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• I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I would like to take this opportunity to say "thank you" to everyone who brought cards and food items for Operation Cards and Care Packages.  I was able to send four care packages to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank in Afganistan.  Each box contained hygiene items, food, Christmas cards, drawings, and "bricks" from our Wall of Freedom which was created by the students in grades 6-12.  Again, thank you for making the Charlie Unit's Christmas a little merrier!
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• 7th Grade Reading - Mrs. Seibel
• The two sections of Reading have read the novels, Shooting Kabul and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, as part of our war story collection.  Shooting Kabul follows one Afghan family as they flee the Taliban in the middle of the night for asylum in America. Tragically, the youngest daughter is separated and left behind.  Adjusting to life in the United States isn't easy, and as the events of September 11 unfold, the prospects of locating Mariam in a war-torn Afghanistan seem impossible.  On the other hand, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas takes place during the Holocaust time period at the concentration camp called Auschwitz.  Nine year old Bruno is upset when his family must leave their comfortable home in Berlin for a cold, nasty new house in Poland. As he looks out of his bedroom window, he sees people in striped pajamas who appear to live in huts on the other side of a barbed-wire fence.  Later Bruno goes exploring and discovers a boy named Shmuel on the other side of the fence.  Soon they learn that they have many similarities and differences, and a friendship forms between them.  Their lives forever change when Bruno and Schmuel scheme to find Schmuel's missing father inside the camp fence.
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• 8th Reading - Mrs. Seibel
• I have introduced the 8th grade students to "The Holocaust" where we have talked about WWII, Adolf Hitler, Anne Frank, and the Holocaust.  A big part of this unit is reading a story from that time period in biography form or about teen witnesses of the Holocaust. Another part of this unit is to write reflections over the information and give personal feelings felt while reading each chapter. When we return, we will read the Diary of Anne Frank in drama form.
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• 9th grade Health - Mrs. Seibel
• This second quarter we have learned about the following topics in Health Education class: sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and AIDS, how to be a proficient consumer by knowing the signs of quackery in advertising, knowing what our consumer rights are, how to give CPR to an adult, child, and infant, how to use the AED, how

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