News and Announcements

Four Middle School choir students recently participated in the middle school solo and ensemble contest and each received a 1 rating - the top rating given. The students earning the top honors are Emmersen DeVries, Luke Hinton, Michael Sager-Wissner and Thea Zellmer. In addition to the solo and ensemble contest, the 7th and 8th-grade choirs performed recently at the State Festival. Choir Director Laura Oprea said both choirs performed very well and were part of excellent clinics with a judge. Although no scores are awarded for middle school students, the festival provides excellent feedback and experience for the students.

A Thornapple Kellogg Middle School student will have his essay entered in the National Elks Grand Lodge Americanism writing competition. In addition, two other TKMS students had their essays for the same contest win at the local and district levels and moved on to state.

It's not often you hear seventh-graders talking about racial profiling, the pros and cons of video gaming or debating border wall security effectiveness. But those were just some of the hot-button topics students chose for their argument/advocacy "Take a Stand" speeches.

Both the 7th and 8th-grade middle school choirs received top ratings at the recent choir festival. Both choirs scored very high and received excellent scores in sight reading as well as performance. Their top ratings make them eligible to be part of the state festival, May 1-3. Both choirs are directed by Laura Oprea.

Thornapple Kellogg Schools will again be well represented at the Odyssey of the Mind world finals in Lansing this year by three teams - one team from Page, one from the middle school and one from the high school.

Thornapple Kellogg Middle School students will bring "Peter Pan" to the stage in their spring theater production March 21 and 22. Performances start at 7 p.m. in the high school performing arts center.

Carefully following detailed instructions sixth-grade middle school students got a hands-on lesson they won't soon forget. They were learning about organs, what they look like and how they function. Instead of simply reading about it or even seeing pictures, students were able to see actual organs by looking at the insides of frogs.

TK 8th-grade math teachers used Jolly Ranchers and gum for a sweet end-of-unit lesson. Students were given bags filled with 20 total pieces of Jolly Ranchers and gum. But each bag contained a different combination of gum and candy. The task was to develop a set of equations, work the math and accurately come up with the number of candy pieces and the number of pieces of gum in their individual bags. Students who correctly calculated the numbers were able to eat their math rewards! Mrs. Siekman, Ms. Arguello and Mr. Cole each had a pre-determined amount of items in each bag with answers recorded on a spreadsheet to easily check the student answers. What a SWEET way to teach math!

Thornapple Kellogg Schools will send 10 Odyssey of the Mind teams to the state finals including five middle school teams. TK OM coordinator Robin Walters said she believes this is record number of teams advancing to the state for the district. Last year, TK advanced eight teams to the State Finals and three to the World Finals. This year's teams advancing included one team from Lee Elementary, three teams from Page Elementary, five teams from the middle school and two teams from the high school.

TKMS 8th graders Kate Baldry and Cameron Phillips won the middle school spelling bee honors and will represent the school at the regional spelling bee. Baldry won the competition on the word "Auf Wiedersehen." Other grade-level winners at the TKMS spelling bee were Colton (Cash) Rabley in first place for 7th grade with Shelby Robinett as runner-up; Cole Novak in first place for 6th grade with Kennedy Kimmel and Mason Beard as runners-up.