Indian Cultural Day By: Madison C

Indian culture day is an amazing day that Leading Edge celebrates. There’s food, henna, dances and so much more. It’s an amazing day. Indian culture is mostly for 6th graders but 8th graders and some parents come too. Each Expressions class competes in a competition to see which class dances the best to the music (Jai-Ho) and Mrs. Meindl thinks 5th period Expressions will win. She was right, the 5th period dance was awesome!!

People got their henna done when they came to me and my friends bazaar station. People got to look at stations while it was their classes turn. There were a lot of cool bazaars, chess, fashion, Divali lamps, jewelry, Indus Vally artifacts and more. Everyone did a good job on their bazaar projects.



We got to go outside and do chalk where we drew our top two Rangoli designs. Then we went and drew them on our concrete squares. Everyone’s chalk design looked amazing! I have a lot of fun doing this with my group!


Taiko! Taiko did so good they were outstanding! I really enjoyed watching taiko with my friends. People were dancing to the music taiko was playing. I really enjoyed the drumming, they always do their best. After watching the performance there was Food... and a lot of people went and got Indian food.



I really enjoyed Indian Cultural Day! It was so fun I really had a good time. I will remember this day for a long time.

India Day Bazaar by Manteg and Noah

On the day of the bazaar. people are going to make booths with projects. There will be one hands on activity and information. It will be on wednesday of next week. It is a school event. Anyone can come to the India Day Bazaar.During the Indian bazaar we will have a slide show that we are presenting with one item. The slide show will have a little information about the topic we are researching. For our bazaar, we are researching about ancient Indian chess.Because Alex me and meant it like to play chess a lot. Other groups might be doing stuff related to ancient India. Some groups might be cooking food for the Hands-On activity. It will be located in the Leading Edge area by the MPR.

World Problem Research Project by Zain and Tavio

Our world project research is a world wide project that 4th to 6th graders make . So kids in Science/tech decided on a topic, did research, and created a couple slides about a worldwide problem . If you get third place you get $1,000. And second place gets $5,000 and first place gets $10,000 and a trip to Washington D.C . And did I mention that the money prize is not split into the people in the group, it is each?

My world project research was about world hunger . I learned a lot about it and it was extremely sad . I learned that every one out of seven people are hungry . And that a person is pronounced dead of hunger every second. I hope I can help find a solution to end world hunger. I also hope that soon no child will ever be pronounced dead of hunger and will never go to bed hungry.

Expressions by Sanika

I really like my Expressions classes and the art projects we do. One of my favorites was the “Apples 4 Ways”. We used different art materials to finish each apple drawing. I loved using the hot tray that melted wax on the paper. The Modigliani self-portrait was also one of my favorites. I liked how we tilted the head on the long necks. I have 7th period Expressions and I like doing art at the end of the day. I love art because it gives me a chance to relax and to be creative. We are studying India right now and we did a silhouette project of Indian animals. I put in an elephant, a kangaroo, and a bear. We also are doing weaving projects.

Movie Monday? by Diego

There was a movie night that was supposed to happen on Monday, November 4th. Unfortunately, it was canceled due to a lack of people showing up. I think part of the problem was the soccer and basketball games that were happening at the same time, and there also may have been a lack of communication with the students and parents. My parents never got an email about the movie night, so they did not know where or when the movie was being held. Also, the email that I did get did not say that there would be a three dollars charge for the snacks.

The movie that we were supposed to watch was Coroline. The options were Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, Coraline, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, and A Wrinkle In Time. I think the only reason Coraline won was that only a couple of people voted. I voted twice; once for Spiderman, and once for A Wrinkle In Time.

Brownies, cookies, soda, and popcorn were some of the foods that they were selling at the event. They ended up refunding my money and giving most of the food away. They said that they would try again after Thanksgiving break. Hopefully, the communication for the next movie night will be better, and more people can attend. I attended the previous movie night, and it was a lot of fun, so I would like to see the one for Leading Edge succeed.

GIRLS SOCCER TEAM BY EMMA

We have had a fantastic season and have one game left. We are undefeated and the team can’t wait to play in the soccer tournament in December. Our coach is Mrs. Perry who teaches at Star. The team is a mix of 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade girls.

