Kilmer Kids SWEEP Solo Band Competition

On Saturday, May 16 the Fairfax County Band Directors Association held their annual Solo Competition. In the middle school division, Kilmer had 8 students performing against 29 competitors from 11 different schools. Kilmer swept the podium:

• Cherri Chen (marimba) - 1st place
• Forrest Johnston (trumpet) - 2nd place
• Diego Stine (tuba) - 3rd place

Congratulations!

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Kilmer Student is the Oratorical Contest State-wide Champion

Congratulations to Yash Shekar for winning first place and a scholarship in the Boys' state-wide contest in the annual International Optimist Club Oratorical Contest in Richmond on Saturday.  Yash competed against 7 other finalists, most of whom were high school students from other parts of Virginia.

We couldn't be prouder of you, Yash!

Kudos go out to Kilmer's Oratorical Contest sponsors, Ms. Barbara Appling and Ms. Ellie O'Connor, for supporting all of Kilmer's speakers from the beginning.

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National Virtual Bridge Design Contest

Congrats to Matthew Fitzgerald and Kevin Funkhouser who have beaten out over 5000 other teams to make the qualifying round in the National Virtual Bridge Design Contest.  They will compete on Friday, May 15 on-line in the tech lab against the other top 25 qualifiers from around the nation.  Winners will receive a laptop computer and a $5,000 dollar Scholarship.

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Kilmer Music Programs Have a Great Day at Busch Gardens!

Thanks to all involved with our trip this past Friday!

The students had a great time and the trip ran very smoothly – this could not have happened without the support of our chaperones, Kilmer admin and teachers, parents preparing their students for the day, and the students taking responsibility for being prepared and on time throughout the day.

There were 12 performing groups in competition at our site and Kilmer had 5 of the 6 highest scores for the day among them, translating into the following awards based upon performance category:

Percussion Ensemble Category

Kilmer Percussion Ensemble – 1^st Place

Concert Band II Category (intermediate level bands from schools)

Kilmer Concert Band – 1^st Place

Kilmer Cadet Band – 2^nd Place

Concert Band I Category (upper level bands from schools)

Kilmer Symphonic Band – 1^st Place and Overall Grand Champion of competition

Kilmer Wind Ensemble – 3^rd Place

Thanks again to all who contributed to a fun and successful day for the students!

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Kilmer Students are Tysons Regional Chamber Stars!

Each year, the Tyson Regional Chamber partners with area schools to celebrate and honor selected students who deserve recognition for positive potential or significant improvements. The Chamber Stars event celebrates the accomplishment of students. 

Two 8th grade students were nominated to represent Kilmer. They met Dr. Garza and had lunch with other nominees

Technology Student Association State Conference

Every spring, the Virginia Association of the Technology Student Association hosts its annual leadership conference, Technosphere. The Technosphere Conference is the highlight of the Virginia TSA year and provides an incredible opportunity for members to compete, lead, and learn through competitive events for middle and high school students, leadership workshops and officer campaigning, and other special events.

Kilmer Middle School came in 8^th overall across the state in middle school excellence (awards won) at 2015 Technosphere -- AMAZING JOB!

• Mithra Dhinakaran - 1^st place for Prepared Speech
• Aaraj Vij, Mithra Dhinakaran, and Stuthi Iyer - 2^nd place in Inventions & Innovations
• Nate Manfra, and Sasha Barles -  2^nd place for Video Game Design
• Laura Gersony, and Shruthi Bhimaraju - 3^rd in STEM Animation
• Mithra Dhinakaran, Shreya Raychadhuri, and Elizabeth Louie - 3^rd place in Go Green Manufacturing
• Aaraj Vij - 3^rd place in Promotional Design.

This is an outstanding achievement for a first year chapter! Congratulations go out to the Kilmer team as well as Kent Schweitzer and Joesph Sizemore for their hard work with our students.

Our students were mentioned in an article in InsideNOVA!

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VMEA Blue Ribbon School Award

A huge congratulations to Brett Dodson, Band Director, Marci Swift, Orchestra Director, and Kevin Sapp, Choir Director, for receiving the 2014-2015 Blue Ribbon School Award from the Virginia Music Educators Association.

