Softball Fundraisers: Zumbathon & Dining to Donate

Central Cambria Softball Team will be holding two fundraising events in the near future.  The first is a Dining to Donate event at Ebensburg Applebee's on March 1.  Between the hours of 11 a.m. and 9 p.m., 15% of your check will be donated to the softball team.  All you need to do is turn in the flyer pictured below when you pay your bill.  

The second fundraising event is a Zumbathon to be held on March 8 from 4 - 6 p.m. in the Central Cambria High School gym.  Please see the photo below for the registration information for the Zumbathon.

Dining to Donate Flyer

 Zumbathon Event

Dining to Donate for American Heart Association

Capping off our efforts to raise funds for the American Heart Association this past month is our Dining to Donate event.  This Thursday, February 19th, Ebensburg Applebee's will donate 15% of your bill to the American Heart Association.  All you need to do is print out the Dining to Donate flyer below and give it to your server when you pay your bill.  Thank you in advance for your support!

Dining to Donate Flyer

Hoops for Heart

Last Thursday, students in grades 6, 7 and 8 participated in the final event of our 2015 Hoops for Heart fundraising campaign, a faculty vs student basketball game.  Students were selected from each grade level to play basketball against a team of middle school teachers.  While the 6th and 7th graders were not able to secure victories, they appeared to run up and down the court enough to tire out the faculty team.  Fatigue, combined with some questionable officiating and timely shooting on the part of the students, allowed the 8th grade team to dominate their game against the teachers.  During breaks in the game, prizes were given out, students competed in contests, and everybody had an enjoyable time in support of the American Heart Association.  Thank you to Ms. Getz for organizing this event, and for our students and teachers for their generous contributions! 

Mr. Moore & Mr. Klezek unveil the total amount raised by CCMS!

Curriculum & Instruction Update - February 2015

Our teachers are working hard to use technology effectively in their classrooms under the direction and support of our new K-12 technology coach, Mr. Strittmatter.  Our laptop carts and computer lab are booked every day as teachers experiment with new technology resources to engage their students and enhance learning.  In January, we rolled out our first cart of Google Chromebooks, and it has been used on a consistent basis ever since.  Teachers are experimenting with lessons designed around Bring Your Own Technology, using Google Docs on a consistent basis, and finding new tech resources to use with students.

CCMS Social Studies teachers have begun the process of selecting a new textbook and teaching resources for grades 6, 7 and 8 social studies.  Our current books have significant age and wear, and lack up to date electronic teaching tools to enhance lessons.  During our January in-service, teachers reviewed materials offered by Pearson and McGraw-Hill.  On February 13, they will meet with a representative from Houghton-Mifflin.  We hope to have a recommendation for purchase this spring so that we can purchase materials in time for the 2015-16 school year.

In language arts, our 6^th grade Collaborative Literacy class is producing some fantastic results.  The class is on pace to average one year of reading growth by the end of this school year.  This is taking place with a group of students who have never achieved at that level in reading.  The teamwork taking place among the teachers of the class and the students is commendable.  In 8^th grade, new non-fiction works have been purchased to serve as the basis for units on Flight 93 and the Johnstown flood.  Curriculum sequence and modules have been created for implementation in 2015-16 using these new materials.  Due to the emphasis on non-fiction text required under the new standards, the teachers felt this was an area of need.  We had purchased new materials for grades 6 and 7 last year, so these purchases continue the updating of our materials in language arts.  Our goal in 2015-16 will be to plan a cross-curricular unit in 8^th grade incorporating social studies and language arts centered around Pennsylvania history and the Johnstown flood.  Finally, in language arts, our teachers who attended the Keystone State Reading Association conference in November developed and presented an in-service session to the middle school faculty at our January in-service.  The presentation focused on vocabulary strategies, and was videotaped so that teachers in other buildings could view the session.