On Tuesday, we won the game 9 to 0!




I am sad that the season is almost over. Soccer at LE is a great way to have fun and meet friends. Come out and watch our last game on Thursday against

Mummy's Tomb by Vallery

Note: Mummy's Tomb is an annual Leading Edge Sixth grade tradition spanning 21 years.

In Mrs. Bibayoff’s class, we had the mummification scene, king, queen, guards, glam girls (girls holding Canopic jars), the mummy, a priest, earthquake zombies, and Anubis the jackal.

In Mr. O’Brien’s class, we had the Hall of terror. They had Osiris, Ammut, Anubis, a soul, a sphinx, and many more scary stuff. 

In Ms. Meindl’s room, they had Bastet, mummy dancers, and many more. They played the song “Thriller” by Michael Jackson. The riddle of the sphinx was, “What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the noon, and three in the evening”. The answer was a man. My role was Anubis the jackal. I had to say only one line.

This event was really fun! I enjoyed it so much. In Mrs. Bibayoff’s class, it kind of looked like Christmas because of the warm white, cool white, and blue lights.

Basketball Game by DJ

At the basketball game on Monday, they played Mills at home so me and my friends went to go watch JV play. They started off rough.  Then they started to pick it up and eventually started to score points.This picture shows what the score was at half time. They did come back at the 2nd quarter because the other team was winning.

Then out of the 2nd quarter, they started hot. It wasn’t enough because they started to lose. Then at the end, they ended strong but they lost by one point. It was a sad loss. They might have lost this game, but they can’t be discouraged because they could still bounce back from that loss and win the last game.

Halloween by Mya and McKayla

For the costumes, all of the people that we talk to for what they were going to be for Halloween and a lot of people were characters from the purge. Most of the boys are going to be characters from scary movies. Most of the girls are going to be clowns and people from the purge. Some people are not going to be anything. 


I think the purge is popular because a lot of people don't really want to buy a costume and the purge you can just by the mask, so you don't have to waste that much money one a costume that you’re only going to wear for a day. And the Purge is a popular movie. And I think why cat costume because of it a classic costume, all so horror costume because horror movies are really popular.

Boys Basketball by Joseph and Tim

What a fantastic start of the basketball season! The JV team came out strong, shooting 3 pointers left and right! NCS scores with another 3 pointer

Alright this is the first boys basketball game of the season and here’s the meeting.

Video clips of the JV game: 

With all these good shooters the final score was NCS 36 and CCS 17.

Varsity played a great game too--winning 48 to 27!

We have a game next Tuesday! So make sure to come and watch!

Fall Break by Ashlynn

During the week of October 7-11,2019, We have a fall break every year in October. The 8th graders were in Washington DC. Many people did different things. It was our first long break. We finished 2 social studies units about Geography and Early Humans and Early Farming and Mesopotamia. We also did our Culture Museum and finished many art projects. It was nice for everyone to have a break after everything. Everyone has worked so hard!!

Our Culture Museum by Kim and Ana-L

This is the beginning of our tour of the Culture Museum created by the 6th Graders. Everyone did a great job and learned a lot about how habitat and ecosystems relate to the development of human cultures. Here's the complete video tour; everyone was so creative!

First Dance by Hailey

The first dance was made by the leadership group. They put together a fall theme, the first dance of 2019. There was a whole section of food and drinks. They also put together a bunch of posters and designs to put up. For example, they made some posters that the leaves were made of hand cut-outs.

At the dance six grade and Mrs. Navello’s class made a scarecrow. Mrs. Bibayoff made a Peppa Pig scarecrow, Mr. O’Brien made a minion scarecrow, Ms. Meindl made a VSCO girl scarecrow, and Mrs. Novello’s class made a scarecrow out of shoes. At the dance, you could hang out inside of the dance or you could go outside in an area. A lot of people were dancing with their friends and hanging out with their friends. I would say that my first dance was a good experience.

   

Twin Day/Spirit Week by Tania K

What is Twin Day?

