Dreaming about Dream Houses

It’s time for Mr. Roger Reetz’s seventh grade regular and advanced math classes to start drawing blueprints and constructing their dream houses.  

In the past, Mr. Reetz has the faculty and staff of GSMS to vote on first, second and third place houses. However, this year Mr. Reetz plans to invite the community to come and vote on their favorite house.

Last year the three winners were: first, Ross Robert; second, Haley Howard and Rose LeGaul; and third, Zach Warren and Bailey Boyd.

The house has to be made from a material that can hold up and support the house until due day and the day that the student presents it.

It cannot be larger than the size of a desk (including landscape and lawn) or smaller than the math textbooks.

These houses are to be made as if a little family could live in it, which means it has to have all of the necessary rooms and things that are in a normal house like beds, furniture, toilets, showers, window and doors. 

This year Mr. Reetz has also tried to level the playing field by limiting the students to spending no more than $75 on the project.

Another new aspect to the project is that the students will be learning to use a computer spreadsheet to do many of their calculations. 

The students are also encouraged to make a short movie of the process of building their house. 

It must include audio, video, and still images and is worth bonus points. 

Bonus points are also awarded for first, second and third place winners. The winners have also been invited to eat lunch with the Rotary Club.

 David Nelson GSMS seventh grader said, “This project is cool because you get to build your personal dream house once in a lifetime, and most people don’t even get to see a model of it to know what it would look like.”

The houses must have a removable roof so that you can take it off and see the way the inside was built, furnished and decorated.

In this project, the students learn how to make things to scale and how to make use of different computer programs to help with the designing of a house.  They also get a better understanding of proportional reasoning, measuring, geometry (including area and angle measurements), along with a lot of practice reasoning and problem solving. 

Judging for project will be on Jan. 13 from 8:30-11:30 a.m. in the GSMS library. 

It is open to all members of our community.  We hope to have a great turn out from our community to see the hard work the students put in to this project. 

By: Harlie Guy; 7th

Christmas at

the Bodenhamer Center

Every year, during the holiday season, many of us put Christmas villages up in our homes.

There’s usually the music store, the church, the hotel, the houses and now, sometimes even a fair, park or skating rink.

But have you ever had a holiday village that is just like your home city?

As some people may know, the city of Gulf Shores is having its Holiday Village right outside of the David L. Bodenhamer Center, just a few streets up from GSMS.

The city’s holiday village has buildings just like the ones here in Gulf Shores.

It has businesses, houses, clubs, stores, and even our school is being represented in this elaborate Christmas village.

Mrs. Donna Jo Webb, seventh and eighth grade advanced literature teacher, has volunteered some of the art and gifted students to create a replica of our school to put into the holiday village.

The actual school structure was created by the South Baldwin Center of Technology. The students that were chosen by Mrs. Webb painted and decorated the model of our school on last Tuesday and Wednesday.

The village will be on display from  Dec. 4, through Jan. 1.

Each village model has a Christmas theme to it, so the village will seem even more real.

The students who participated in setting up and decorating the model of our school received extra-credit in Mrs. Webb’s literature class for volunteering.

The company, club, residence or organization that the village models and replicates is sponsoring each piece and model to the village.

These pieces will not only be viewed by the public, but also judged on originality, how identical the replica is to the actual building it represents and best overall village piece. This Christmas Village is great for all people; young and old, to get the holiday season started.

By: Julie Shattuck; 7th 

You Are Unique

GSMS seventh and eighth graders will be attending an abstinence education program.

The seventh grade presentation called “You Are Unique” goes on for three days, from Dec. 9-12.

The eighth grades are also having a program called “Playing it Safe” and goes on for two days from Dec. 9-10.

The students will be given a survey that will ask questions about sex.

Then they will teach the students things about sex, and after they are done they will give them another survey to see how their answers change.

The You Are Unique presentation will teach students about Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Playing It Safe is presented in two 55 minute sessions. It will also include a follow-up to You Are Unique.

By: Fox Lewis & Hayden Morrison; 7th