Updated: 10/4/2013 GARDEN CITY MIDDLE SCHOOL 2013-2014 Clubs and Activities Anti-Bullying Club The Anti-Bullying Club (ABC) is looking for students who want to have fun making Garden City Middle School a positive place for everyone. If you want to teach students about respect, courage, acceptance, and tolerance, through drawing activities, contests, bakes sales, movies, and games, the ABC Club is for you. Anti-Bias Club The Anti-Bias Club is designed to help children accept diversity amongst their peers. The committee encourages students to celebrate differences amongst one another. The club coordinates a number of activities throughout the course of the year in conjunction with the Anti-Bullying Club (ABC). Art Club Do you love art? Do you enjoy drawing, painting or sculpting? If you would like to join with others who also have fun working on exciting art projects this club is for you! In Art club, students are encouraged to develop their creative skills and visual expression in a fun, friendly, and safe atmosphere. Through the use of different materials, student may work on club projects, or independent projects of their choice. All students are welcome to join! Best Buddies Best Buddies Club is a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of people with special needs by providing opportunities for one-to-one friendships. Students with special needs are paired with a peer buddy. Best Buddies meets twice per month after school. At our monthly club meetings we have holiday parties, friendship activities and arts and crafts projects. Peer buddies are expected to maintain contact with their buddies throughout the month by visiting home base classrooms, writing letters and communicating throughout the week. Dead Poets Society Our club is comprised of a lively group of writers, artists, poets and enthusiasts. This eclectic assembly attracts fun loving students who feel compelled to share ideas, writings, artistic skills, poetry, and laughter. We culminate our year with the publication of The Dead Poets Journal. Everyone participates and we have a great deal of fun as we pursue our endeavors. 1
Environmental Science Club The environmental improvement club is focused on landscaping and pond building. We have constructed two ponds over the last few years. Students are directly involved in landscape and maintenance procedures in the middle school s courtyard. The students enjoy working in and around the two ponds. German Club All students of German are invited to join the Middle School German Club. We meet twice a month and have exciting German-language activities for all levels of language learners. Our activities include planning and organizing field trips to such places as the German-American Steuben Parade in NYC, the Metropolitan Opera, and the historic German settlement in Pennsylvania. We participate in the Flag Raising Celebration during German-American Week in October, and we dominate in the annual German-language Sprachfest (against 18 Long Island Schools!!) We provide services such as peer tutoring, and we also create holiday crafts. The eighth grade members make word searches and puzzles for the new students of German in sixth grade, and they organize games and scavenger hunts in the language. Something special: during the weeks before the Sprachfest, we meet each morning for playoffs. Those meetings, nicknamed Breakfast Club, include bagel sandwiches, so come join us. Deutsch macht Spass!! Herodotus Society The Herodotus Society is open to all students in the Middle School. We have open forum style meetings where we discuss current events and major events in history. Club members often share information and family artifacts with each other to enhance discussions. We continue to work on our Veteran s Garden in front of the building, as well as gathering WWII stories for future publication. In addition, we participate in activities to support our veterans. We have several collections during the year for the Northport VA Hospital. Club members send cards and letters to the veterans throughout the year. 2
Math Research Club The Math Research Club is now looking for new members! Do you like math? Would you like to complete a project that you can be proud of? Would you like to learn valuable skills for HS and college? Would you like to make new friends with similar interests from Nassau and Suffolk Counties? If you answered yes to any or all of the questions above, the Math Research Club may be right for you. The MRC is an academically oriented social club that allows students with a strong interest in mathematics to interact and explore how math has evolved throughout history. The highlight of our year is when we complete and present individual and group research projects at the Long Island Math Fair at Hofstra University. The Long Island Math Fair, held annually at Hofstra University in Hempstead, is a showcase for students that are interested in exploring the math behind a topic of their own choosing. Sponsored by the Nassau County Math Teachers Association, the Long Island Math Fair is open to all students in grades 7-12. All students that have an interest in math (or any subject that is related to math, i.e. sports, history, music, dance, drama, art, etc.) are encouraged to participate. Mathletes Mathletes is a club that participates in 5 Nassau County Competitions. Each competition consists of three non-calculator problems and 3 calculator problems. It runs from October through March. If you are interested in competing with other schools on your grade level and have participated in Math Olympiads or Mathletes, this club may be good for you. Music Electronic Music The Electronic Music Club is for anyone interested in computers, piano/keyboard, guitar, singing, bass guitar and drums. It provides an opportunity to explore instruments and creative technology using rock and popular music. If you take lessons, it s a great place to put those lessons to use. Festival Chorus - Festival Chorus is made up of the chorus program s most dedicated singers in the 6 th, 7 th and 8 th grades. They perform music from all genres from classical to Broadway. To ensure a strong performance, students are only permitted to miss 3 of the 13 rehearsals. Jazz Band - The purpose of the Jazz Band is to educate students about the jazz idiom in a real big band setting, and to teach about Jazz history in relation to American culture. Marching Band The Garden City Middle School Band participates in the Memorial Day Parade. Participation is optional but is highly encouraged. Extra credit is awarded to all participants. 3