Twin day is celebrated during spirit week. The reason it’s celebrated is because so kids get excited about the school year and enjoy it. On twin day two or more people dress up alike.
Why did I choose this topic?

I chose this topic because I thought it was exciting and my friend and I also dressed up for twin day. First, we face timed each other and thought about what we should wear, it was a long and fun process. It was a long process because some clothing and accessories that she had, I didn’t have them and I had some clothing and accessories that she didn't have. At the end, we decided that we both would wear camo prints. She had a camo romper and I had camo pants. We both wore white shirts and vans shoes to complete our looks. We didn't have the exact items but we managed to match each other with the same pattern and style. Also, to put together our look, we both wore a watch, rings, earrings, and put our hair in a high ponytail.



How it impacted the school?



Twin day impacted the school since it reflected the school’s culture, made people collaborate with each other, and encouraged the students to get creative. Some people, like my friends, who you can see in the picture on the top left went above and beyond with their outfits. Everyone was excited at school to come up with something different, and it helped the school to get more social as more people started to interact with each other.

Homecoming by Janiyah and Kaden

In this event, the Knights Soccer boys, and Volleyball girls played head to head with another school. The Volleyball girls versed Mitchell Middle the (Otters). And the Soccer boys also versed Mitchell Middle.

At the girls volleyball game, our team scored a total of 56 points.

They had some ups and downs, where sometimes they didn’t make it over the net and sometimes they dropped it. And other times they would do super great! When the other team dropped there’s or didn’t make it over, the knights would say, “All ace! Woosh! 1..2..3..4 to the floor.” When the Knights dropped the ball or missed it the Knights would say.“Its alright it’s ok, we still love you anyways, shake it off, shake shake shake it off, shake it all off”. Here are some pics of the volleyball players.

At the boys soccer game, they scored a total of 1 goal. And the other team scored 4. It is harder to score a goal in soccer than volleyball because the goals are farther away from each other and there are more people in a soccer team playing at once. That is why the soccer boys didn’t score that much but still did a super good job.

At the soccer games, there were not that many people there. Next time, you should come support the boys soccer team also. And the boys soccer games are free to go to.

The First Rally by Olivia and Priya

A pep rally is an event that occurs three times a year at Leading Edge and involves all three grade levels. The purpose of the rally is to increase school spirit and support the athletes. Each rally at our school has a specific theme chosen by a group of students; the theme for this rally was Sesame Street. Our rallies are created by the school’s leadership team, which is lead by the sixth grade expressions teacher Mrs. Meindl.

Once everyone was seated, the leadership club did a quick performance to introduce the rally’s theme. Shortly after, the taiko club entertained the audience by playing their instruments. They did a few different tunes in their performance. The performance was actually really cool, and it sounded amazing. The second thing that happened in the rally was a competition between all three grade levels. The two hosts from leadership asked the audience for two participants from each grade to play cookie monster catch. In the game, Cookie Monster catch, one person throws the cookies while the other person attempts to catch them in their mouths. The eighth grade class won the challenge by catching the most cookies possible. At the end of the rally, Mr. Shane announced the two volleyball teams who did one cheer together and each team also did one individual cheer. After, he introduced each member of the boys' soccer team. To end the rally, one of the seventh/eighth grade teachers was dressed in a big bird costume and lead students back to their classes.

