Lexington Middle School

Kids Choice Awards
find out more about 4th Kids Choice Awards

We are excited to be hosting our fourth Kids Choice Awards Program this spring at Lexington Middle School. Our first two award programs were called the Fushigi Awards, the third program was call the Random Awards and the fourth program with be the Rubiks Awards.

In generations past it was an honor to have good work hung on the refrigerator door. Does anyone remember the pride and accomplishment when your mother took that outstanding homework project or art project and stuck it to the refrigerator door? For our students the refrigerator door as been replaced by a website to show their work off to the world.

The idea of having a Kids Choice Awards came from a conversation in a car on the drive back from the ISTE conference in Denver, Colorado in the summer of 2010. We had just heard Alan November talk about encouraging and inspiring students to create their best work. This idea that Alan November presented lead us to a discussion about two main themes.
The first was, why are are students not completing assignments or projects with their best work? The second question was how can we  motivate our students to do their best work? The answer we came up with was that we needed to recognize outstanding work. We needed to hold it up to the rest of our students and show them what was possible and to be proud of doing your best work. This needed to be big this need to be beyond the classroom, this needed to involve the community. But that wasn't big enough this needed to involve the world, and so the idea was started a Kids Choice Awards to be hosted the day before Winter Break and another program to be hosted the day before Summer Vacation. The vision for two awards shows each year was to showcase outstanding student work sooner and to allow other students and opportunity to see what their peers where creating and then still have time to raise their level of work. We felt like just having one at the end of the year would not allow students a chance to improve on their projects and would maybe lose that motivation in the summer.

Has the Kids Choice Program been a success?  Like anything and everything you have differ opinions. Some teachers and students really enjoy the program while others are not so sure about it. Let's look at some statistics and then you can form your own opinion. The first program which was called the Fushigi Awards after the Fushigi Ball that was given as an award to each winner had 98 projects in 7 different categories nominated by 9 teachers. This program, 1 year later will have around 300 student projects in 18 different categories nominated by over 20 different teachers. It is a good deal that we have this site, because we would never find a refrigerator door large enough for all those projects.

Please browse our previous Kids Choice Program websites:

The very first The Fushigi Awards
The second program The Fushigi Awards '11
The third program The Random Awards

We would also like to invite you to follow our program live on ustream.  This is our way of sharing our Kids Choice Awards with the world. 

Summer Reading

"The library in summer is the most wonderful thing because there you get books on any subject and read them each for only as long as they hold your interest, abandoning any that don't, halfway or a quarter of the way through if you like, and store up all that knowledge in the happy corners of your mind for your own self and not to show off how much you know ..."
- Polly Horvath, My One Hundred Adventures

With barely a dozen days left of the school year, many are dreaming of a relaxing summer.  Others have already begun to make summer plans - trips to the pool, family vacations, summer camps, summer school, etc.  I would like to suggest that before your schedule is completely filled, chisel out a bit of time to read.  As the quote (above) suggests, summer is your chance to read exactly what you want! 

The public library is a great option for your reading needs as is the school library.  This summer, you can check out books at LMS during the month of June on Mondays and Thursdays from 12:30 - 3:00 p.m.  Just in case you don't have books on your summer reading list, here are a few I read (or re-read) this year that might be worth your consideration:

Student Teacher

My name is Allyn Ochsner and I am currently student teaching with Mrs. Carnes.  I am a student from UNK and my endorsements are Early Childhood unified and ESL.  I spent the first 8 weeks of this semester in a preschool classroom where centers are the main avenue to learning and I was referred to as Mrs. Allyn instead of Mrs. Ochsner.  The transition between thinking as a preschool teacher to teaching middle school English language learning students was interesting, and I have enjoyed it so much.  What amazes me the most is the progress I have seen from students, even in the short time I have been working with them.   I have enjoyed getting to work with the students and getting to know them on a more personal level.  While teaching social studies, it is easy to relate the content to the students lives and show how history can be the same as how things are now.  It makes history become real to the students and opens the opportunity to get to know the students better. I have enjoyed my time here in Lexington and am thankful for the kindness I was shown and the teachers I got to spend my days with.

Where Were You Born?

When I first started teaching in Lexington 18 years ago, we use to display what kindergarten each of our high school graduates attended.  In 1995, Lexington had 52 different kindergartens represented from around the world.  We still have students in our middle school from around the world.  Last week, my TeamMate mentee, Job and I started a little project.  We wanted to find out how many different places LMS students were born.  We went to PowerSchool and did a search of all 588 students currently enrolled at LMS.  I think most people would be surprised at the results.  What percentage of LMS students do you think were born in Lexington?  How many students were born in Kearney?  What about the percentage of students that are Huskers, born right here in the great state of Nebraska?  Here are the numbers Job and I discovered:

Total LMS Students    588
Lexington    270
46% LEX native
Kearney    40
Omaha, NE    8
Grand Island NE    7
Lincoln, NE    4
North Platte, NE    3
Broken Bow, NE    2
Cozad, NE    2
Fremont, NE    2
Gothenburg, NE    2
Hastings, NE    2
Ogallala, NE    2
Aurora, NE    1
Bellevue, NE    1
Cambridge, NE    1
Columbus, NE    1
Crete, NE    1
Holdrege, NE    1
McCook, NE    1
Schuyler, NE    1
Norfolk, NE    1
Nebraska towns =    83 or 14%
Huskers =    353 or 60%
California    56
Texas    21
Colorado    13
Washington    6
Illinois    5
Arizona    4
Florida    3
Georgia    3
Iowa    3
Missouri    3
Nevada    3
Oregon    2
Virginia    2
Arkansas    1
Kansas    1
Kentucky    1
Massachusetts    1
Michigan    1
Ohio    1
Wyoming    1
other states =    131 or 22%
Mexico    49
Guatamala    18
Kenya    11
El Salvador    6
Somalia    5
Honduras    2
Liberia    1
Guinea    1
Canada    1
India    1
Panama    1
foreign countries =    96 or 16%

ELL Trip To UNK

This past Monday, the Freedom Team embarked on a field trip to UNK. They met with a panel of UNK students who answered their questions. Then, the students had an opportunity to take a tour of the campus. They visited a residence hall and got to look inside one of the dorm rooms. They took a peak inside the library and swung by Bruner Hall of Science. One group even saw a presentation in the planetarium! A highlight for many was seeing and partaking in all the cafeteria had to offer. The field trip was concluded with visits to Harmon and Yanney parks. It was an exhausting day, but it was worthwhile!