Pontotoc Middle School News

(10/23): AG Episode 7: STAY SAFE! Students in Mrs. Whitworth and Ms. Swain's AG classes experienced the Hatch Out program through Mississippi State University his week. "Biosecurity" is extremely important in the Poultry Industry as in others. Students used glitter and sand to discover how easily germs can be transferred from one human to another, and more specifically to our Hatch Out program, one chicken house to another. The energy in our classrooms with the chicks has been at an all time high! This was a great learning experience. Until the next episode...Keep Kickin, Chicken!

(10/23): Mrs. Whitworth and Ms. Swain's Science classes introduced the "Classification of Organisms" unit with a Snackification Lab. Students thought like scientists and classified the snacks based on their smell, taste, texture, shape, and color. First they started with 2 main groups and continued separating each group into 2 more groups until they had all their snacks separated into individual groups. Just like scientists do when classifying, the students created a diagram that explained how they separated the groups. So much fun, and the snacks tasted great! Shout out to all the ones that donated snacks for this discovery lab! Thanks so much!

(10/16): PMS students exemplified positive character traits in the classroom and hallways this week. Congrats Warriors!

(10/16): "Be Kind to Your Mind" so live drug free.
Red Ribbon Week kicks off at Pontotoc Middle School next week, October 23-27. Some of the activities planned next week include:
** Students will have dress up days (See flyer below).
**Students will plant tulips and daffodils in the garden area to represent Plant the Promise to be drug free.
**Students will speak on the intercom each day and share information about what it means to be drug free.
**In addition, teachers are busy decorating their classroom doors to represent drug-free week.
**Drawings will also be held for teachers and students on Friday.
**Students will be given stickers and ribbons to wear to celebrate being drug-free.

(10/19): Mrs. Ritchie, our school counselor, went into 5th grade classrooms this week and assisted students on focusing on their school study habits and how they affect one’s report card results. Students discussed various questions in small groups about their recent report cards. Some of the questions consisted of: What was positive about your most recent report card? How can you improve your next report card? After brief discussions students filled out a survey pertaining to their recent report cards. After this activity, Mrs. Ritchie talked about Red Ribbon Week activities coming up the following week and discussed drug-free information.

(10/18): To welcome students back after Fall break, Ms. Swain and Mrs. Whitworth took the kids to have fun in the Warrior Room at PJHS. Students worked hard the first nine weeks so they rewarded them with a day of play.

(10/16): After attending the MSU Ag in the Classroom PD, Mrs. Whitworth registered the PMS Ag teachers for the Hatch Out Program through the MSU Poultry Science Dept. Well, the little chickadees in their incubators have arrived. We have a couple of chicks hatched in 2 incubators already! We have a pretest we have taken determining the amount of knowledge the students have about embryo development and incubation. We have lessons that MSU has provided that will last through the hatching process. Students are chirping! They love our new project! Until the next episode…keep kick in’, chicken!

(10/12): Mrs. Ross's sixth grade ELA class prepared for the writing benchmark with a writing gallery. Students walked around the room looking at different prompts to write about.