Rodney Thompson Middle School has won 6 county championships for the

2018-2019 school year. These sports are Softball, Football, girls and boys Bas-

ketball, girls Track & Field, and for the first time in history Boys Track &

Field. I would like to focus in on one of these titles, girls Track & Field. I’ve

competed on the track team since 6th grade, I’ve participated in County’s since

6th grade. Every year, after all the schools have completed all their track meets,

or until the day of county’s approaches all eight school will travel to the host-

ing high school to compete in county’s.

Each school is only allowed to take the top three people in all field events and

sprints, but they can take the top four for long distances events. My first year

competing, county’s was held at North Stafford, at these county’s we were able

to start at 11:00. Starting early is the best thing to do, because each set of run-

ning events takes anywhere from 10-15 minutes. Since a lot field people do

running events as well, none of the running events can begin until all the field

events are over with, the throwing events combined can take up to three hours.

ABOUT THOMPSON TIMES

Thompson Times is a student powered newsletter for Rodney Thompson Middle School. Students in Ms. Neville’s 4th quarter ACT class, ”Jaguar Journalism,” created this newsletter for your reading pleasure!

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Track and Softball Championships

Book and movie reviews

Red for Ed

All About Summer Break!

Unsung Heroes

Recipes

Spotlight on RTMS Teachers

Thompson

Times

“Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.” – Mary Lou Retton

cont’d…

Once the sprints and hurdles are completed the 800 meters (2 laps) are run. When those

are finished they will begin to run the

relay races, they do however hold the

4x4 (4 people running 400 meters)

until the end of the competition.

Throughout the competition the offi-

cials will update the score to let each

school know how they are doing. In

the event that you break the county

record for any events the officials will

announce your name and the time or

distance you've beat. Although every-

one on the team can’t compete at

county’s knowing your team won is

just as good as being there.

POTOMAC LOCAL COMES TO RTMS

The Thomson Times A.C.T class was honored by a visit by Uriah Kiser, Publisher of Potomac Local. The Poto-mac Local is an online newspaper, that covers engaging news stories for Manassas, Stafford, and Prince Wil-liam, Virginia. It gets over 100,000 readers every month, and the number of readers is rapidly increasing. Mr.Kiser has always had a love for news. He used to be a paperboy for the Potomac Times, delivering physical newspapers so that people could stay informed about recent news. He later then actually got to work in the news department at the Potomac Times. Even when the Potomac Times closed down, Uriah Kiser still wanted to cover news. In 2010 he started the Potomac Local, so he could still share news with the world. Mr.Kiser serves on the national local news nonprofit LION Publishers Board of Directors, which helps out local independent online publishers, and entrepreneurial journalists to be-come stronger to protect future. IN 2012 Mr.Kiser Won the Virginia Press Association's 1st place Government Reporting Award.

It’s obvious that Uriah Kiser works very hard to make

sure the world is aware about it’s happenings and what's

going on, so make sure to go check out the Potomac

Local right here: https://potomaclocal.com/.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s

Stone

Harry Potter and the Sorcer-er’s Stone is the first book in a series of seven novels written by J.K. Rowling, a British Novelist. Harry Pot-ter is an orphan and was told both of his parents died in a car crash so he lived with his abusive aunt and uncle. One day mysterious letters start showing up and his aunt and uncle prevent him from reading the letters. On his eleventh birthday a man shows up and tells him the truth about how his parents were killed. Harry then goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He makes friends, enemies and learns about all sorts of magic. This novel is a great read and I would recom-mend you all read it.

2

RED FOR ED

When we think of education we see bright students with even brighter futures as our future leaders of our nation, students who will have an impact on our world. We think of capable teachers who teach and guide students to be the best they can, with classrooms utilizing modern tools to maximize our educa-tion. But we also see corners being cut, overcrowded classrooms and outdated materials, making education harder than it should and could be, darkening these bright futures for our students. So now teachers, students and parents alike are all standing up to lawmak-ers to better school funding so students will have a better educa-tion, so teachers will have enough to support themselves and better modern materials.