Our club schedule during 9^th period is up and running.  Each student has been scheduled for a club one day out of their six-day cycle during our Intervention/Enrichment period.  We view clubs as a form of enrichment based on student interests.  Examples of clubs that our teachers are offering our:  History club, Fit club, Book club, Photography club, Math/Chess club, Art club and Science club.  Altogether we have 12 clubs up and running.  The Cooking Club is our most popular club right now, under the direction of Mrs. Fisher.  The Nutrition Group has graciously offered to supply ingredients for the club.  We are excited about offering a wider variety of options for our students.

Donors Choose

DonorsChoose.org is a website that allows teachers to create projects where they can request items for their classroom that were not covered within our budget.  Several CCMS teachers have received funding for a variety of items through this program.  There are currently two projects at the middle school which are active.  You search and view projects by zip code if you are interested.  As always, we appreciate all support from our school community.  Link to Donors Choose Site.

Box Tops Round 2 Deadline

The deadline for the second round of our Box Tops for Education contest is this Wednesday, January 14th.  The first round brought in funds that have already been put to use in purchasing additional books for our library.  Thank you for participating!

Hour of Code!

On Tuesday, December 9, 2014, Central Cambria Middle School students participated in the international Hour of Code event.  The Hour of Code is an activity designed to give students a first taste of computer programming, and is conducted during Computer Science Week.  Last Tuesday, our math classes were taken over for the purpose of computer coding.  Students worked through coding tasks using a simplified format.  Students were then able to see what their lines of code would look like in Java format.  When students were done with their coding activity, they were able to complete extension activities and code in more complex formats.  Students genuinely seemed to enjoy the opportunity to code.  As a result of this activity, we had 25 students sign up for our Coding Club, which will begin after the holiday break.

If you would like your child to continue their exploration of coding, here are some web resources that will help:

http://code.org/

http://www.tynker.com/

http://www.codecademy.com/

https://www.khanacademy.org/

http://scratch.mit.edu/

http://thefoos.com/     

Thank you to Heather Niebauer and Joe Strittmatter for organizing Central Cambria’s Hour of Code event!

Ms. Minor's 6th grade students are coding!

Mr. Mazzarella's 7th grade coders!

Mr. Kochinsky and Mrs. Niebauer facilitating our Hour of Code event.

CCMS Employee of the Month

To recognize exemplary job performance by members of our CCMS faculty and staff this year, we have created an Employee of the Month award.  Each month we recognize a teacher or other staff member who has exhibited exemplary performance.  Please read below for a recap of this our employees of the month up to this point in the school year.

December Employee of the Month:  Mrs. Heather Niebauer, Gifted & Language Arts teacher

Mrs. Niebauer was chosen because she continually seeks new and exciting learning opportunities for her students.  The most recent example of this is the Hour of Code event that all Central Cambria students in grades K - 12 will be participating in next week.  Mrs. Niebauer organized this event and her students will be assisting with it.  This is one example of the initiative that Mrs. Niebauer takes to consistently improve her program.  Rather than resting on her laurels, she continues to go above and beyond to do a great job for our students.  For her consistent willingess to strive for "greatness" over "good enough," Mrs. Niebauer is our December Employee of the Month.

November Employee of the Month:  Ms. Gretchen Getz, Physical Education teacher

Ms. Getz was selected because she has been a positive contributor to our school through the first few months of the school year.  Ms. Getz has worked to adjust her curriculum to our new Exploratory rotation schedule, infusing new ideas and activities for her students.  Ms. Getz jumped headfirst into our Writing Across the Curriculum initiative by creating an informative writing prompt for her students.  She went further by incorporating the use of GoogleDocs to facilitate the writing process in her class.  In fact, she was the first CCMS teacher to have her students use GoogleDocs on a wide-scale basis.  In addition to her efforts in the classroom, Ms. Getz devoted a significant amount of time to planning our first annual Safe Halloween Night along with our other Student Council advisors.  For her willingness to take the lead of instructional initiatives that will enhance learning, Ms. Getz is our November Employee of the Month.

October Employee of the Month:  Ms. Jessie Minor, Math teacher

Ms. Minor was recognized as our October employee of the month due to the tremendous amount of growth and improvement she has exhibited so far in her second year of teaching.  Ms. Minor has devoted time and effort into honing her craft, evidenced by her attendance at a summer math institute at St. Francis this past summer.  By attending, she was able to secure grant money that we will use to enhance our math program.  For her perseverance and ability to seek opportunities for growth, Ms. Minor is our October Employee of the Month.

