Spring 2016
Holocaust Education Day
Issue 3
Students compete in Geo. Bee By Sofia Paredes
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Tennis
The Geography Bee was a competition in which independent schools from all over South Florida sent students to compete in, but in order to send these students, they had to go through a whole process. First, a quiz was given to all Miami Country Day middle school students in their social studies class. This quiz covered world geography and was very difficult, since we had learned about very little of questions in school. The quiz did not count for a grade, but the four students that scored the highest from each grade then moved on to the next round. The next round took place in an assembly in front of all of middle school in which the 12 were asked questions about geography. If you got two questions wrong, you were eliminated and were asked to sit down; the five students that were left on the stage were then going to move on to compete at the Geography Bee with other schools. At some point in the assembly, five students were asked to sit down, but there were four students left on the stage. The five students that were asked to sit down were asked to come up to the stage again, where they competed for the last spot on the Geography team. The last two students that were competing for last spot were Matias Lacau and Isabel Bozdogan. After being asked many questions each, Matias Lacau
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Photo by Mrs. Greenfield
From left: Luc de Wilde, Matias Lacau, Itai Arguetty, Sofia Paredes, Tamara Bhardwaj won the competition. Competing on the actual stage to be in the team made me very nervous because I knew that if I answered more than one question incorrectly, I would not be in the team; I was also nervous because I had to think fast when I was asked
a question in front of all of middle school. Also, some of the questions asked were very difficult.
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Thespians act like winners By Belle Greenberg
8th grade trip
The Jr. Thespians are back and better than ever! After leaving their first competition with seven 'superiors,' the highest rating, and two ‘excellents’, the second highest rating, the MCDS middle school Jr. Thespians rocked the stage at the state competition. The Jr. Thespians left the competition with 10 ‘superiors’, three EXCELLENT, one ‘good’, and even a Critics Choice Award! The Jr. Thespians performed in many different categories such as drama, singing, and makeup. All of the competitors performed amazingly and went home with nothing but wins.
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Staff Editor-in-chief: Ananda NavesPenkwitt Head Copy Editor: Belle Greenberg Reporters: Rachel Hodes Ilan Zenatti
“I am overjoyed and overwhelmed,” said Pops, the co-founder of the Jr. Thespians. “Mrs. Avalos and I took this project for the first time in MCDS history. Just with the idea of getting our feet wet and familiarizing ourselves with the competing for the coming years, so that they were SUPERIOR in Districts, and then again in
Photo by Rachel Hodes
Mrs. Avalos and Pops led the junior thespians to success at Districts and States. States was surreal. I’m so proud of them and I’m looking forward to next year, and adding more Jr. Thespians next year in the competition.” “I was excited to perform and see others perform,” said Anastasia Brosda, a competitor who performed a monologue at the competition. “I also liked watching the group acts in the big theater.”
“I was most excited about seeing other performances from the rest of our school, because each performance is different, and it is exciting seeing how everyone has improved both with confidence and style,” said Camryn Davis, who sang at the competition.
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Midterms move to January By Rachel Hodes Midterms, oh midterms, everyone's favorite. This year for the first time in many years, the midterms in the middle school moved from December to the end of January. “We felt students were too pressured before their winter break from midterm exams, plus it wasn't really enough time,” said Mr. Mathes, the director of the middle school. “The second quarter does not end until the end of January anyway, so it turned out they were taking midterms and then continuing with the second quarter for another two weeks, so it made no sense.” “I went to each sixth grade home room and talked to them,” said Mr. Mathes. “I think most of them think it is better to have one exam a day. Since we took off the table, at least for next year, the idea that it would be between before winter break that’s not an issue it has to be where it is. I think most of them wanted to see
one exam a day. So it isn’t impossible to go back to that. I want to get everyone’s opinion and I want to get parents opinions because many of the parents have problems with the kids coming to school for three hours… If we stay at two exams a day, there will be about a three hour break between exams which will include lunch, including probably an hour before the second exam where students return to advisory and have an organized revised study hall for that.” Ms. Cabrera, the assistant director of middle school, is in charge of the schedule for the midterms. Social studies teacher Mrs. Holcman said, “With the change it did not feel like there was a definitive ending to the first semester,” said She did not like the new change in date. She felt that her students were capable of more than what they were being asked to do in that time frame. English teacher, Ms. Lewis, said, "This means I
don’t have to grade six classes of midterms, and in English there is lots of writing." “I would prefer for it to be an hour and a half,” Ms. Lew said. “It’s because I do a lot of writing and if I ask them to write a creative story with vocabulary and then an essay question where they have a choice, they need to take some time to prepare it. Then, I would like them to edit their work and have at least, 10 minutes to go over everything.” Eighth grader, Giulia Zamboli, likes the new change in date for the midterms because it makes it easier for her to study. Giulia does not want a longer break because she doesn’t want to lose her focus in between tests. She also likes two test per day because she gets to get it over with. “I like the change, because it just made it easier studying so we don’t have to worry about it over the break,” said Jackson Halliwell, eighth grade.