Spotlight on Daniels Students

Rebecca Pitts and her 7th Grade Tiger Sharks were featured in the Mid-Towne Raleigh Section of the News and Observer on Wednesday, October 28th. The article was written by Janice Marchok, a mother of one of Ms. Pitt's students. Ms. Marchok had visited Ms. Pitt's science classes during their unit on Air Quality. Click on the link below to see the full text of Ms. Marchok's article in the N & O.

Congratulations to all 32 Model UN Security Council members who did an outstanding job of representing Daniels at the Middle School Model UN Security Council Conference at Appalachian State University in Boone yesterday. Even though not everyone placed, teachers and parents alike would have been proud watching these students debate issues that are very real in the world today.

Placing first or Best Delegation representing the country of Uganda were Mihaly Lukacs and Noah Somaratne. Second place or Superior Delegation representing the country of China went to Alex Lewontin and Tanner Morgan. Third Place or Excellent Delegation also representing the country of China went to Max Clingroth and Arjun Arora. Placing fourth or Honorable Mention were Madison Sprinkle and Victoria Pediaditakis representing United Kingdom, Harrison Lee representing Russian Federation, Lilly Augspurger and Sierra Volstad representing Turkey and Augusta Moran and Maya Sproelich representing Austria.

When you see these students or for that matter any of the 32 students that went to the conference, give them a thumbs up for a job well done!

Please join our visual art teacher, Mrs. Walker, in congratulating Khedall Garcia, Max Hardin, Elmer Mejia, and Jerson Pena. Their crayon etchings were entered into a display of student work at the State Fair. The exhibit won 5th place with a $250 cash award for the Daniels art room. The exhibit can be seen in the Kerr-Scott Building until the end of the fair on October 25.

Congratulations to Daniels Honors Chorus member, Haley Norris! Haley will be traveling to Winston Salem in November to represent Daniels MS at the NC Honors Chorus. Over 1,800 students from across the state auditioned for this elite 180 member choir. Congratulations, Haley!!!!

Congratulations to Emma Hughes, a 6th grade student on the Seahawks team last year, whose math logo entry was the winner for that state! About 2,300 entries were submitted by North Carolina Students in grades 1-12. Eleven logos were selected as regional finalists and out of those eleven logos, Emma had the winning logo. Her logo will be used as the Math Logo for the North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics for the 2009-2010 school year. It will also be printed on posters and t-shirts to be passed out at the state conference in the fall. Her name will also be announced in the Central (a bi-annual publication for NCCTM) and at the Conference in the fall. Congratulations, Emma!

Daniels Middle School Musicians
attend the Heritage Music Festival in New York City

The Daniels Middle School 8th Grade Band, Jazz Band, Honors Chorus and Show Choir attended the Heritage Music Festival in New York City April 30 - May 2, 2009. It was an incredible time for all! The purpose of the trip was to perform in musical competition, however we experienced much more than that! Students were able to explore the sights and sounds of Times Square, attend the Broadway musical “Mary Poppins”, tour the Empire State Building, eat lunch in and explore Central Park, discover China Town, stroll down 5th Avenue and the Rockefeller Center area, eat dinner while listening to live jazz at the Cotton Club, and much, much more.

The ensembles had memorable performances at the historic Riverside Church and all earned “Gold” ratings in the musical competition. In addition, the Daniels Concert and Jazz bands also earned the “Adjudicators” awards for high scores in musical competition and received an invitation for the National Invitational Band & Orchestral Festival (Festival of Gold).

The 16 students of the Daniels Science Olympiad Team represented our school with great pride and sportsmanship in the North Carolina Science Olympiad State Tournament of Champions held at NC State University this weekend (April 24-25). This tournament is comprised of the winners of the 11 regional tournaments held around the state in February and March. The Daniels Team place 17th out of 45 teams in the middle school division in the state of North Carolina. Our team had 5 events in the top ten and 13 events in the top 20 out of the 23 events total at the competition. Our Bio-Process-Lab students, Abby Thurman and Andrew Hamrick brought home a Silver medal (2nd Place) in this event . A special thanks to all the parents who helped and our volunteer coaches for their many hours of coaching. Thanks also to Mr. Greg Morris, the coach of the Daniels Science Olympiad Team.

