Wednesday, September 21, 2011

To Kill a Mockingbird Tea

Every year sophomore English students participate in Mrs. Dahl's tea party.  This activity also highlights one of the most important themes in To Kill a Mockingbird. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”   For this activity, students must “climb into the skin” of a character in the book and assume his/her identity as students visit with other characters in the book about the novel’s events.  Students dress up in costume similar to what their character would dress in that time---Alabama, 1930s, and research a Southern dish to share with the class.  This project is always a hit, and it’s exciting to see the characters interact; some students nail the personas and understand the characters even more intimately.  Students also write a character analysis showing what makes their characters tick.



Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Gators Take 4th Place at the Pony Invitational

By: TyLynn McKeever

The Gators traveled to Warren on September 17th for the Pony Invitational Tournament. The tournament started off with pool play then went into tournament play based off of your pool play recorded. Here the Gators would have the chance to face new teams and teams that they have already seen.
The Gators started off the morning with regular pool play; their first match was against Fertile Beltrami. They Gators started off on more of a shaky start. As the set went on, the Gators were able to come from behind to pull off a 25-23 win. The second set the Gators came out on a better note; serve receive passing was more consistent. Staying hardnosed the Gators were able to pull off a win in the second set, 25-20, to pull off a full win against Fertile-Beltrami.
The Warren Ponies were next on the Gators pool play list. The Gators were looking forward to playing the Ponies; hoping to improve from the last time they saw them earlier this season.  They Gators battled hard against the Ponies, but poor serve receive passing and serving errors resulted in a loss to the Ponies; 21-25 and 19-25.
The Gators were to face Mahnomen next for the last regular pool play game. It was important that the Gators won this match in order to compete for third place. The Gators came out playing hard and were consistent on all aspects of the game. The Gators won both sets against Mahnomen 25-21 and 25-21.
Going into tournament play, the Gators found out that they were going to compete against Stephen-Argyle for third place. The Gators were glad they had another shot against Stephen. The first set went to Stephen 25-21 as the Gators were not able to have consistent passing. The second set the Gators turned their game on with consistent passing and attacking which resulted in a 25-18 win for the Gators. Since there was a split, a third set had to be played for the tie breaker. The Gators ropes on Stephen, but critical serving and attacking errors cost the Gators and they lost 12-15; the loss resulted in a fourth place finish.
Throughout the day the Gators were led by Tori Mekash(26), Kate Howell(23), Courtney Kirkeide(15), Katie Langaas(14), Vanessa Burkel(6), and Alyssa Wahl(2) in kills. Vanessa Burkel and Shanyce Bishop with 33 assists followed by TyLynn McKeever with 2 and Courtney Kirkeide, Kate Howell, and Katie Langaas each with one assist. Tori Mekash led the Gators for Aces on the day with 7; following Mekash was Shanyce Bishop, TyLynn McKeever, and Kate Howell each with 6, and Vanessa Burkel and Katie Langaas with 5 each. There was a total of three blocks for the Gators throughout the day; Katie Langaas with two and Kate Howell with one. “Overall, it was a GREAT day for Gator volleyball.  Solid, consistent play throughout the day was fun to watch—huge strides and improvement” commented head coach Stacy Dahl. The Gators look to continue to improve as they host the Warroad Warriors on September 20th in the Swamp for Parent’s night. Come to the Swamp and show your support for the Gators.  Goooo GATORS!

Gator Volleyball vs. Lake of the Woods Bears


By: TyLynn McKeever

The Gators hosted the Lake of the Woods Bears on September 15th. The Gators were determined to push the well experienced Bears into five games. They were not however able to accomplish this goal of the night. The Gators lost to the Bears 15-25, 24-26, and 14-25.
Set one the Gators started off on a slow note; digging their selves into a hole with poor serve receive passing. The Bears had great serves that threw the Gators receiving totally off. Throughout the set the Gators caught on and were able to battle back but not in time for a win. In the beginning of the second set the Gators came out firing and were passing consistently. The Gators played with a lot of heart in the second set, but a few errors cost the Gators for a win this set. The third set the Gators started off much like the first game with poor passing. They were able to battle back and had some great attacks also. However like the first game it wasn’t soon enough for the Gators to get a win. “The Gators have shown they are capable of playing with the area powerhouses. Now they need to continue to build confidence and play consistently for complete matches” commented Stacy Dahl. Throughout the night the Gators were led by Kate Howell six kills and Katie Langaas and Tori MeKash each with four. Vanessa Burkel and Shanyce Bishop each had seven assists to lead the Gators. Kate Howell and TyLynn McKeever each had two aces and Katie Langaas had two blocks followed by Tori Mekash with one block. The Gators will be heading to Warren for the Pony Invitational on Saturday to get a look at other surrounding teams. Gooo Gators!!

