JEL Championships

On Sunday February 27th, 2011 our school held the Junior Equestrian League (JEL) Finale.  All of the teams from the league competed, including Full Moon Farm, Hunting Ground Farm, Talbot Run, Camp Olympia, and Reddemeade. There was a lot of tough competition. At a usual JEL show, you would be assigned a horse that you might not have ridden before, but at this show you were allowed to pick your "mount" because it was the finale. We all woke up early and made sure everything was ready for the show to start. The horses were schooled and cleaned. Schooled means they are ridden to warm them up and make sure they are sound. Everything was set up and ready to go!

The show started at 9:30 a.m. with Division 5 up first. Since there were so many teams competing, the divisions were split up into group A and group B. There was typically one other person from your team and around five to eight riders. After Division 5 was finished, Div. 4, then Div. 3, then Div 2, then finally Div 1 followed. The show took most of the day ending around 4:45p.m. Everyone rode great and we are all eager to find out who will receive first place for Class Wins, Overall Point Winner, and Team Winner. In the Class Wins, the rider with the most points in the Division will be champion and the rider with the second most points will be reserved champion. It is the same idea with the Overall Point Winner, but it is out of all of the Divisions. The Team Winners are the teams who won the most meet/shows in the season. The ribbons will be given out at the banquet on Saturday March 5th. It was a great season and everyone did a fantastic job!

-- Text and photos by Sadie G.

Murder in Manor House!

  Last Friday, we had our yearly Mystery Night!  Mystery Night is a night when the whole grade joins together to have the night of their lives. The activities are kept a secret until the special day. It is planned by the hard working class parents and teachers.

After eagerly waiting for the day to end, we were finally told what we were going to do for the night. This year, we solved a tricky murder mystery at Manor House. Each of us had to dress up as the character that was assigned to us, such as Betty Jean Honeysuckle, Fannie Flamingo, or Claire Voyant. We had each been given personal information about our character and had to incorporate it into our costume.

After getting to know each others characters, we gathered around and Mrs. Wendy (the head of the night) began talking to us about what else was going to happen that night. Then, all of a sudden “Joseph Boddy” came out into the crowd and slowly died. Mrs. Wendy asked some girls to trace his outline. We all then went to dinner of sandwiches and salads and looked over our character information. After dinner, we asked one another questions such as “Do you have a gun?” or “Did you know Joseph Boddy?”

Near the end of the night, we had dessert and Mrs. Wendy gave out awards such as “Best Actor” and “Best Costume”. Some of the winners were:

Sophie P. --  “Best Costume” for the costume design of her character Ms. Awesomeness, a super hero.

Mina N. -- “Best Actor” for her role as Lulu D’loca, an escaped mental patient.

Finally, after dinner and the awards, the murderer was announced. We all waited impatiently as Mrs. Wendy told us that Sadie G. and Jackie M. were the murderers!! Wow! What a night!

-- Text and Photos by Ayanna D. and Brianna T.

The Twisted Twizzlers Go to the State Championships!

We, The GFS Twisted Twizzlers Robotics Team, had the amazing experience of going to the State Championship on Saturday, February 26, 2011. On Saturday, we proved our hard work to many people at the UMBC campus. As you may have read in our previous post, our team won the Robot Design award at the FLL Qualifier, and were able to move on to the State Championships.  

Every year, the challenges and themes are different. Last year was called Smart Move, which was based on transportation. Body Forward, the theme this year, focused on medicine and biomedical engineering. 

To read about the 2011 Body Forward Challenge, click here: First Lego League

We arrived at the UMBC Retriever Athletic Center at 9:00 a.m. and prepared for our morning presentations. At 10:00 a.m., we went into a classroom and in front of five judges, we gave a research presentation. Our presentation was on the sense of pressure in a prosthetic hand. We created an innovative solution for prosthetics to feel pressure, and created a wooden model hand with a variable resistor. The judges loved our idea and asked us many questions about our idea.

After the presentation, we moved on to the Technical Judging. This was where we explained our robot design and our programming. After showing some key attachments on our robot, we were able to show some of our programs to the judges. It was really nerve wracking because the programs usually are not consistent, and when we showed the judges some of the runs, the robot did not function properly. Luckily, we looked at these mistakes as a way to learn and fix our programs for next time.

In the afternoon, we did the challenges. All of the challenges are on a board, and we program the robot to accomplish certain tasks. The programming is what takes up most of our club time on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  For programming, we use the Lego NXT Software, which can be as easy as going forward or as hard as converting letters to numbers. We scored a total of 425 points in the three rounds combined, but we only got the highest score, which was 175. After the rounds were over, they took the top four teams into a sudden death round. We weren’t part of this round, but we enjoyed watching the strategies used by others!