Public schools in Virginia (and many other states) are severely underfunded, with teachers’ salaries being $15,419 under the na-tional average of a teacher’s salary. Teachers also stress them-selves grading school work, as well as guiding students, all of this happens in and outside the classroom, with teachers working overtime. But underfunded schools don’t only affect teachers, they affect students too. Students have overcrowded classrooms overwhelming both students and teachers, and they have over

testing. All of this combined creates a overwhelming stressful school environment for both students and teachers.

All of these factors combined has caused teachers to stand up and protest for more funding and less tests for a better school system for teachers and students. In fact they´ve recently gotten a 5% raise for themselves!

Together, we can further the funding for schools, we can better the public education system if we stand for Red4ED

3

SUMMER BREAK

Summer break is coming soon and with it, a lot of free time. Even though the sum-mer can be a lot of fun, you may find yourself getting a little bored. But what is there to do? It’s hot outside and you already have done all there is to do inside. Well, think again. One thing you can do is learn a new talent. You can learn to bake something complicated, or go to man-golanguages.com to learn a new language. You could also start a YouTube channel like a vlog, or to stream yourself playing your favor-ite video games. Likewise, you could also start a blog online. If you want to make money this summer, consider start-ing a business. There are lots of opportunities for teens to mow lawns, walk dogs, and babysit. You may also be good with technology and since you have grown up using it, you have an ad-vantage over many adults. You can tutor an older per-son on how to use their com-puter, or help manage someone’s social media. If you are good at making something like soap or bracelets, you can sell it on Etsy. One last thing you can do is hang out with friends. You can go to an amusement park, have a movie mara-thon, or go to a concert. You can also look online for events that are in your area. So, next time you are bored, try one of these ideas. In-stead of doing nothing. You can also look online for more.

WHY ARE THE STRAWS GONE?

Study right before you go to sleep. While you sleep, your brain strengthens new memories. This means the material you study right before bed will be easier to remember.

Study with friends. Quiz each other on what you need to know for the test. You will be able to study longer and not get as bored.

Take a break. Go walk your dog, get a snack, stretch, or whatever else will help you stay focused.

Study a little each day. Instead of trying to study it all the day before, study a little at a time over a few days. If it is a bigger test, like an SOL, you will need more days to study than if it is just a quiz.

Get enough sleep. You can focus much better for your test if you have enough sleep.

As many of you probably already know,

our school has recently gotten rid of all

of our cafeteria’s straws. But why did

they get rid of straws? Straws are so

small, so you might think that they don't

affect our environment, right? Wrong.

Straws, like other plastics, never bio

grade, and will literally take hundreds

of years to break down. Straws aren't

just affecting our landfills ei-

ther. Straws are found by the thousands

in our oceans, and can be harmful to

aquatic life. And did you know that

Americans use about 500 million straws

each day? That's 182 billion, 500 mil-

lion a year! And that's just Americans.

Other countries contribute to straw us-

age as well. In the UK 8.2 billion straws

are thrown away every year. RTMS is

doing the right thing, and is trying to

help our environment one small step at

a time, so next time you think ¨I wish I

had a straw” just remember that every

straw contributes to the billions used

each year.

MARK OF SHADOWS

TIPS TO STUDY FOR A TEST

Mask of Shadows is a unique novel written by

Linsey Miller. The main character, Sal, a

gender fluid character, wants to get retribution

on the nobles that murdered Sal's nation. To do

this, Sal enters a competition to become an

official assassin of the queen. This is no aver-

age competition, though. In the competition,

you are required to kill, or you will be killed.

If you get caught, though, you are gone from

the tournament. As the competition advances,

though, Sal starts to fall in love with Elise, a

scribe. They begin to wonder what life together

would be like. A life that they can only have if

Sal perseveres. Will Sal persist to see another

day, or die a repulsive and gruesome death?