Music Box Players The Music Box Players is the musical theatre club activity at Garden City Middle School. It is open to ALL students interested in either performing on stage or doing backstage work such as stage lighting, moving scenery and props, or working on hair and make-up. The Music Box Players puts on a Broadway-style musical production here at the school around late March. Some of the shows that the Music Box Players has performed in the past have been: Annie; You re A Good Man Charlie Brown; Once Upon A Mattress; Oklahoma; The King & I; and Fiddler on the Roof. National Junior Honor Society The National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) is a wonderful club. Character, leadership, scholarship, service and citizenship are the 5 ideals that are focused on. Members of the NJHS participate in various fundraising activities throughout the school year to benefit people who are less fortunate. Field trips are also taken during the school year. Membership begins at the end of 7 th grade. The following criteria must be met to be considered for NJHS recommendations: Students in seventh grade must have an s solid GPA of 92 (not subject to rounding ) or above in each of the three consecutive quarters, Q1 seventh grade, Q2 seventh grade, Q3 seventh grade. Students in eighth grade must have a slid GPA of 92 (not subject to rounding ) or above in each of the three consecutive quarters, Q3 seventh grade, Q4 seventh grade and Q1 eighth grade. Students may not receive less than an 85 in each of the four core subjects (math, science3, English, social studies) and world language (Spanish, French, Italian, German) in any of the three consecutive quarters. Students may not receive a failing grade in any subject in any of the three consecutive quarters. Phoenix The Phoenix/Journalism club meets weekly. Students work on writing news articles, editorials, sport events, advice columns, and interviews for publication in the school newspaper, Phoenix. Students are encouraged to write about events, issues, and people that they are interested in, or that they feel others may want to know about. We look forward to meeting new members! 4
Robotics Club The robotics club provides student the opportunity to participate in international competitions that focuses on real-world topic related to the sciences. The goal is to get children excited about science and technology and teach them valuable employment and life skills. Students work in teams to design and program Lego Robots to complete tasks. Science Research Club The primary goal of our science club is to further encourage a student s personal understanding and love for science. Students of all grade levels and interests are welcome to attend throughout the school year, to find their niche in the exciting world of science. This is the place where they can find the time to generate ideas and explore them while interacting with peers that share a common interest whether it is already developed or newly being discovered. It is a forum where life skills are nurtured through hands-on science projects of their own design. It is a place for students to extend their formal science education by using their minds and imaginations beyond the constraints of a 42-minute period. These activities also help them discover natural cross-disciplinary connections to history, language arts, and mathematics. Students may choose any number of paths to build their scientific confidence. They may take the route of completions, lab experimentation, independent research, and discussions. Presently our students are interested in such diverse topics as bridge building, trebuchet (catapult) building, lung cancer research, ecology themes, invention design, and zoology. Students are introduced to and practice skills such as analytical thinking, experimenting, research and communications that can be transferred to a real world setting, helping them in high school and beyond. All this, as well as simply having a great time with their friends! Spearhead Yearbook Club If you like taking pictures or making scrapbooks then this is the club for you! The Spearhead Yearbook Club is the organization that is responsible for creating the Middle School Yearbook. Students will be able to choose which part of the book they would like to dedicate most of their efforts to, whether its baby pictures, 8 th grade biographies, or sports and activities. We meet twice a month and participants get to take teacher pictures, candid pictures, pictures of clubs and sport teams, and anything else exciting at the Middle School. You also get to come up with new and exciting ideas for the book, and vote on the book s cover and theme. The yearbook club also gets the chance preview and put together the yearbook before anyone else gets to see it! We create a memory for the entire school to look back on the wonderful times they had at GCMS. Stock Market Club The stock market club is open to any sixth, seventh, or eighth grader interested in finding out about the workings of the stock market. Teams consist of two to five members. Each team is given an imaginary $100,000 to invest in stocks. Students learn how to read the stock page as well as track their stock. They are sent a portfolio each week with an update on their investments. 5
Technology Club The Technology Club is open to all students in the middle school. Weekly attendance is not required. Projects from the regular technology class may be worked on, or projects of interest to the individual. Develop your skills with woodworking machines or hand tools. Create and just have fun! Updated 10/4/2013 3:04 PM 6