7th Place - Meteorology	- Orhun Bozkurt and Alexander Nguyen
8th Place - Reach for the Stars	- Daniel Robinson and Austin Williamson
9th Place - Robo-Cross (robot)	- Susu Deaver and Abby Thurman
10th Place - Wright Stuff (propeller airplane)	- Kyle Crockett-Hill and Daniel Robinson
12th Place - Dynamic Planet	- Harrison Lee and Austin Williamson
12th Place - Food Science	- Xena Eriksen and Tasmia Zaman
13th Place - Disease Detective	- Abby Thurman and Harrison Lee
15th Place - Crave the Wave	- Alexander Nguyen and Andrew Hamrick
17th Place - Write It, Do It	- Abby Thurman and Susu Deaver
18th Place - Scrambler Car	- Xena Eriksen and Tasmia Zaman
19th Place - Ecology	- Harrison Lee and Suraj Vege
20th Place - Physical Science Lab	- Michael Hemminger and Suraj Vege

Congratulations for a job well done! We are already looking forward to next year and recruiting more top science students.

Congratulations to the students who participated in the Model UN Security Council Conference in Boone, NC. They did a fantastic job representing Daniels. The students listed below received an award at the conference. Great job students!

Congratulations to the Daniels Boys Basketball Team!
2008-09 Central Conference Champions

The following 7^th Grade students represented Daniels Middle in the 7^th Annual Carter G. Woodson African-American History Awareness Competition this past Saturday: James Tharpe, Petey Anderson, Dezshoun Bellemy and Andrews Quao. The students competed against three other Wake County middle schools. They made it to the Championship Round and were the 1st Place Runner-up in their division. Congratulations on your hard work!

Congratulations to Claire Cuthbert who is one of the semifinalists eligible to compete in the 2009 North Carolina Geographic Bee, sponsored by Google and Plum Creek. Bees were held in schools throughout the state to determine each school's winner. Claire won the competition for Daniels. School-level winners then took a qualifying test, which they submitted to the National Geographic Society. In each of the fifty states, as well as the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Dependents Schools, and the U.S. territories, the National Geographic Society invited the students with the top 100 scores to compete at the state level.

Claire will compete in the NC Geographic Bee on Friday, April 3. Congratulations, Claire!

Congratulations to the Daniels Science Olympiad Team for their outstanding performance in the Science Olympiad Regional Competition held at Garner High School this past Saturday, February 14. Our team brought home a 3rd place trophy in this six county regional and has qualified for the entire team to compete in the State Science Olympiad that will be held on April 24-25 at NC State University. The Daniels team was the 2nd best middle school team in Wake county. Our team won medals in twelve of the twenty-three events and scored high in most of the other events.

Abby Thurman and Harrison Lee won 1^st place for Disease Detectives
Andrew Hamrick and Alexander Nguyen won 1^st place for Crave the Wave
Susu Deaver and Abby Thurman won 2^nd place for their robot in Robo-Cross
Kyle Hill-Crocket and Daniel Robinson won 3^rd place for Kyle’s airplane in Wright Stuff
Abby Thurman and Andrew Hamrick won 3^rd place for Bio-Process Lab
Orhun Bozkurt and Graham Barnhill won 3^rd place for their rockets in Egg-O-Naut
Michael Hemminger and Suraj Vege won 3^rd place for Physical Science Lab
Daniel Robinson and Orhun Bozkurt won 3^rd place for Daniel’s bridge in Elevated Bridge
Collin Walther and Susu Deaver won 4^th place for their map skills in Road Scholar
Austin Williamson and Harrison Lee won 5^th place for Dynamic Planet
Harrison Lee and Suraj Vege won 5^th place for Ecology
Xena Eriksen and Tasmia Zamin won 5^th place for Scrambler

This team now has more work to prepare for the state competition. Thanks for a job well done!

In an essay, 7th Grader CJ Grannan nominated his former 6th grade teacher, Mr. Bissell Graves, for the Teacher Appreciation Contest sponsored by Mix101.5, Crabtree Valley Mall, and Chick-Fil-A. There were over 60 essays entered in the contest this year. CJ wrote about many of the fantastic things Mr. Graves did with his class last year. CJ’s essay was selected as one of the 10 finalists for the contest. On Saturday, February 7, 2009 , Mr. Graves and CJ went to Crabtree Valley Mall, where all of the finalists read their essays in competition with one another, on behalf of their teachers.

