January 25, 2016

Life 101 - Spring Session

Our Life 101 programing continues this week with our mini-courses, speaker series and seminars. The 8^th graders will participate in creating personal mission statements, Briggs-Meyer personality testing, and leadership. The 7^th graders will rotate through the mini-courses including: Ethics, Nutrition, Mindfulness, and Creativity. The 6^th graders will participate in our speaker series covering topics such as; mindfulness, honor (presented by our Upper School Honor Council), Digital Citizenship, Drug and Alcohol prevention, and Learning to Follow One's Passion. 

Upcoming Class Trips 

As we look forward to Spring, we’d like to announce our Class Trips for 2016. On May 4-7, all middle school students will be off campus on their annual class trips with their classmates. The 6^th grade will travel to Colonial Williamsburg. The 7^th grade will head to Washington, DC, to tour national museums and participate in debates. The 8^th grade will embark upon an incredible leadership program with Outward Bound in Boone, North Carolina.  Please mark your calendar for these trips. Further information will be sent home in the coming weeks with specific details about each trip. Our class trips are a fundamental part of our students' overall experience in the middle school, and we are very excited about the itineraries for this year’s trips.

Winterim Reflection & Feedback - Students & Parents

As we wrap up Winterim for 2016, students had an opportunity to reflect and write about their Winterim experience in Advisory. This feedback is vital to the continued improvement of our program. In addition, we want to give parents an opportunity to provide the same type of feedback. Please click on the link below and tell us what your thoughts are and how your child’s experience was for this year's program. Additionally ,there will be space to make suggestions that you believe might improve Winterim in the future. Thank you in advance for your feedback. We take this information seriously as we strive to provide valuable learning experiences for all students. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/portergaudwinterim

For a recap of the 2016 Winterim experince for our students, please enjoy this slideshow filled with pictures from across the Lowcountry and across the country. As you scroll, you may click on the pictures to enlarge the images. 

The Porter-Gaud Middle School Math Team competed in the SCISA Math Meet on Wednesday, January 20th at the Sumter County Civic Center in Sumter, S.C. Thirty-six teams of five students each took part in the event.  Our 8th grade team earned 2nd place honors and our 7th grade team finished in 4th place among the 36 competing teams from across the Palmetto State.

Eighth Grader Thomas Allen was the high point scorer for Team 1 and Channing Joye was high point scorer for Team 2. Thomas placed 2nd individually, Channing placed 7th individually, and Christian Weichsel placed 8th individually among the 180 competitors. Congratulations to the students on a wonderful performance. Go Cyclones!

Team #1 - Thomas Allen, Finn Gottlieb, Brendan Kelleher, Christian Weichsel & Louis Werber

Team #2 - Wilkes Cramer, Owen Curtis, Luke Flynn, Channing Joye & Burke Thompson

Alternate - Conolly Burgess

The American Red Cross will be here on Friday, February 5th from 8AM-2PM. Please, please consider donating if you are able/eligible. This is a competition versus Pinewood Preparatory School, but more importantly, they are in critical need for all blood types (http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20160119/PC16/160119315). Please email Gretchen Tate (gtate@portergaud.edu)  your preferred appointment time and hopefully you will be in and out within 45 minutes - and save up to 3 lives in the process! 

This semester the 7^th and 8^th grade students will have bi-weekly seminars on Health and Wellness as an extension of Life 101. These lessons will take place during the 90-minute block study hall on Wednesdays or Thursdays. The first seminar is based on Carol Dweck’s work on Mindset and how the brain learns. This session discusses overcoming failures and setbacks and viewing them as opportunities to grow and to learn. We also measure each students capacity for GRIT, a term used to describe characteristics such as fortitude, perseverance, determination, tenacity and other such important life skills. The goal in this series is to give our students a sense of how to overcome obstacles and push through challenges using the knowledge that the brain learns most when it’s challenged and that intellect is not “fixed”.

SCISA Spelling Bee Champs 

Porter-Gaud captured 1st place in the SCISA Regional Spelling Bee team competition held earlier this month at Lowcountry Preparatory School in Pawley’s Island, SC.  Each school was allowed to send 2 representatives from grades 3 through 8. Of the 16 competitors in each grade level, 2 winners were named. Each student earned 1 point for competing, and bonus points were awarded to each school for students who placed in the top 4 in each grade level.

Porter-Gaud conducted grade level spelling bee competitions back in November. The winning Porter-Gaud team consisted of:

6^th Grade: Drew Dupps & Sophie Levenson

7^th Grade: Gavin Milligan & Ashley Yoon

8^th Grade: Spencer Roskill & Courtenay White

At the end of the day, Porter-Gaud had named 6 Regional Winners! This gave the P-G team a total of 48 points and overall 1st place in the regional competition.  Congratulation to our Middle School Spellers! 

Porter-Gaud Middle School Regional Winners:

Sophie Levenson (6^th Grade)

Gavin Milligan (7^th Grade)

Ashley Yoon (7^th Grade)

Spencer Roskill (8^th Grade)

Courtenay White (8^th Grade)

Regional winners advance to the SCISA State Spelling Bee to be held on February 10^th at Williamsburg Academy located in Kingstree, SC.