Read Mask of Shadows to discover what hap-

pens!

4

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world. ~ Anne Frank

Hi! My name is Shannon and I am going to be your indoor activities tour guide! A few fun things to do indoors is go to Sky Zone, the children's science center lab, or Great Wolf Lodge! I have been to Sky Zone and Great Wolf Lodge and I had a lot of fun! Okay so here is my first bribe, GO TO SKYZONE it is SOOOO much fun. I have gone there five times and I plan on going plenty more. If you don't know what Sky Zone is I'm about to tell you. It is an indoor trampoline park that has, trampoline dodgeball, basketball, and a ball pit. The things without trampolines are, the warp wall, adventure course, rubix cube, and rock wall. It is so much fun and if you are looking for somewhere to go bring this to the chalkboard!

Next up is the children's science lab! I have not been here but is sounds like fun. It is a place where you can do science experiments and make robotics aquatics life exhibits. It sounds like a lot of fun and if you don't like science it would probably expand your horizons. If you do it would make you very happy.

Lastly is Great Wolf Lodge it is great just like in the name! There is an indoor and outdoor water park, a ropes course, an arcade and MUCH more! I rec-ommend going to Great Wolf Lodge whatever you want to do they have. You can be a golfer, a creator, or even a wizard!

I hope you enjoyed the tour on indoor sights of Virginia! See you next time on Shannon Tour Time!

Unsung heroes. This phrase means one that does great deeds, but doesn't get recognized for it. You may be thinking “Oh! You must be talking about the teachers.” Teachers are unsung heroes, but I am going to go more in depth. The first unsung hero on my list is the school secretar-ies. They are the backbone of this school. WIthout them, this school would be a mess. They answer all your phone calls, and organize all the files. They answer all your questions about the school, and they mark you tardy in the mornings. Even though they seem like they just sit there, they are doing a lot for RTMS. Make sure to say thank you to the secretaries of this school. The next unsung hero on my list are the bus drivers. They drive you to and from school everyday, safely, while what sounds like about a hundred kids screaming in the back. If you think it is loud when your brother or sister are fighting in the car, well multiply that by 100 and imagine how it sounds. Make sure to thank your bus driver when you get off the bus. Lunch ladies are other people who should be thanked too, they make lunches for over 1,000 kids every day. They also have to be cautious about allergies. Just mak-ing one lunch that pleases somebody is hard, but 1,000! That must be crazy. Lunch ladies really do help our school. Make sure to say thank you to the lunch ladies today. The last people on this list is probably someone you don’t give a second thought about. These people are the custodial staff. They clean the entire school every night

and KEEP it that way. It must take hours to clean the school after all of us. They keep this school sanitary. You get to go to a school every day that is clean and dust free. Without the custodial staff, our school would be a mess. A classroom after just one class is a mess, imagine cleaning all the classrooms after seven hours. Nasty, right? We should give a big thank you to everyone that helps this school. Without them, school would be a mess! Literally and figuratively. Make sure to say a big thank you to all the people on this list.

INDOOR ACTIVITIES GUIDE

UNSUNG HEROES

5

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP

MUFFIN RECIPE

Cats only meow to talk to humans, not each other

Cats are lactose intolerant

The longest living cat on record lived 38 years and 3 days

A cat has the ability to turn its ears 180 degrees with the help of 32 muscles

70% of a cat’s life is spent sleeping

Owning a cat is proven to be beneficial to your health

Cats are the most popular pet in the U.S. there are 88 million pet cats and 74 million pet dogs

There are cats who have survived falling 32 stories and landing on concrete

A cat has been mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska for 15 years

The world's largest cat measured 48.5 inches long (about 4 feet)

The world’s richest cat is worth 13 million

In the 1960s, the CIA tried to turn a cat into a bonafide spy by im-planting a microphone into her ear and a radio transmitter at the base of her skull. She somehow survived the surgery but got hit by a taxi on her first mission.

