Melodie Miller&8217;s Math 7 classes at Southwest Middle School have been working on decimal projects this past month. The students demonstrated their knowledge of decimals by completing a decimal book project. This project tested their abilities to apply what they have learned about comparing and ordering decimals, adding and subtracting decimals, rounding and multiplying and dividing decimals in a real-world situation. Themes of some projects were buying clothing articles or holiday shopping. Students relayed that the project was fun because it allowed them to express their creativity and learn math in a different way.

Math League off to great start

Math League is off to a great start at Southwest Middle School. The seventh- and eighth-grade team has won the division competitions three times in a row!

Team members continue to practice on Wednesday and Friday mornings and have two competitions to go.

Parents, children create gingerbread houses

Parents and children created one-of-a-kind gingerbread houses as part of an Early Childhood Family Education special holiday event.

This has become a holiday tradition at ECFE and provides hands-on learning in such areas as spatial relationships, creativity, fine motor development and perseverance. The evening ended with the reading of

&8220;The Gingerbread Baby.&8221;

Team does well at dance team invitational

Albert Lea Dance Team won first place in the varsity jazz competition and second place in the varsity high kick competition at the Mayo Dance Team Invitational Dec. 1. This was the team&8217;s first competition of the season.

The team was back on the dance floor Dec. 6 at ALHS performing its award-winning high-kick routine at half time of the girls&8217; varsity basketball game. The team also competed Saturday at the Lakeville Holiday Classic Dance Competition at Lakeville North.

Program at Lakeview Friday

The Lakeview Elementary School fifth- and sixth-grade students will be performing their program, &8220;Movie Magic,&8221; at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Friday. The program, which takes place in the Lakeview gym, combines music, dance, and art to create a positive performing experience for the students. Family and friends are welcome.

Early childhood screening scheduled

The state of Minnesota requires a developmental screening of all 3- to 4-year-old children.

Albert Lea Area Schools will conduct a free screening at Brookside Education Center on January 14 from 1 – 6 pm.

The screening includes simple checks of vision, hearing, growth, immunization status, language, muscle and social development.

Call Deb at 379-4843 or e-mail

dwenum@albertlea.k12.mn.us to schedule an appointment.

ALC students work together at Rock Gym

The confidence students at the Area Learning Center spent some time Nov. 29

working with Scott Hanna of the Rock Gym on communication skills, respect and mutual trust. They worked together, despite the cold, to balance the whale watch outside.

The object was to balance it for two minutes. They succeeded for about 30 seconds.

PACER is all about fitness at Southwest Middle School

Southwest Middle School physical education students are running the PACER Fitness Gram test weekly in PE classes.

It is a 20-meter run test (like the old shuttle run only without blocks) that is timed to a musical beep that makes students run from one line to another 20 meters apart. It starts out slowly and get faster as the students run more laps. 80 PACER laps equal 1 mile.

That means a student starts and stops 80 times during that span of time to achieve a mile. That makes this test much harder than the previous Presidential Physical Fitness Mile Run Test of the past. Now, 7A students from Brenda Morris&8217;s PE classes (127 students) are averaging 51 laps per person. Physical fitness is a Minnesota Physical Education standard.

The Amazing Fact Race

Beginning Monday, Sibley&8217;s fourth- through sixth-graders have the opportunity to spend time in the computer lab to work on increasing their speed and accuracy with math facts. Participation is based on their needs in math. They will be given pre-tests in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Then they will choose one of those areas of need and practice using various math web sites to work on the facts. Every Friday they will take a paper and pencil test of addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, and be given certificates and prizes for mastery or progress achieved. The program will be offered in the morning on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

The goal for this program is to help students to have automatic fact knowledge. The Web sites and games classes use are accessible on the Sibley Web site.