The MUS Lower School Blog

Seventh grade Honor Council reps

Josiah Crutchfield and Smith Duncan were elected this morning in the Honor Council run-off elections to serve as the two seventh-grade representatives for the 2012-2013 Lower School Honor Council. Congratulations, fellas!

School clubs starting to form

Introducing: The LEGO Club and the Computer Club. We had lunch today to discuss mission and purpose. From left to right: seventh graders Jacob Webb, Jason Wang, Landon Springfield (LEGO), and Omkar Hosad (Computer).

Art of Problem Solving at MUS

The Art of Problem Solving website is a fun, creative resource that the MUS Math Department employs within our curriculum. Art of Problem Solving was founded by Richard Rusczyk in 2003 to create interactive educational opportunities for avid math students.

Here's a sample; you may have to turn up your volume:

 

Pretty cool stuff.

Nutrition is a national school discussion

If you are interested in the Back-to-School Food Revolution, you may want to check out what lunch looks like at schools across the USA.  

OLSAT comes next Tuesday

All seventh-grade students will take the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) immediately following advising on Tuesday morning, September 4, the first day of school following Labor Day. This is an important benchmark test, assisting us as we grow to understand your son's school ability. Please make sure that he is on time, well-rested, and well-fed. MUS will mail score reports when they are available.

Crate up

With PE classes canceled this Friday (the coaches will have arrived home early in the morning from our Thursday night game in Fayetteville, AR), during the scheduled PE periods we will organize lockers in preparation for the Labor Day weekend. The crate (pictured above) serves as an excellent shelf for our students, and we highly suggest that each boy have one, or the equivalent ,serving as a shelf in his locker.

Now, given the old adage "just because you sleep in a garage doesn't make you a car," we offer, "just because you have a shelf doesn't mean that you are organized." Like this guy:

This is a crate functioning as a basket of woe. Turned on its side and functioning as intended, it should look more like this:

Much better. This boy no doubt will experience a more calm exchange between classes.

A cursory locker check along the seventh grade hallway produced 70% of lockers with either no shelf and therefore a mess or some semblance of an impotent structure feigning shelfdom. The house of cards looks about to fall, in other words.

Come check out your son's system either before or after Friday's drill. Our goal is that he have the ability to re-shelve and extract his necessary materials in the 5-minute interval between classes with as much order as possible.

Get well, Coach Bakke!

Recovering from his unscheduled appendectomy yesterday, Coach Matt Bakke donated his discarded parts to the MUS Science Department, currently on display in the Springfield Foyer of the Hull Lower School, Ray Table.

"We appreciate Coach Bakke's contribution in light of our enhanced STEM curricular focus. It took a lot of guts," offered Bill Taylor, holder of The Ruth McCaughan Morrison Instructor of Science Chair.

Do ask, do tell: Online activity

More from the question: Do you know what your kids are doing online? If you are interested in some recent info, McAfee did a study that caught our eyes, especially after a week of parents reporting to us that Junior is not doing his homework and/or not achieving the same good grades as he did last year.

Maybe his trusted social media life could use some verification? Just sayin'.

The complications from monitoring our kids and establishing boundaries and consequences compounds into some real family problems of a different nature when identity theft potentially resulting from kids online activity enters the equation. The Consumer Federation of America Best Practices offers helpful details for examining comparisons among popular identity theft services, if you're interested.

Learning to eat healthily

Is this guy serious? He just finished a slice of pizza before this shot, thus the box remnant at left.

A quick review by our local nutrition authority reports the following:

Without pizza:

1600 cal
88g fat (10 saturated)
3949mg sodium
190g carbs (61g sugar)
**31g Protein!

With a slice of cheese pizza:

1840 cal
95g fat
4270mg sodium
216g carbs (63g sugar)
41g protein

Very interesting.

Chips, fried parts, and fries, O, my! At least he drinks a water with this gut-bomb.

Looks like these boys need either a better knowledge of food nutrition, or they need a whoopin'.

Conversely, looks like the schools in Cleveland, OH are taking healthy eating seriously. One of the goals there caught our attention, "by the time (the younger students) get to high school they should have a good knowledge of nutrition and the food available to them,” reported one school cafeteria manager.

Like this guy:

There you go, son! Water, some greens, the fish, and, believe it or not, no candy. We thinks we sees some knowledge about healthy, tasty eating choices.

The boys' nutrition knowledge supporting their recognition of what's available to eat is one of our clear goals this year. Sadly, we too often see the boys choosing poorly, and we want to help them choose better without making lunch a drag. Ask your son what he's eating at school. Show him these photos of today's lunch. Which of these is not like the other?

Maybe your input will aid his maturing palate as he learns to apply some healthy choices.

Campus Beautification

  

Watch out, ServiceMaster! Seventh-grader, Barry Klug, presents a formidable challenge to would-be competitors.

 

Seventh-grader, Chang Yu, fires off into his routine nose down, promoting a circular cleaning consistency to the envy of his admiring onlookers.

Upper School principal Mr. Barry Ray pauses before his successful exercise in Governing Dynamics as he rearranged the plastic cutlery dispensers away from the food area entry doors, providing efficient maneuvering room amongst the various towers. The onlooking Leigh MacQueen and John Murry Springfield would approve of the demonstration supporting the students' deliberate, ordered economy.