From the halls of Houlton Junior & Senior High School

Every year it seems as if our fall musical cannot be surpassed, but again this year audiences were thrilled at the performance of our students in “Damn Yankee”.  We have heard so many positive comments about our beautiful new auditorium.  It makes an exciting setting for our talented music students.  The basketball and hockey games have started on all levels and we wish our teams the best of luck this season.
    School will be dismissed at 11:15 on Wednesday, Dec. 23 and will reopen Monday, Jan. 4.  We hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a safe holiday vacation.
We have received a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant.  This is new for our junior high students.  What this grant means is that we will run a homework help lab for ALL students in 7th and 8th grade.  This program will run Monday through Thursday from 2:30 to 4:30.  A healthy snack will be offered every day at the beginning of the program.  There will be high school students available to assist students with homework help.  We also offer a variety of enrichment activities for all students to enjoy.  Some things that are being offered:  Robotics, babysitting course, math games Snap Circuits, Google Earth, quilting, Food/Nutrition, etc.  There is also going to be a physical component as well.  We will be able to use the Fitness Room, walk the nature trail, snowshoeing, and other outside activities.
Transportation is available every day.  There will be a Littleton/Monticello bus that drops students off at Porter’s and The Country Store in Monticello, as well as an in town bus to take students home every day.
Junior High News
The Junior High Student Council recently completed a food drive for the local food pantry.  Over four hundred non-perishable items were collected.  Hopefully, the generosity of our students will help those in need have a better holiday season.
Winterkids and Families
WinterKids Passport – Offers all Maine fifth, sixth and seventh graders and their families an entire season of free or discounted, healthy, outdoor winter recreation opportunities including cross-country and downhill skiing, snowshoeing, snowboarding, tubing, and ice skating, along with free or discounted lessons and rentals.  For more information, go to:
www.winterkids.org
News from Mrs. Cowperthwaite’s Room
Study skills are our goal.  We are working on approaches to help us remember materials.  It might be flash cards, memory tricks, or group study.  A rule is to make the best use of study hall time.  If an assignment is writing, get materials together and start.  Sometimes the first step is the hardest, but you are one step closer to the end of the race with that step.  Students have a hard time getting started.  Encouragement, suggestions and maps can help.  In English, we are dissecting words for meaning.  We look at prefixes and suffixes, and how one word can be changed by adding a syllable here or there.  We are looking at how we solve math problems.  It is not just the answer, but how we got the answer that needs to be evaluated.  Show your work is the rule.  Science Fair projects are under way and rough drafts are due soon.  Putting things off until the last moment does not work.