After a long day of competition, the awards ceremony started.  There were many awards given to many teams who showed outstanding effort.  Sadly, we didn’t come home with a trophy, but we did leave with high hopes for next year!  Congratulations to the teams who participated in First Lego League, and good luck to those who are going to the World Festival!

-- Text and photos by Alex T. (GFS Twisted Twizzlers Team Member)

Spring is Coming!

Snow melting, birds chirping, sun shining can only mean one thing: Spring is Here! 

7th Graders enjoying lunch on the Dining Hall porch.

At Garrison Forest School spring weather means putting away GFS sweatpants, sitting outside during lunch, and spring sports. Although we will miss wearing boots to school, and having snowball fights outside, spring is the season we all look forward to. I asked several 7^th graders what they look forward to about spring.

“The thing I love about spring is when I ride outside at the barn.”-Kara F.

 “I like how the campus is so beautiful and really shows what GFS is all about.” –Ayanna D.

“Lax season!”-Cammie G. 

 As you can see, spring is awaited by everyone  for all these different reasons! 

-- text and photos by Hallie A. (Special thanks to Ayanna, Cammie, and Kara)  

Binding Books and Singing Solfeges!

A few weeks ago, we started a new semester in the Middle School! Students who had dance and drama the first semester have music and art now, and vice-versa!  

In art class we are currently working on a book making project. Students put together folios which consisted of five sheets of paper folded in half.  We then sewed the first to the second and so on until all five were together, and we had created a book block. It was a hard process but after a few slight mishaps everyone’s books were sewn together.

The next step towards making our book was gluing the spine together. We spread Glue over the whole spine and pressed down. We had to very careful not to get glue on any other part of our book. After that we left our books to dry and started to work on the covers for our books. We took three pieces of cardboard and three pieces of pretty fabric. We got two chose between a few differently pattern Sheets of paper with flowers and leaves on them. We then began to paste the fabric to the pieces of cardboard. So far that is how much we have done on our books!  We all can hardly wait to see how these amazing books will turn out and begin using them.  

In Music class we have been reviewing things we learned last year. We reviewed the solfege scale and hand signals (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do) by singing the notes and repeating the hand signals our teacher showed us. In the end, our teacher surprised us by letting us know that we had just sung a song using solfege! We also reviewed lessons about rhythm and note reading. We went over how many beats each different type of note had. We also had a lot of fun singing and playing the drums to a Finnish folk song!  I can’t wait to see what the rest of this exciting semester in music has to offer.

-- Text and Photos by Emma B.

Last Sunday's Equestrian Show

This past Sunday Garrison hosted an Interscholastic Equestrian Association show.  Many of the students from Garrison who are on the IEA Team rode in this show. Everyone had a great show.  The GFS Middle School team ended up coming in 1^st place overall.  The GFS Upper School team came in 3^rd  place overall.  This horse show was our last one before Regionals.  Many of the students on the GFS Team have qualified for Regional’s which will also be held at GFS. Come support our team!

Sunday wasn’t only a long day of hard work, but it was a sad day for all the riders and coaches too. One of the schools brought their horse named Willie.  In the middle of the show there is something called schooling which is when you show all the other teams your horses, and get them warmed up before they show. During schooling while Willie was jumping he had a seizure. The seizure caused him to trip over the jump and crash into the dirt.  Willie ended up snapping his neck.  Sadly no one could save him.  Not only were the Madeira girls devastated, but every other barn was too.  Willie and the Madeira girls will remain in everyone’s thoughts.  

When I walked into the ring for my jumping class, I was a little nervous because I was riding a horse that I had never ridden before.  I walked into the ring wondering how my horse was going to behave. After my two warm up jumps, I felt a little more confident.  My coach gave me a little advice and we went over my course one last time.  During my course I was so scared that I was going to forget my course.  But about half way through my course I felt comfortable and wanted to win my class.  Since I went 2^nd I had to watch all the other riders and compare them to me.  I ended up getting second in my division; I was very happy, and proud of myself.   

-- Writing and Photos by Jackie W. and Gabi S.

MINIMESTER - The Best Part of JANUARY!!!

Every year at Garrison Forest we have a week called Minimester. During Minimester we choose two non-academic classes from a catalog. Some of the choices we have are Paws and Claws, Collections and Collectors, Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self, So You Think You Can Dance: Click HERE for more information about the courses offered. Normally, we have Minimester in January after our first semester. Minimester gives us a chance to learn new and exciting things that we wouldn’t learn during the regular academic school day. 

