FMS Celebrates During Michigan's Winter Wonderland!

It is that time of year when we are ALL ready to be done with the dreary, gray winter that Michigan loves to present us with in January and February. To power through this sometimes difficult time of the year we are doing a lot of celebrating, and engaging in some fun and exciting activities!

Special Olympics

Mrs. Child's room recently went to the 2017 Special Olympics. Students had an absolutely wonderful time engaging in a variety of outdoor winter activities at Apple Mountain. Thank you to Mrs. Childs, volunteers, and Apple Mountain for supporting our students with this incredible event.

Talent Show

A huge congratulations goes out to those students who participated in the talent show this year. We had some amazing groups and individuals participate in the show this year. From comedy acts to piano duets, to rock bands, and more, all students did an incredible job showcasing their talents during the 2017 Freeland Middle School talent show!

Geography Bee
We had eight students participate in our first ever Freeland Middle School Geography Bee recently. Congratulations to all students who participated, and to our middle school first place winner, Marcus Bader! Marcus went on to take the state level test to see if he will qualify for the state level Geography Bee in March.

MLK Youth Symposium

Several of our 8th grade students recently attended an MLK Youth Symposium with Mr. Schwedler to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy as a civil rights leader, change agent, and inspiration to this country. Max Lee did an excellent job representing Freeland Middle School as he spoke about his perspective on current political issues facing our country and world.


7th grade Team Project Based Learning Experience

Our 7th grade team is working through their second year of a team-wide project based learning experience. The focus this year is on investigating potential career pathways for our students. The students are in the midst of using our Career Cruising software to identify two career pathways that could be a good direction to go based on their personal interests. Students will continue their work by studying a specific career in their pathway, designing a presentation based on this career, writing and reflecting on this career, and then in April, we will host a Career Fair in which students will visit various classrooms where a representative from different careers will discuss their work with students. If you know of anyone who would be available and interested in sharing their career with our middle school students during our Career Fair please contact Mrs. Wulff at wulffr@freelandschools.net.

Honor Roll and Merit Roll at FMS

The results are in, and we have 244 students who have made the Honor or Merit Roll this year! Wow, this is incredible, and we are so proud of our students at Freeland Middle School. If your child made the Honor or Merit Roll for first semester, you will be receiving a letter in the mail inviting you to a ceremony in which we will honor these students. The ceremony will be Friday, February 17th at 1:40pm in the auditorium. Thank you to all of our FMS students for your hard work!

Talent Show

Freeland Middle School is proud to announce that we have 12 acts for our 2017 Talent show! Parents are welcome to attend the show. It will begin at 1:00pm, and will wrap up by 2:23pm. The show is next Friday, February 3rd in the auditorium. If parents do choose to attend, please check in at the middle school main office before going to the auditorium. Do NOT check in at the high school office.

We cannot wait to see the talent that Freeland Middle School has to offer this year. Below is a snapshot of just a few of the incredible acts we have planned for this year!

Exam Preperation

It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of first semester. To better prepare for semester exams, below are tons of Exam Study tips, presentations, and videos. All students have had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Tomsich, our College/Career Advisor, to learn about how to best study for exams. Additionally, our homeroom this week will provide some good reminders for students on how to study. 

Below is our exam schedule: 

Wednesday, January 25th          7:35-7:50 1st hour exam review

                                                            7:50-9:25 1st hour exam

                                                            9:25-9:30 Break

                                                9:35-10:34 report to 2nd hour to review for upcoming exams

                                                            10:34-11:08 Lunch

                                                            11:08-12:43 2nd hour exam

                                                            12:43-12:48 break

                                                            12:48-2:23 3rd hour exam

Thursday, January 26th                7:35-9:15 4th hour exam

                                                            9:15-9:25 break

                                                            9:30-11:10 5th hour exam

Friday, January 27th         7:35-9:15 6th hour exam

                                                            9:15-9:25 break

                                                            9:30-11:10 7th hour exam

Additionally, here are some of the resources provided to students to help them best prepare for exams:

Exam Test Taking Tips and Resources

To help YOU prepare for exams, our Freeland Parent Support Organization (FPSO) is putting on its 3rd annual Exam Cram. Below are details:

When is it? Friday, January 20th from 2:30-5:00pm
Where is it? Freeland Middle School
What is it? A space for you to have 20-30 minutes per class to study with your peers in a fun but productive way!
Will there be food? Yes, we will provide each student with pizza (no charge), orange drink from McDonald's and/or water, and some candy prizes in class to keep you energized throughout the session! 
Where do I sign up? There is still time to sign up in the middle school office, OR in your homeroom time Friday, January 13th. You can go even if you didn't sign up, but we would like to know ahead of time if possible.

What if I have questions? See Mrs. Wulff!

Finally, make sure that you take 10 minutes to fill out this Parent Survey for the middle school. We use this data to guide us in improving your child's educational experience here at the middle school!

Middle School Parent Survey

Making the best of a cold December!

What a busy month of December we have had. In fact, this month has been so busy with activities that we have not had time to update you on our happenings in the blog! Below are some snapshots of what we have been doing this month.