September Employee of the Month:  Ms. Robin Ribarich, Guidance Counselor

Ms. Ribarich was picked as our inaugural employee of the month due to her willingness to go above and beyond her job description to serve our students' needs at the highest possible level.  Ms. Ribarich put in a tremendous amount of time and effort during the scheduling process over the summer.  She serves as a Student Council advisor and is a member of several school committees.  Whenever a student needs to discuss a situation, Ms. Ribarich is always there to listen.  Ms. Ribarich organizes our Americorps program, our SAP team, and was a key player in securing a grant to provide the Botvin Life Skills curriculum in our Family & Consumer Science classes.  Ms. Ribarich conducts guidance lessons on a consistent basis and continually exceeds expectations in creating a positive and caring climate for students within our school.  For her dedication to CCMS, Ms. Ribarich is our September Employee of the Month.

American Education Week at CCMS!

In honor of American Education Week, taking place this week, I thought I would provide our blog readers with an update on some of the great things taking place here at CCMS.  

In the past month, we have had an exciting variety of activities taking place:

• Mike Hall came to CCMS to share his anti-bullying message, and encourage students to go from Zero to Hero by focusing on their own self-worth and qualities.  This is the third year in a row Mike has spoken to our students, and his message is always well-received.
• We hosted our first annual Safe Halloween Night on October 29th.  The event was a great success, as we had over 350 children show up for the festivities.  Thank you to all who helped make this event a success!
• Our teachers are working hard to use technology effectively in their classrooms under the direction and support of our new K-12 technology coach, Mr. Strittmatter.  Our laptop carts and computer lab are booked every day as teachers experiment with new technology resources to engage their students and enhance learning.
• Implementation of our new textbook resources in math and science continues to go well.  Our teachers are adjusting their curriculum as they proceed through the new PA Core standards for the first time in an effort to provide our students with the best education possible.  Our math and language arts teachers meet once per 6-day cycle in professional learning communities to talk about the curriculum, assessment, and instruction in those subjects.  Our science teachers are meeting each quarter to build their upcoming curriculum and come up with ideas for hands-on science activities to enhance student learning.  
• In language arts, we are continuing to work through the PA Core standards for the first time.  In 6th grade, our Collaborative Literacy class is making a significant impact on students' reading levels.  Were were able to offer this class due to the expansion of Title I funding to 6th grade at CCMS.  In 8th grade, we are working on building some cross-curricular content that will be taught in conjunction with our social studies class.  
• Student growth data from our 2013-14 PVAAS report showed that every language arts teacher at CCMS made at last one year's worth of growth with their students in reading, with several teachers exceeding the projection and moving students beyond one year's worth of learning.  This is a very positive indicator of effective instruction taking place in those classrooms.
• Due to teacher and student use of our laptops and computer lab, we will be adding a cart of Google Chromebooks to our tech resources in the coming weeks.  It is our hope that funding will become available to expand beyond this so that we can continue the positive momentum we have had with technology this year.
• We are exploring the idea of adding additional club opportunities for students during our 9th period.  Students will be surveyed next week about their interest in clubs, and teachers have already begun coming up with ideas for clubs they would like to offer.  We are excited about the possibility of offering a wider variety of options for our students.
• Our Box Tops for Education contest, round 2, is underway.  In round 1, three 6th grade classrooms took the top three spots.  We raised a significant amount of money from box tops in round 1, which will be used to purchase additional books for our middle school library.  Thank you for participating in this collection!
• Our girls' basketball team participated Lady Lions Education Day at Penn State this past Friday.  The girls went around to educational booths set up in the Bryce Jordan Center, watched the Lady Lions win their home opener, and got their picture taken with the Nittany Lion.  

Reading Competition Team

Congratulations to our CCMS Reading Competition Team on their second place finish at their competition last night.  Thank you Mrs. Dziack and Mrs. Urbassik for coaching the team!