Collections and Collectors

 The classes I chose to take during Minimester were Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self with Mrs. Rao and Mrs. Chrobocinski and Collections and Collectors with Mr. Beretta. Both of the classes I took were very fun. Finding and Nurturing your Inner Self was very relaxing. We learned relaxtion techniques and we also learned a lot of other cool things such what your dreams mean. We also watched movies and made pictures frames using images and words from magazines that described us. 

Collections and Collectors was about people who have there own art collections. It was also a lot about art. Everyday we took a field trip to people's houses that had their very own collection. The things that they collected were very cool. My favorite trip that we took was to a lady’s house who had a daughter that went to Garrison. She collected famous artwork and the artwork was amazing. I learned about  a lot of artists while taking that course. 

If I had to choose my favorite class that I took during minimester I couldn’t because they were both very fun!

-- text by Ashlei C.

Ending a Long Week with CLUBS!!!

We have clubs every other week on Friday for 40 minutes. Some of the clubs we've had are Yoga Club, Cooking Club, Knitting Club, Strategic Games Club, Green Club, WGFS, Art Club, Dance Club, and so much more! All the clubs are run by the faculty of the Middle School. What's been YOUR FAVORITE CLUB?

In clubs, we're doing a lot of fun things. In Yoga Club with Ms. Chavez, you learn how to do yoga positions that are sometimes difficult yet they stretch out your muscles. In Cooking Club with Mr. Beretta and Mrs. Leary, you make a variety of different foods like homemade ice cream, pizza, and more! In Dance Club with Mrs. Blackston, you learn different dance moves and make a dance with your whole club. In WGFS with Mr. McManus, which is a new club this year, students are creating their own radio station that includes interviews and podcasts. In Knitting Club with Mrs. Gunning, you knit anything you want and learn new tips on how to knit. 

Clubs are really important for us to have because after a week of classes, it's a way for us to do something that we've never done before or just do fun activities. Also, clubs give us a chance to spend time with students in other grades. What do you think? After the 1^st semester, we are switching clubs so that everybody gets a chance to do something different.  Currently, Cammie is in Yoga Club and Evie is in Jumping for Jacks. For the next Clubs session, Cammie wants to try Strategic Games and Evie wants to try Knitting Club. What club are you going to try to get into next semester?!

-- Text and Photos by Cammie G. and Evie G.

SUPPORTING the DONALD BENTLEY FOOD PANTRY

A Visit to The Donald Bentley Food Pantry by Brooke F. from GFS Middle School on Vimeo.

We are committed to helping those in our community that are in need. We are a proud supporter of the Donald Bentley Food pantry, which is a place in Baltimore City where people who can’t always afford to buy nutritious foods can go and get just that.  Every month, we are asked to bring in a certain food such as, peanut butter, tuna fish, canned soup, pasta, etc.  In addition to benefiting the pantry, each item of food collected is counted as a light or dark blue spirit point. At the end of the month a family takes the food to the pantry to be distributed.

 During the month of January, we are collecting canned soups.  Please bring or send as many cans as you can so that we can provide as much soup to people during these cold months.  Above is a video filming the pantry that Brooke F. created when she visited.  Enjoy

-- Jessica M. (7th Grader and Co-Head of the GFS Donald Bentley Food Pantry Drive)

-- Video shot and edited on iMovie by Brooke F. 

The Seventh Grade Civil War Celebration

This past Thursday, December 9^th, the Seventh Grade held its first Civil War Celebration in the Manor House.  Blending religious holidays and the girls' studies of the American Civil War, this dinner immersed students in this period’s culture while, at the same time, providing a merry evening filled with good friends and food.   

 Students were asked to dress in the appropriate fashion of the era, such as gowns and soldier uniforms, and prepare one dish (cold or hot) served back then.  Among the more unique menu items were fried catfish, potato latkes, and sweet potato pie.   

 Activities included being greeted by “Honest Sarah”, being photographed with Gabi's festive horse Josiah owned by , socializing and eating among the Southern Belles, caroling with Mrs. Flynn, listening to an after dinner speech given by Jackie M.’s grandfather portraying Confederate General John B. Gordon, and participating in a gift exchange.   

 Additionally, many religions were represented during our dinner blessings, as Sakinah R. and Mimi N. (Muslim prayer),  Rachel G. and Sarah S. (Jewish prayer), and Halle A. (Christian prayer) consecrated the food and the event.  

 Overall, it was an unforgettable night that represented the true spirit of the holidays and the Civil War.