Abraham Lincoln kept four cats in the white house

This recipe is the tried and true way to make perfect,

delicious pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. It is also

my one of my personal favorites.

Makes about 24 muffins

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups sugar

1 cup cooking oil

4 eggs

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

⅔ cup water

A 15- ounce can of pumpkin

1-2 cups of mini chocolate chips.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Put muffin

liners into the muffin tins. In an extra large mixing

bowl, beat sugar and oil with an electric mixer

on medium speed. Add eggs and beat well; then

set sugar mixture aside.

2. In another large bowl combine flour, baking

soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Alternately

add this mixture and water to the sugar mixture

in the other bowl, beating on low until combined.

Beat in pumpkin. Spoon batter into prepared tins.

Add chocolate chips.

3. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick

inserted into the center of the muffins comes out

clean. Cool for ten minutes and remove from tins. Put

into ziplocs to store, or freeze in ziplocs for later.

These do not need to be refrigerated, but they may be

better tasting if they are.

FUN FACTS ABOUT CATS

6

No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you. ― Althea Gibson

Dear readers, Hi! For this project I have chosen to write about experienced middle school teachers and new middle school teacher. I have chosen to write about Mr. and Mrs. McClung. I will be asking a series of different questions that they will answer. Well let's get started!

First up is going to be Mrs. McClung. I asked her why she teaches middle

school, how long she has taught here, and if she has only taught middle school. She told me that she that she teaches middle school because, she love kids that are this age. She also said that she has taught here for nine years and that she has only ever taught middle school.

Secondly is Mr. McClung, I asked him why he switched to middle school,

what he taught before, and are there any difficulties here that you didn't have while teaching elementary. I learned that he switched to middle school because, he wanted to challenge himself as a teacher and that we are easier to have a conversation with. He told me that he taught kindergarten before he switched and that the amount of grading is a difficulty he didn't have before.

I also have a challenge for you to hopefully enjoy. I challenge you to learn

a new language, any language you want but learn one.

We are all used to having our 3-month break from school. Our amazing summer vacation. But was it always like this? What was it like for working kids? Well, the answer is found at Old Sturbridge Village, a museum that recreates an 1830s New England farming village. According to the web site, kids went to school from December to March and mid-May to August. This was because kids helped their families during the harvest. Urban schools had a summer vacation that made ours look unbelievable. In urban areas, kids had an 11-month school year! That's only a 1 month break! In different countries kids don't have breaks like we have. In more industrialized countries, kids go to school for more days and longer hours than in America. Some educational leaders believe that a 3-month summer vacation wastes education and tax money. Since the 1900s, schools usually have short terms with short breaks like spring break. However, some parents believe that a short school year and long vacation are essential to growing up. A different school calendar is the “45-15” type, with nine week terms and three week vacations through the year. In this way, kids start school in “waves” instead of at the same time. With this schedule, one wave of kids is always on break. Schools have less kids at one time, but still teach the same amount of kids. Some school districts have done “45-15” successfully and have flourished with many short vacations in a year. Much less historically popular is the calendar that takes the full vacation ad cycles it through the calen-dar year. That means you could have summer vaca-tion, in winter! Having kids off for 3 months in the middle of winter took this option out of most school

districts. Rich people of the last century could just go to their summer home for the 3 months with the kids. They could do what they wanted without worrying about the multiple breaks we have today. Modern parents usually work year round and have to worry about finding thing for their kids to do during summer break, winter break, and the random days off we get here that adult workers don’t have. School schedules are usually not coordinated with after school pro-grams like camps. Parents can have a job that ends after their kids get out of school and have a long drive to boot. Some families like the long vacations in places like Europe, while others prefer the shorter vacations here.

MEET THE MCCLUNGS!

SUMMER BREAK 2019

7

YOUR DAILY DOSE OF

POSITIVE

There are so many newspapers that write about all that negative stuff! Sometimes you just need some positive change. So here are some positive things happening in the world!

