TAKS! TAKS! TAKS! Woohoo! Man, what a pumping-energetic event that was for me! Man, I’m so ready for TAKS testing because of the TAKS Pep Rallies. I know I’m going to ace it like I do with my homework!

The first pep rally was held on March 4, 2008, and the second one was held on April 7, 2008. It was held in the gym from 3:00pm-3:30pm. Everybody was there in the event. Even the Superintendent of the District, Mr. Delgado, was there. The Golden Rule staff and administration did a good job during the pep rally. They “pepped us up” so we would do great on our TAKS exams. Mr. Ramos, Academic Dean of Golden Rule Schools, gave a little speech during the rally, encouraging us to do well on our exams.

It seems that everybody’s favorite part of the pep rally on March 4th was the skit. Ms. Hall organized her drama team to perform the skit. The skit was pretty funny, though the message was somewhat confusing… but I’m sure the skit has the message of “doing good on TAKS!” The Drama Team did a lot better on April 7th though, performing a cheer in front of the crowd that got everyone going.

The elementary students seemed more pumped up than the middle school during the pep rally, which was kind of funny for awhile. Ms. Hall was the person who was responsible for organizing both the TAKS Pep Rallies. Well I’m glad the staff is investing all this time and effort in motivating us students to do well… GO TAKS!

For more Golden Rule Schools Stories, contact the front office for the latest copy of the Newsletter edition.

This spring’s book fair is just like the one from last fall, though there a few different changes. One of the changes is the theme. Last fall’s theme was the Blizzard Book Fair, while this spring’s theme is Reading Road Trip. Of course the design motifs are different with this event compare to the last one, but for the most part you can not tell if anything changed at all. Well… one can not say that the organizers did not try improving this fair, because the organizers did a good job with the designs. Some students though did wish that there were more variety of selection to buy from this time around, not just the same items over and over again.

Reading Road Trip was held at the Art/Drama room in the elementary building in the Illinois Campus. It was held from March 24-28. The event lasted for a week, just like the other book fairs. The previous fairs have been successful. Blizzard earned about $3,000 worth of merchandise last fall. This spring’s book sellers did even better, selling about $4,000 worth of merchandise.

Ms. Hall was the organizer of this festive reading moment. She was responsible for ordering supplies and merchandise. Mr. Mercado helped with the decorations and also acted as a salesperson. Mrs. O’Valle, Mrs. Pozas, and Mrs. Bejarano all helped by also being a salesperson. They all did a tremendous good job with the book fair. Good job staff!

As mentioned earlier, the theme of this spring’s book fair is Reading Road Trip. The theme was not chosen by the school, but by Scholastic Inc., the company responsible for providing the merchandise to sell during the fair. This kind of book promotions have a wonderful impact of promoting literacy among the students of Golden Rule Schools. It is a successful event held at Golden Rule Schools, with the potential of getting better and better as the years go by.

Muffins for Moms
By Tiffany Villegas

Hey! Have you heard of Muffins for Moms? Muffins for Moms is a great way to build a community relationship among the parents, students, and staff members of Golden Rule Schools. The happening builds this relationship by providing a chance for moms to interact with their children before the school day starts. Moms come with their students to the school cafeteria to eat muffins and mingle with their children’s’ teachers. Muffins for Moms was held on February 22, 2008. The venue for the event was the same venue for all the other Muffins for Moms events; the school cafeteria. According to Mr. Mills, the school cafeteria is the best place to hold such an event.

The parents were extremely appreciative and have a general positive reaction to events such as Muffins for Moms and Donuts for Dads. Quite a few of them thinks that it is a wonderful way that the school reaches out to the parents of the students they serve. Holding such events is not really that expensive, according to Mr. Mills. He said that all one needs to have such an event is good organization, a place to come together, a bunch of muffins, and of course; moms!

Mr. Mills came up with the idea for the event when he heard of a similar gathering done by another school to serve the parents of that school’s children. The last Muffins for Moms got a bit crowded, showing the impact of the event. More mothers are definitely participating to the event. Even though there are quite a few visitors to these kinds of happenings, Golden Rule Schools will always accommodate more parents coming out to such school events.

Ms. Palmer’s classes have been doing interesting experiments lately. One of the experiments she did recently was with a simple machine contraption. According to Ms. Palmer, that specific experiment is meant to help the students learn about simple machines by letting the students play with a pulley system. Ms. Palmer came up with the idea for the experiment during one of her interactions with a collaborative of science teachers at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

The pulley system experiment was easy to set up. It only took about ten minutes for Ms. Palmer to set up the experiment. Ms. Palmer’s students really learned a thing or two with this particular experiment. She also did another interesting experiment that was also inspired by the collaborative that Ms. Palmer is a part of. Ms. Palmer thought her students about planet rotations and revolutions, using materials derived from the collaborative.

The head of the collaborative at the University of North Texas helped Ms. Palmer tremendously in securing the materials she needed for both experiments. Ms. Palmer said that she “joined the collaborative in the summer of 2005 in order to become GLOBE certified… The collaborative is a group of science and math teachers that meet up once a month in Denton to discuss new ways to enhance science learning. There is no membership fee. I have no idea how many people belong to the collaborative, but in the group I attend, thirty teachers and professors show up regularly.”

The students definitely learned a thing or two from both experiments Ms. Palmer did with her classes. The students’ knowledge definitely showed during the class discussions that happen after both experiments. According to Ms. Palmer, “every student had something they liked about the experiment[s]. I think they all enjoyed using [actual objects] rather than reading about it.”

The Sunnyside 2nd graders did something wonderful recently. Not too long ago, Mrs. Gomez, Sunnyside’s 2nd grade teacher, got involved in a project that not only enhances her students’ reading, but also help promote reading in the lower grades. Mrs. Gomez had her kids make books and then have them read it to the lower grades! What a spectacular idea to help promote reading.

Mrs. Gomez started the project sometime around February. She had her kids spend about forty five minutes making the books to be read to the lower grades. Most of the books are actually fairly short. The majority of the books contain about five pages. Her students were asked to choose a topic, then write a story based on the topic. Some of her students wrote about their birthdays, while others write about their favorite superheroes, like Spiderman. After they got done finishing their stories, Mrs. Gomez’s students then proceeded to illustrate their books. They did drawings on their books to make the books look really good.

Before the students went to the lower grades to read their books, Mrs. Gomez encouraged her kids to practice reading on their own. She helped her students practice their intonation as well as their pronounciation. When Mrs. Gomez was fairly sure that her kids were feeling confident, she then took them to Mr. Gutierrez’s 1st grade class where they read to Mr. Gutierrez’s students. Mrs. Gomez also took her kids to read for Mrs. Gonzalez’s Kindergarten class. After every reading session, which normally took about twenty minutes, Mrs. Gomez would then ask questions to the younger kids to see if they remember what they heard from Mrs. Gomez’s students.

The project so far had been successful. According to Mrs. Gomez, she could see the excitement in her kids as well as the younger ones. What was also good about the project is that the younger kids have a role model for reading... Mrs. Gomez’s students! Mrs. Gomez said she got the idea to do this project when she was still back in Mexico teaching. She said that when she was teaching middle school students in Mexico, she had her students read to the elementary students. Now she is using what she learned in Mexico and applied it here at Golden Rule. Keep up with the good work Mrs. Gomez, and say hi to your wonderful readers!