Color poems by Meindl's Core Class

Crime Travelers - A Book Review by Ansh

Crime Travelers is a book about a boy named Lucas, and his sister Astrid they are with a company called the New Renaissance which is a company that is supposed to stop another company called the Good company which is a bad company that condones child labor and brainwashes people, kids, and babies. Lucas was adopted but his mother died in a ferry when she adopted him out of 8 kids he was the only one who lived. They are lead by the head CEO Madame Guinnerro and Magnus they are all about making money. Lucas was sleeping on top of his a globe hotel (the New Renaissance hotel) on top of the roof sleeping and suddenly he sees a baby and meets mysterious men and a note talking about how the baby’s name is Gini and was almost kidnapped by Madame Guinerro in Egypt but she was saved. Later on they get the most serious event a Call to Arms and they take the baby with them. Lucas and Astrid and other New Renaissance go to Paris they meet boys that work for the Good company called Crukians that are brainwashed kids and they meet a boy named Herve and fight the kids then lose the baby and they find Madama Guinnero and Magnus, Then go to a Good Hotel and get a card for the hotel to find the baby inside of the hotel but they see Madame Guinnero and get abducted to a room they negotiate with Guinerro but she takes all the kids including Astrid and his friend Jackknife she leaves him to get hypnotized with the baby but he escapes from the room and later gets all of his friends back by going to the warehouse they were trapped and the Mysterious man from the start of the book helped them they leave but one of their friends was at the brainwashing ceremony they go there with the help of Herve but his friend Jackknife was drugged Herve said that bells reverse the brainwashing the plan worked and they got Jackknife back. After they go back to the safe house and meet a lady and his father they tell him his birth mother is actually alive and had a big connection with the Good Company. Lucas learns more about his past then him and his friends after completing the mission go back home.

The Guilty Ones - A Book Review by Max

The mystery book at I just finished is The Guilty Ones by Joy Ellis. Overall I give it a 4 out of 5 stars. Throughout the book Rowan Jackman is trying to solve the case of his sister in law Sarah Jackman's suicide. While trying to solve the case he finds that someone in a nearby village died under similar circumstance.s. Rowan Jackman and a group of detectives try to find what caused this woman who had a loving caring family and a great life to kill herself. To find out what caused the two people to kill themselves they look into their past to find stuff out. While looking into their past they find out that they had been involved in a killing as a witness and after the case about the murder was over they had created a new life by changing their identity and moving to new places. After digging deeper the crew of detectives interviewed many people of the murder case that happened many years ago. Then they finally find the person who drove the victims to kill themselves and they investigate his whole life. Then the find a whole lot about that person like his name, Alistair Ashcroft and that he was autistic and stuff like that. But, after all knowing all about him and his past they still can’t catch him.

Overall the book was a pretty good with many good qualities of a mystery and many twist and turns. The down sides of this book was that it took forever to get to the point and climax of this book because each detail was over elaborated. Also the book was very hard to understand in the beginning and in some parts in the middle. In the beginning it was very hard to understand because there were a lot of characters, details, and things going on and the author didn’t describe what was going on. But without the negatives the book The Guilty Ones was a very good mystery book because there were many parts that had you wanting to read more and more. I would definitely recommend this book to someone who can read a lot and likes a good mystery.

The Westing Game - Another Book Review by Breanna

“Sixteen unlikely people are caught up in one of Samuel W. Westing’s games. None of these people know why Westing has brought fourteen relatives or friends, a “stranger, and a possible murderer to inherit his fortune. However, that doesn’t stop them from playing Westing’s last game. Even if he’s dead!”

The Westing Game, written by Ellen Raskin, is a Newbery Medal book and an enjoyable one at best. It combines murder mystery with a twist you’ll only expect from CLUE. The characters, who seem one-dimensional, become more fleshed out once the story hits the murder tone. Raskin truly creates a narrative with unexpecting turns left and right.

Unfortunately, that also brings its biggest flaw: The game itself. Although the Westing game is the main component, it brings unexpected twists out of nowhere. With no established knowledge or evidence, it brings some questions that take me out of the reading.

However, I recommend Ellen Raskin’s book with a 4.5/5 stars. Other books Raskin has written, that I also recommend, are Figgs & Phantoms and The Mysterious and Disappearance of Leon(I mean Noel).

The Westing Game - A Book Review by Anika and Miya

Our mystery book is The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. I would definitely rate this book five stars. The book starts off with the chilling discovery of Mr. Sam Westing found dead in his own home. He had been murdered. But by who? A question running through all sixteen renters of the sunset towers. They had all been informed that each of them was a relative of Sam Westing, and that one of them could be the recipients of his will of $200,000,000. All of the renters are heirs to Mr. Westing, but only one claims to know him.