Australia is on track to becoming the first country to wipe out one type of cancer! (They will elimi-nate cervical cancer by 2028! In two years it will become consid-ered a rare cancer.)

Women in Saudi Arabia can drive now!

Global deaths from terrorism dropped 22% from there peak in 2014

Snow leopards are no longer considered endangered

Cancer death rates are down 20% in the last two decades and steadi-ly increasing.

RED QUEEN REVIEW

Red queen is fantasy novel written by Victoria Aveyard. Red queen’s world is divided by blood. The red bloods live as commoners un-der silvers, who have god-like powers granted to them by their blood. Mare Barrow, our protago-nist, is a red-blooded seventeen year-old girl who lives in a run-down city known as the stilts. She seems to doomed to have an untimely fate in the war that has ravaged their land. That changes as she starts working in the silver palace, surrounded by people she hates the most. Despite her red blood, Mare finds that she has some destructive powers herself. The royals afraid of her powers, they disguise her as a lost silver princess who is to marry to a silver prince. Even if she makes one mistake it could mean death for her, but despite this she works for the scarlet guard, a rebel group working for red and silver equality, but the world she lives in, anyone can betray anyone. This book is very well written and had many readers hooked. The plot however is a bit unoriginal but has some interesting elements scattered throughout it. Such as the divi-sion by blood, giving the book some dystopia elements. The characters have very clear characterization and the author makes it easy for you to have personal attachments to some and for you to have a burning hatred for others. Overall, the book is extremely enjoyable with moving characters, an interesting setting and an engaging tale. So, I'd suggest that you read this book!

Spotlight on RTMS Teachers Here at Rodney Thompson we interviewed some teachers about their job. What made them want to teach, how long have they been

teaching, and have they taught any other grades other than the one their teaching right now.

*Ms. Ackerman, a 6th grade English teacher says "I was always the person to help the underdogs. I have been teaching for 6 years.

I have also taught three year olds at a daycare.”

*Ms. West, a 6th grade math teacher says” I wanted to teach because of a teacher in 8th grade, Mr. Pollock. He was my teacher in

8th grade. I was good in school and liked it, But I was bullied in 6th and 7th grade. Mr. Pollock was my homeroom teacher and

made me feel welcomed in the morning and during class. He showed me math was my favorite subject and it was something I was

good at. I had other amazing teachers but Mr. Pollock showed me my love for math. When I got to high school I started to be an

assistant coach on my local swim team. I decided I wanted to combine the 2 things I love, coaching and math. When I applied to

college I actually wanted to teach high school math. My freshman year I switched to Elementary Education. I got my bachelors and

masters degree and in Elementary Education and a minor in special education. My last year of college I decided to teach middle

school. This my first year teaching, however, I was a long term substitute for 2nd grade at Margaret Brent Elementary School”.

*Mrs. Holmes the drama teacher here at our school says” I have been in the public school system since the last year. I've taught

dance, I have also taught 1st and 2nd graders at a private school. I never thought I would teach and, I would argue with teachers

and my mother when they told me I should become one, but after finding it through an unconventional path-I know that there is

nothing else I'd rather do.”

*Mrs. Fitz, a 6th grade science teacher says" I have always wanted to teach ever since I was a little girl. My mom was also a

teacher and I loved helping her with grading papers when I was older and in high school. I love working with kids and helping

them learn and grow. It is a very rewarding career and I’ve had a lot of positive experiences along the way. I have been a classroom

teacher for 13 years and a counselor for 10 years. I love doing them both but my true passion is counseling. I have taught grades

3,6,and 7 and I have been a elementary and middle school counselor. I love the middle school students the best!”

*Mrs. Welch the school librarian says" I teach because I enjoy working with students and encouraging them to read and helping

them find information. I have been a school librarian for 8 years. I have been a school librarian for grades 2-12.