Mr. Graves won! Mr. Graves and CJ won gift certificates to Crabtree Valley Mall.

Congratulations to Spencer Beck for winning First Prize in the Gifts of Gold art competition. Spencer's artwork was a crayon etching of a Vincent Van Gogh painting.

Gifts of Gold is a visual arts display held annually in conjunction with Pieces of Gold, a WCPSS performing arts extravaganza. A collaborative undertaking between Wake Education Partnership and Wake County Public Schools since 1983, the 26th Pieces of Gold performances will be presented March 4, 2009 at Memorial Auditorium. Only one piece of artwork from each school could be entered in the Gifts of Gold competition. Gifts of Gold artwork will be displayed March 3rd and 4th, 2009 in the lobby of Memorial Auditorium.

Congratulations to eighth grader Katelyn Schubel! She has won first place in the Visual Arts category of the PTA Reflections Art Program for Wake County. She then was entered into the State Reflections competition and she won first place. The 2008-09 program theme was “Wow”. Katelyn’s 14” x 14” colored and graphite pencil visual art entry “Wings of Imagination” will progress to participate at the PTA Reflections National competition. Katelyn's work is pictured below.

We would also like to recognize and thank all of the Daniels students that participated in the Reflections program. Those participants are Lillian Augspurger, Abigail Thurman, Emily Browning, Harrison Lee, Alexandra Dixon, Samantha Childers and Kitana Rand.

Students get ready for next year’s Reflections art program the 2009-2010 theme is “Beauty is…”

The Daniels' 6th Grade Classes sponsored a school-wide Food Drive. The entire school participated and students and staff donated more than 2,000 canned and non-perishable food items.

This Food Drive culminated with a 'Hunger Banquet' on Wednesday, December 17th in the Daniels Cafeteria. It was a tremendous success!

The money and canned foods collected during this project were donated to the North Raleigh Ministries.

A special thanks to Mr. Adams for collecting and boxing all of the food items. He and several students delivered the food to North Raleigh Ministries. Also, a special thanks goes to Ms. Namatovu for organizing the Hunger Banquet.

The clothing drive was a HUGE success, thanks to your support! We took three carloads (I estimate around 150-200 bags) of clothes to Goodwill. Goodwill was extremely thankful for our assistance! Thanks for helping to make the holidays son wonderful for so many families.

A special thanks to Ms. Andrews for the many deliveries to Goodwill to deliver the clothing and to Ms. Kirchhoff for her help with the final HUGE delivery.

The Daniels Video Production class won the Wake County 'Film the Bin' contest. They competed against other Wake County Middle Schools which participate in the 'Feed the Bin' recycling program. The Daniels Video Production Class consists of Jessica Brustofski, Grace Barnard, Libby Lee, Caroline Zevenhuisen, Whitley Henderson, Becca Shavlik, Andrew Stratas, Paco Zarake, Selo Kuvuna, Wyatt Stevens and Luke Schull. Advisors are Ms. Stevens (Video Production Teacher) and Ms. Powell (Feed the Bin Advisor). Congratulations to these students and Advisors!

The members of the Model UN Security Council did an outstanding job representing Daniels at the Fall Middle School Model UN Security Council Conference at Appalachian State University in Boone on October 22. Five delegations placed at the conference.

Our three first place delegations were 8th graders Abby Thurman and Rachel Sun representing Indonesia; 7th graders Madison Sprinkle and Victoria Pediaditakis representing Libya; and 6th graders Alex Lewontin, Mishi Lukas, and Tanner Morgan representing China. Second place went to 8th graders Collin Walther, Ryan Allis and 6th grader Noah Somaratne representing China. Third place went to 6th graders Matthew Parker, Harrison Lee and Julian Barlow representing Indonesia.

Congratulations to Sophia Estes for making the NC Honors Chorus! Sophia will be representing Daniels Middle School in a choir comprised of the top vocal students in the state of North Carolina.

Congratulations to the following students who have been elected as the
Student Council Officers for the 2008-09 School Year!