Looking out the window of the main office at the 7 foot snowbank occupying
most of the view it doesn’t look or feel much like March, but according to the
calendar it is. And with the arrival of March comes an incredibly fast,
exciting and very memorable time of the school year. I want to highlight three
large events that are taking place at WGMS in the month of March.
Battle of the
Books
This month we are kicking off our first ever Battle of the Books at West Genesee
Middle school. During the months of March, April and May, 61 students at WGMS
will be participating in our inaugural 'Battle of the Books' competition. This
year's theme is "Journeys," with the first phase of 8 novels focusing
on stories in which the main character(s) experiences a journey of discovery.
Sixteen teams will compete in the preliminaries of 2 matches per team; then 12
teams will enter the playoffs, with the top 8 scoring teams entering an "Extraordinary
Eight" competition. The top four teams will then compete in a "Final
Four" playoff on an evening in May with spectators and a lot of fun and excitement. The “Final Four” battle will be based on 3 biographical works. A big
thank you to our librarian, Jan Chemotti (@jtchemotti), for all of her hard work and
leadership in making the Battle of the Books a reality at WGMS. This is great example of our ongoing efforts at continuing to offer new and exciting opportunities for our students.
The list of books is available on our WGMS Library page. Check them out and
see what our students are reading. Better yet, read them yourself!
On March 20th WGMS is hosting our second St.
Baldrick’s event in an effort to raise awareness and money to fight childhood
cancer. This was a student initiated effort last year which began with some
simple conversations and quickly evolved into a terrific community building
event at WGMS. This year eleven of our staff members (yes, I’m one of them!)
will be going bald in front of our students at different times throughout the
day. We have had a lot of fun growing our hair for the last few months, trying out various hair products, experimenting with different hairstyles and we are
really looking forward to having it all shaved off. Keep calm and go bald!
Here is the
link to our event: https://www.stbaldricks.org/events/WestGenesee2015
Talent Show
On March 26 at 6:00 p.m., 27 students will perform in 20 acts in the 5th
Annual West Genesee Middle "These 'Cats Have Talent" show. Singers,
dancers, and pianists will bring their best artistic talent to our cafeteria in
a celebration of music and performance. Tickets are $5.00 and the entertainment
is well worth the price of admission. We hope you can come out and see some of
the amazing and talented students we have.
It's a great month to be a Wildcat! Thank you for your continued support of our students and staff.
Continued Success,
Steve Dunham
@Sdunhamwgms