Before Mr. Westing died he left a will. In the will he left eight sets of clues to find the culprit of his murder. Each person was assigned a partner, assigned by Mr. Westing. Each pair gets a set of clues and 10,000 dollars. At first many of the clues don’t make sense to the pairs. Some examples of clues are, “Waves” or “Mountain.” Once each pair puts all their clues together it would sound like one of the names of one of the sixteen relatives. Mr. Westing said, “It’s not what you have it’s what you don’t have.” At the end of the book turtle figures out that Sam Westing is not in fact dead and he had been disguised as Sandy McSouthers and Barney Northrup and Mr. Eastman. Finally the murder was solved! Turtle confronted Mr. Westing and won the will of $200,000,000.

I would recommend this book to anyone. I think this book is really good for people who like mystery. It has a great element of suspense because the reader of the book is seeing everyone’s clues and can figure them out before the character. I also think that this book has a very interesting storyline. I love how there are some characters that don’t seem to fit in with the heirs but end up being important to the story. Overall I think that this book is great for people of all ages to read and many would find it very interesting.

Open House by Shalom and Sofia

On May 2, our Open House occured! There were several activities/food such as the raffle, food trucks, ice cream, and even a bounce house! This event was very engaging to not only us, but also our peers as well. After interviewing several students their feedback was very positive and was full of excitement. The raffle consisted of many different baskets from each core/production class. My class’s basket specifically was based on Starbucks. For us sixth graders, because it was our first open house as a Leading Edge student, it will definitely be an unforgettable night!




Not only were sixth graders very engaged at open house, but eighth graders were also focused that night as well. They repainted the wall, and almost completely finished it at open house! The wall is now very polished from all the work that was put into it at open house.

During our open house all the classrooms are open and student work is on display. The teachers of each class stay inside the classes and give the students parents an explanation of our progress and work. For 6th grade we had our art class open and work on display along with tours given by students about the work. Students got to take their artwork home with them when they left. Having an open house was also a great way to have students share their life at school with their parents. Open house was such an enjoyable and unforgettable experience.

Spirit Week by Sofia and Faith

Last week was spirit week for Leading Edge and had ended with a rally.

This past week was Spirit week. For Monday it was Inside Out day but leadership decided that Monday was just a practice day so nothing count. Some people remembered that it was inside out day! Tuesday was Tie-dye day! Some people wore Tie-dye socks, bandana, and mostly shirts. The count for Tuesday was 10-15 for Mrs.Bibayoff's core class (Faith & my core class).

Wednesday was Disney day! A lot of people dressed up as their favorite Disney characters! I thought it was cool to see everyone participate for Disney! Everyone's outfits were really good! Mrs. Bibayoff's class count was 10-15. Thursday was Marvel vs. DC day! A lot people wore Marvel. A lot of people wore their Marvel shirts. Our class count was 10-15. Friday was High School Stereotypes. A lot more people did High school stereotypes. My friends and I dressed up as cheerleaders. At the end of the day. We had an amazingly fun Rally. Our Class count was more than 15. Our class was most to participate on Friday!

Last week at the rally...We had a lot of fun, there was a lot of noise and a lot of people. In the rally, they did games called up all the athletic teams that played this year. the games we played were fun, for EXAMPLE, we played this game where you have to have this thing on your head with balls in it and you have to knock down everything .

The games were really funny.There was also a lip singing contest and that was really fun. Also, at the rally there was a basketball challenge where you have to make as many baskets with your team before the time runs out.

The rally was really fun and I hope you enjoyed this article.

Book Recommendation from James

I recommend “The last kids on earth, the Zombie parade¨ The reason I recommend this book to you is because there are a lot of twists and turns. When I read this book I loved it. It was full of lots of plot twists and I think you would find amusing. It is a very intriguing book and you would be very intrigued. In the book, the zombies are disappearing. This might seem like a good thing, since zombies eat your brain, but whatever is taking the zombies, is really strong.

I boght this book at a book fair during my time at star acadamy. When I bought this book and read it for the first time I loved it; so I read it acouple more times and then picked it as the book for my blog. I think you will realy like this book there is a book some videos on youtoob and an animated seiries on netflix about the book. If you like the tv shoow or the book email me about you thoughts of the book. Give it a raing if 1-5. I hope you enjoy. :)