December 2017 Board Highlights
Oblock Junior High School
K’Nex Engineering
Twelve members of the AEO gifted program traveled to Woodland Hills High School for the seventh annual K’Nex tournament on December 1, 2017. Students were challenged to design a vehicle that would push blocks across a table. They also had to build a bridge on-site that would support their vehicle as it traversed a gap. Congratulations to Jeffrey Yan, Rudra Thakkar, Sam Schohn, Caleb Bedillion, and Max Weingrad for winning first place! Special honorable mention went to the second and third Plum team of Annabelle Bunce, Alex Taylor, Evan Hodil, Ian Moreno, Cameron Nese, Dylan Piel and Willem Powell. Great job to everyone who participated.
AEO Snow Club
Forty students and several faculty members at Oblock are gearing up for some fun in the snow at Hidden Valley this winter. Under the direction of Ryan Silvis, a five-week ski program beginning in January has been planned for students who enjoy skiing and/or snowboarding. The trips take place on Friday evenings immediately after school. Lessons will be available for both beginners and more advanced participants. Officers for this year are as follows: Morgan Filar, President; Ella Logan, Vice-President; Justin Wesolowski, Treasurer; and Caleb Drayer, Secretary. Faculty chaperoning the trips include Mr. Silvis, Mrs. Prokopik, and Mr. Mischen.
Oblock Cares Read-A-Thon
Again this year the students of Oblock read for a cause. Every year the AEO students raise money for local charities such as Stampede in the Park, Make A Wish, and Plum Food Pantry. The goal again for this year’s Read-a-Thon was to read 500 books in 3 weeks. Before the Read-a-Thon started the students got pledges from sponsors and set goals for the number of books they planned to read. From November 20 through December 8, they kept track of the books they read and then collected their pledges. The students read over 500 books in that three-week period, and raised an astounding $1700 with Abby Wilson and Dylan Gallagher being the top two earners. Over 100 students and staff participated. The prize winners who earned gift cards to Game Stop, Target and Starbucks were the following students: Abby Wilson, Dylan Gallagher, Robert Yost, Jasmin Roman and Nathan Brown. A big thank you goes out to the ELA teachers for organizing and planning this event for the thirteenth year.
Strings Concert
On the evening of December 14th, AE Oblock Music Department will present the 2017 "String in the New Year" Arts Night at Oblock. The concert will consist of 7th and 8th grade string players, and art displays via the 7th and 8th grade Art Club. The musicians will play holiday music that will brighten the audience's day. There will be selfie stations with a giant nutcracker and an iguana provided by the Oblock Art Department. If you can’t attend this concert, a small group of musicians will provide entertaining music for patrons of Chick-Fil-A at the Miracle Mile in Monroeville on Monday, December 4th from 6-8pm.
Chorus Concert
The 7th and 8th grade chorus presented their Holiday Concert at Oblock on December 12th. Directed by Jenifer Paraschos, the ensembles performed in front of many students and guests. The 7th grade Select Chorus performed "30 Second Fa La La" and “Fum Fum Fum”, which was sung in English and Spanish. The 8th grade Select Chorus performed "Winter’s Waking”. Songs performed by the 8th grade chorus included “Three Jazz Carols”, “Winter Light” and “Carols, Bells and Boughs or Holly”. Seventh grade selections included "Let it Snow", "Jing-a-Ling, Jing-a-Ling”, “Silver Bells” and “Over the River and Through the Wood”. Jane Boyle, Holiday Park Elementary music teacher, was the accompanist for the performance.
Oblock Students Participate in Nationwide Mathematical Competition
Each year thousands of students across the nation apply their problem solving skills in the annual Mathematical Association of America’s American Mathematics Competitions (AMC 8). The AMC program is dedicated to developing the next generation of problem solvers through friendly competition. This year, 10 students from Oblock Junior High took the AMC 8, which covers middle school mathematics concepts, and competed for local and national awards. This November, more than 130,000 students from more than 2,000 schools participated in the AMC 8 nationwide. Congratulations to Jeffrey Yan, Willem Powell, Alexis DiNapoli, Rudra Thakkar, and Ellie Tongel for scoring gold, silver, and bronze from Oblock. These students will get the opportunity to compete in the AMC 10 in February.
Calcu-Solve
On December 18, ten members of the GATE program and Mrs. Schuchert traveled to Greensburg-Salem Middle School for a Calcu-Solve competition this school year. Calcu-Solve is a competition that tests students' abstract math knowledge, reasoning skills, and computational accuracy to solve ten rounds of math problems. The topics are chosen from various math concepts like geometry, number theory, probability, algebra, and logical reasoning. Competing against 10 other teams; Plum's team of Jeffrey Yan, Maura Marston, Rudra Thakkar, Alex Beiter, and Ellie Tongel finished 1st. Also receiving an award for 5th place team was Gowri Warrier, Vasishta Malisetty, Willem Powell, Carly Beninati, and Nate Beninati. A special congratulations to Jeffrey Yan for being the top scorer of the competition!
Team Read Update
Team Read is going strong. A total of 10 students are in the 300 Point Club (about 300 hours of reading this year), another 41 are in the Hall of Fame (126 points), another 100 are at the All-Star level (76 points), 235 at the Varsity level (26 points), and 117 at the Junior Varsity level (10 points) for a total of 503 on the wall.
The library is also sponsoring a financial literacy competition where students watch lessons and take quizzes to be seeded in the Financial Football and Financial Soccer tournaments later this year. The tournaments are online and ask the students questions about financial literacy. The better the students answer the questions, the better their team does in the game