Do you have or know a student athlete who is participating in athletics at Southwest Middle School and would like to know their schedule? If so check out the Southwest athletics Web page . You can find out the schedule of the fall athletics along with any announcements.

This Web page will be updated often so please check back.

Insurance agent donates atlases

The third-grade social studies committee would like to thank Nancy VanderWaerdt for the donation of student and adult atlases for each third- grader to use. The atlases for our social studies curriculum.

Children asked to commit to &8216;commercial-cizing&8217;

Children in grades two through six at Halverson, Hawthorne, Lakeview and Sibley elementary schools will be participating in a unique fitness challenge.

The name of the event is called &8220;commercial-cizing.&8221; Studies have shown that children are watching a lot of television each week. To combat this, students will commit to a specific exercise every time a commercial comes on the TV.

The purpose of this program is to bring attention to the fact that children should not live a sedentary lifestyle, which contributes to childhood obesity, now the No.1 health problem among children under 18.

The message that physical education specialists Paul Woodside, Tom Dyrdal, Jane Hanson and Dyann Baumann are teaching their students is &8220;being a couch potato is out, and being physically fit is in.&8221; The goal is to create good habits at a young age!

AmeriCorps team attends training

The AmeriCorps Team, Stephanie Pirsig and Dan Dahl, attended a three- day training retreat Sept. 18-20 at Camp Courage in Maple Lake. Southwest Middle School Principal Marsha Langseth joined them on Sept. 20. During the three-day event they attended workshops including educational equity and high expectations, mentoring partnership training, program evaluation and volunteer management. They also spent time planning the year ahead as well as a service-learning event for Mix It Up! Day on Nov. 13. The three-day training event was an excellent opportunity for learning, planning, networking, and resource building among educational and youth organizations throughout Minnesota.

Do you know?

Question: To cross safely in front of a bus, how far from the bus should a person be?

Answer: 10 feet.