Additionally, please take some time to complete the parent survey below for the middle school. This survey will help us to continue to improve our school, and is an opportunity for you to provide us input on what we are doing well, and what we need to continue to work on!

Freeland Middle School Parent Survey

Choir - Caroling at Assisted Living Facilities
Our middle school choir recently went to Bartonwoods and Stone Crest Assisted Living facilities to sing carols to the residents. It was a wonderful afternoon for students, and was a great way for them to give back to the community.

Students Giving Back

Laney Rigg and Jessica Latty recently visited Good Samaritan Rescue Mission in Bay City to do crafts with children who are staying at the rescue mission. This was an opportunity for them to give back to their community, and uplift spirits for the holidays!

Band and Choir Concert
Earlier this month both the band and choir had their Christmas concerts. The house was packed watching these two groups perform. Both did an amazing job!

GRIT Homeroom
We had a homeroom in December focused around our second marking period theme - resilience. This is part two of our year long GRIT theme. First marking period we focused on growth and what it means to have a growth mindset. Next marking period we will be discussing integrity.

2nd Annual Feliz Navi-Dodgeball

Our second annual dodgeball tournament was a HUGE success. None of this could have happened without the organization, planning, and preparation that Mrs. Gotts and the student council put into the event. We had 16 teams participate, and had a full house watching the tournament this year. A huge thank you goes out to the FAA and all teachers who participated in the event. Whether it was working the concessions stand, playing in the teacher round, or being a ref during the game, everyone was involved in making this year's dodgeball tournament one filled with great middle school memories!

Congratulations to the winning team The Snipers!

And a huge shout out to all of our parents who participated in the parent vs. student game!

For even more images of the dodgeball tournament, check out this Google Folder. It is full of images from the entire event!

Have a wonderful winter break and Happy New Year! See you all in 2017. 

Middle School Parent Survey

In order to continue to improve our school, we ask that all parents take time to complete the Middle School survey attached below. This is a survey that will only take about 10 minutes of your time, and is very beneficial for our staff and students!

We will also have this survey available during our February 9th conferences.

Middle School Parent Survey 

Thank you for taking this survey and sharing your thoughts with us. Your responses are appreciated!

The start of a new marking period brings many new adventures...

Wow! It is hard to  believe we have already wrapped up our first marking period and are headed quickly towards our Thanksgiving Break. Where has the time gone this year?

Recently, we have have had a lot of new things going on at the middle school. We had a pep assembly for students as well as a field trip. Both of these have brought our students together and have made our Freeland Middle School family closer! Additionally, we have many genius hour projects that are going exceptionally well. Finally, we also have a lot to celebrate as we honor two students who are our Optimist Club recipients this year.

Pep Assembly

To celebrate the end of the first marking period we had a great pep assembly recognizing students who showed GRIT first semester. We focused on what our second marking period theme will be, Resilience, and also recognized students for their sports and clubs.

Genius Hour

We also have had some great projects going on for our Genius Hour. Genius Hour is a concept that Mrs. Williamson (8th grade ELA) learned about this summer at a conference. The idea is to allow students to explore things they are truly interested in while engaging in essential research skills, presentation skills, and other key literacy skills. Mrs. Williamson is working on Genius Hour every Friday and her students are doing some fantastic work! So far, some of the genius hour projects have focused in on raising money for cancer awareness, making a mark on Freeland Middle School through an 8th grade class mural, collecting items for the Underground Railroad and many more! Students are truly "owning" their learning with these interest projects.

Optimist Club

A huge congratulations goes out to Amanda Comstock and Alex Holt for being chosen by their 8th grade teachers for the Optimist Club award recipient this year. These students are positive leaders in the school, and do a great job making FMS an inviting and positive place to be!

Spirit Game Field Trip

On Wednesday, November 16th our whole school celebrated our GRIT theme by attending a Saginaw Spirit Education Game day. The day started with a STEM exploration at the Dow Event Center where students were able to do things like create replications of their own DNA. Following this, students celebrated together by watching a Saginaw Spirit game. For some students, this was their first ever hockey game and was something they truly enjoyed!

Many... many...many middle school updates!

We have had so many great things happening in the middle school recently. The last two weeks we have spent our lunch periods having a great volleyball tournament. We had over 10 teams participate in this tournament which got 50+ of our students participating in the tournament during this two week period.

Congratulations to our winning team!

Also, thank you to all of those students who participated and watched the tournament for the last two weeks.

What else have we had going on? We just had our first middle school dance! We are so excited about how it went and have to give a huge shout out to Mrs. Gotts and our middle school student council for putting on a great Halloween dance!

Finally, another shout out goes to Mrs. Gotts and her Health class for putting on a fantastic Project Based Learning gallery walk based on various research projects on different systems in the body. Whether it was the cardiovascular system, muscular system, digestive system or more the 8th grade health students knocked it out of the park with their presentations!

Great job Freeland Middle School students and staff - you make us proud to be Falcons. Every Day. Go Green! Go White! Go Falcons!