Homecoming

Pictured above are the Homecoming King and Queen candidates, attendants and emcee's. 

Grade 9
Aunica Novacek
Shania Strand
Cody Kirkeide
Brandon Waage

Grade 10
Nicole Loerzel
Jessica Wagner
Dakota Gullikson
Jake Gustafson

Grade 11
Samantha Gross
Courtney Kirkeide
Zach Berg
Mayson Holmes

Queen Candidates
Lynsi Emery
Janna Hall
Amy Hasbrouck
Janica Stewart

King Candidates
Trey Langaas
Jordan Larson
TeJay Wojchowski
Alex Yeager

MC’s
Kaitlynn Wilson and Levi Lewis


Check back soon for coronation, game, and spirit week photos! 

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Gators vs. Freeze

By: TyLynn McKeever

         The third game of the year was against the Northern Freeze in the Swamp. The Gators were looking to correct their mistakes from the previous game for this one. The Gators played with a lot of heart throughout the whole night. The Freeze took all three sets from the Gators: 25-17, 25-21, and 9-25. The Gators started the first set out on a slow note, letting the Freeze get a quick lead right away. Poor serve receive passing hurt the Gators throughout set one. As the set went on they began to find the “green box” which resulted in some kills. They stayed hard nose and battled all the way to the end not giving up on one ball. Set two the Gators came out in a type of kill mode. They started set two off with a quick 11-4 lead on the Freeze. The lead started to slip away and turned into a Ping-Pong game and the Gators could not get to 25 first. Although they ended up losing the second set but also showed a lot of passion and heart! The Gators played the best they have all year in set two. Set three the Gators started off on the wrong note, letting the Freeze get a big lead in a hurry. The Gators were unable to battle back and the Freeze also took set three. Head coach Stacy Dahl commented, “The Gators played with lots of heart the first two games and executed some of the strategies we have worked on in practice. It was a good effort. We still need to be more consistent and play with fire ALL games versus one or two.” The Gators look to continue to correct their mistakes and control their side more for their next home game versus the Lake of the Woods Bears on September 15th. The Gators were led by Tori Mekash with 6 kills and Courtney Kirkeide with 4 kills. Vanessa Burkel had 8 assists and Shanyce Bishop had 2 assists. Shanyce Bishop and Katie Langaas each had two aces for the Gators. Gooooo Gators!!!

Gators vs. Roseau

By:TyLynn McKeever

                The Gators were hosting their first home game of the season against the Roseau Rams on September 6th.  The Rams brought a big fan section which made the games even more intense. The Gators were not able to pull off a full match win. Set one went to Roseau as they won 25-19, set two also went to Roseau 25-19, the Gators took set three 25-23, and Roseau took the fourth set to win the match 25-15. Sets one and two the Gators stuck with the Rams and were going hard after the ball with the “nothing hits the floor” attitude. The Gators found out that when their serve receive passing is on, they can do big things on offense.  They battled through but could not pull off a win for the first two sets. In set three the Gators came out firing leaving no doubt that they were going to push a fourth set. Their passing was more consistent benefiting in more kills on their side.  There was some net errors and missed serves that hurt the Gators on their side, but they worked that much harder to pull off a win in set three. Before the fourth set was about start all the girls looked at each other and said, “We WANT a fifth game!”  The Gators came into the set with lots of fire and determination. They battled hard but once the momentum was going towards Roseau the Gators were unable to find a way out of it. Many inconsistent passes, net errors, and missed serves hurt the Gators throughout the night. Gator’s head coach Stacy Dahl stated, “The Gators had moments of smart play, but they need to eliminate errors, find consistency, and disrupt opponent’s runs.” They look to take those mistakes and improve on them for the next game the Freeze on September 8th. The Gators were led in attacks by Katie Langaas 10, Tori Mekash 8 and Kate Howell 7. Shanyce Bishop had 17 assists and Vanessa Burkel with 11. Courtney Kirkeide led the Gators with 3 blocks and Alyssa Wahl with one. There were three aces for the Gators coming from Tori Mekash with 2 and Shanyce Bishop with 1. Come to the Swamp and show your support as they host the Northern Freeze!  Goooo Gators!!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Yearbooks Are Here!

Student yearbooks will be distributed tomorrow, Friday, September 9.  High school students will get their yearbooks during 4th block.  Middle school students can pick theirs up from Nancy in the office.  Elementary students will get their yearbooks from their classroom teachers.  Last year's seniors and community members can pick their yearbooks up at the high school office. 


Enjoy your yearbook!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Welcome Back to School

The Chomper staff would like to welcome you back to school.  Please check back soon to find exciting GMR student writing -- better yet, follow this blog to receive notice of our new posts!