, Thing 1 and Thing 2 got second place.

Watership Down - A Great Book! - Isaac J.

Watership Down is a novel about as big as a Twilight book (which gives you no reason not to read it). Written in the 1960’s, it takes place in the English Downs, namely Watership Down. It is about a warren of rabbits located in the Sandleford Warren. Hazel and is little brother Fiver (Fiver is what they called him because he was the fifth in the litter) are the main characters. Fiver is supposed to have supernatural powers and can sense when something isn’t right. Humans are planning to destroy the warren to make it into a construction site. Fiver has this vision and tries to tell the Threarah, the head rabbit, but no-one will listen.

Hazel tries to round up a group of rabbits to leave the warren. One is Bigwig, a member of the Sandleford Owsla. The Owsla is like a volunteer army corps for strong rabbits. Then Captain Holly, captain of the Sandleford Owsla, and two other members come to arrest this group of rabbits for desertion before they set off on their perilous journey. Of course Holly does not succeed or this wouldn’t be much of a novel, would it? On their journey they meet foxes, hawks, dangerous vagabond rabbits, psychotic rabbits, and predators of all kinds. To find out the rest you’ll have to read it yourself.

LOST - Brandon H.

On September 22, 2004 the show Lost premiered in the United States and Canada. It started with a plane crash crashing on an island. While trying to find a way off of the island, the plane crash survivors saw black smoke. They went there to see what it was and no one was there. They later found out that it could be “The Others”, or the Dharma Initiative. The Dharma Initiative were people sent to the island for research and they found out that time was not normal on the island. Time was behind from the rest of the world. The plane survivors found a guy named Ben Linus. He was part of the Dharma Initiative. He was actually the Dharma Initiative’s important people’s son. They held him as hostage. And he tried to like kill them all or something. But then after a while Ben Linus started helping the survivors. Or that’s what they thought. He did everything to keep the survivors from leaving the island which was all they actually wanted to do. In the fourth season, they did get off of the island, and Ben Linus did help them. This was my favorite part of the season.

To get off of the island, since Ben was part of the Dharma Initiative, he knew how to signal The Others to not shoot at them. They got a flashlight and a mirror. Ben turned it on and off to signal them. And they let them all up. Unfortunately, there were people who wanted to kill them all. So as they shot at the survivors they ran for their lives to this elevator that led far into the ground. There was a T.V. and a big microwave thing. It would do strange stuff to objects but, when Ben Linus was messing around with the microwave, the main character, John Locke was told to watch the T.V. It was an instructional video of how to use this “Microwave”. It said not to put metallic objects in there. But that was all that Ben was putting in there. Then John was saying how it said not to put metal in there but Ben was saying he knew what he was doing, so then after all the metal was inside he left the giant microwave, hit a button, and it blew up. Behind the blown up microwave thing was a small hole in the wall. He crawled inside, it was really snowy. He kept walking for like 5 minutes until he got to this enormous lever. He turned this really big wheel and pulled the lever. The island moved. And it flashed forward to John Locke being dead.
Lost is a very interesting show, and if you watch any episode you pretty much want to watch them all. There is also at least one part of every episode that is extremely exciting. So it’s a good show, and you should watch.

Favorite Ways to Listen to Music For 2009 by Tom H. and Derek B.

We took a vote of 70 people at the middle school, and people chose the following for their favorite way to listen to music: Computer, iPod, Mp3 player, stereo system, PS3, PSP. There were 5 votes for the computer, 36 votes for the iPod, 14 votes for an Mp3 player, 14 votes for the stereo system, only 2 votes for the PS3, and only 4 votes for the PSP. All of the votes totaled up make 70 votes!

Computer: 5
iPod 36
Mp3 14
Stereo 14
PS3 2
PSP 4

Total Votes: 70

HALT! Bullying Prevention Program at UPJ - Zach Y.

On the day of March 25 the Westmont Hilltop school district took 70 students to The University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. There we were hurried into a building where we met a doctor (AKA, Jeff). We started the program by him telling us stories of his childhood. Afterward, we then met the high school and college students, while slapping our thighs to the beat of “We Will Rock You.” Next, we put on short plays about what happens in an average school day. Then we broke off into teams. Our team was called “The Bighead Walrus Jiggle Puffs, with Bill Cosby;” some other team names were, “The Goonies,” and “The Purple People Eaters.”
Next we got mentors. In my group, our mentors were Andy and Austin. Then we played the knot game. In the game we had to link one hand to a person in your group, next we had to take our other hand a link it to another person. Then we had to use team work to get out of the knot.
Following, the knot game we sat down and got to know each other. We spoke about our problems to our mentors. After that, we then got a Venn diagram and were given a partner. We had to find things we had in common and things we didn’t. Then Jeff had us work on a project about our school. So, we had to construct a new school, while having a sticker on our heads saying how to treat us. My sticker said “Treat me like I’m normal,” some other stickers said “Treat like if I was a nerd,” and “Kiss up to me.”
Next we got to have lunch. We had pizza and pretzels. Then Jeff made us pretend that we were parts of an ice cream. We had to group to make the best ice cream ever. We then played the fox and the hen game. Then we got to have ice cream.
Lastly the older kids put on a play for us. The final thing we did was sign a sign that we won’t be bullies. The trip was very fun and interesting.

Seventh Grade Field Trip - Natalie F.

The 7th grade field trip this year is to Kennywood Park in West Mifflin, PA. In the morning, students will be participating in math and science experiments using the park’s rides. This should provide a great learning opportunity. After completing their experiments, students will be allowed to explore the park and rides.
There is a new attraction this year, the Ghostwood Estate. On this ride you are put in a “buggy” and guided by Lord Ghostwood’s spirit. In your buggies you will find ghost blasters. You use these guns to shoot the unwanted spirits. The more you shoot the higher the score.
Also a new thrill ride is the Bayern Kurve; this ride simulates a bobsled while taking you through the Swiss Alps. Of course there are always the classic rides. Musik Express is a ride where LOUD music and FLASHING lights are used while you are moving very fast, up and down. Besides rides, there is also a lot of great food! There are many cafés in the park along with the usual fast food carts. Kennywood has a famous French fry stand called the Potato Patch. There you can purchase fresh cut French fries topped with whatever you want. They have Pepsi products such as: MOUNTAIN DEW, DR.PEPPER, Sierra Mist, Pepsi, and Aquafina.
Hopefully, you have learned many important things from this article: 1. Don’t go anywhere without money (or no food for you). 2. There are loads of rides including water rides so bring extra clothing. 3. Fun will be had by all!

Track and Field - Ben K.

Track & Field is a fun way to get in shape. There are many events including track, jumping, and field. In the track events there is sprinting and long distance. Sprinting is for the fast people, and long distance running is for people who can keep a steady pace. The next events are jumping and field. In jumping the events are hurdles, running long jump, standing long jump, and the pole vault. The last events are the field events. The field events include shot put, discus and javelin, which the junior high kids can’t participate in. These are all the events of Track & Field. A bunch of coaches are there to help you. There is a coach for every event. It is so fun. If you like to run you should join track & field!