The award recognizes schools throughout the Commonwealth who have superior performing ensembles. Superior performance is evidenced by the District Performance Assessment rating from each of the top performing groups of each ensemble course (band, orchestra, and chorus).

Please join us in congratulating our Music Dept. on a job well done!

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Kilmer Student Wins Scholastic Art Awards

Sharing a Moment

Each year a selected group of students participate in the Scholastic Art Awards.  The Scholastic Art Awards have been around for more than 90 years and they include alumni like Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Robert Redford and many more.  This year one of our very own from Kilmer won two awards at regionals.  Elaine Zeng took home the silver key in Drawing for “Without Fear” and she received the silver key in painting for “Sharing a Moment.”  Elaine’s artwork was on display during the month of February at the Ernst Center on the NVCC campus in Annandale.

Without Fear 

Kilmer Goes to the FPS State Bowl!

 

Huge Congratulations go out to Kilmer’s Future Problem Solving team for their honorable mention for their creative solution to enhancing human potential in the Virginia State Bowl in Norfolk this past weekend. Aaraj, Maurice, Timothy, SJ worked so hard for this achievement with the support of Kilmer’s FPS Coach Mary Kay Folk (Kilmer English Teacher) and their FPS mentors from TJHSS&T.

Way to go – we are so proud of all of you for this huge accomplishment!

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Kilmer Student invited to participate in USA Junior Mathematics Olympiad (USAJMO)

Seventh grade Geometry student David Chen has been invited to participate in the USAJMO.  Only 230 of the most promising young math students in the country are invited to participate based on their AMC10 and AIME results.  This process leads to 6 students being selected to represent the United States at the International Math Olympiad.  Thank you to Kilmer Assessment Coach Angela Stacy for managing the AIME testing.

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1st Place - DC Metro Area Rubik's Cube Challenge

On Tuesday, April 14 the Kilmer Rubik’s Cube Team won first place out of a field of 20 middle schools in The DC Metro Area Rubik’s Cube Challenge.  Our team of 8 students solved 25 cubes in 1 minute and 45 seconds.  Thank you to math teacher Lauren Stewart for her work with the club.

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Kilmer Science Olympiad Team has a successful run in States!

Congratulations to Kilmer's Science Olympiad team for their 3rd place in the Virginia State Science Olympiad Tournament after a 1st place victory in our region.

Complete State Tournament results can be found on the Virginia Science Olympiad site.

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Future Problem Solvers to Represent Kilmer at State Bowl

Kudos to Aaraj, SJ, Timothy, and Mossie -- they are going to represent Kilmer in Norfol at the Future Problem Solving of Virginia State Bowl on April 17. Congratulations to Kilmer's FPS Coach Mary Kay Folk and to all students involved!

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Congratulations to Kilmer STEM's winners at the Technology Student Association's Regionals competition on March 21. Kilmer winners were:

• Mithra: 3rd place in Prepared Speech
• Laura. and Shruthi: 2nd place in STEM Animation
• Aaraj: 2nd place in Promotional Design
• Mithra., Elizabeth, and Shreya: 1st place in Go Green Manufacturing

Great job representing Kilmer!

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Kilmer Spelling Bee Results

Congratulations to all who participated in the Kilmer spelling Bee! Our winners:

1st place: Matthew R.
2nd place: Sammy T.

Can you spell serendipity? That was the winning word!

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Kilmer MUN Wins Awards at Hylton HS Conference

The Kilmer Model UN Club did really well this past weekend (December 5 & 6) at the PWMUN Conference held at Hylton High School in Woodbridge. Students earning awards:

• Outstanding Awards:  Alex, Greg, and Nick
• Honorable Awards: Jenna, Oksana, Vicka, and Kelly
• Verbal Commendations: Caleb, Zach, Katie, Gabby, Aditya, Keon, Shivane, and Kyle.

Great work Kilmer MUN and sponsors, Ellie O'Connor, Kara Tichoc, and Leigh O'Dell!

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Kilmer WordMasters Challenge Teams are FIRST in the NATION!

Two teams representing Kilmer Middle School, Vienna, Virginia competed in the recent WordMasters Challenge™—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually.  The grade 7 team scored an impressive 577 points out of a possible 600 in three meets this year. In addition, the grade 8 team scored 572 points out of 600 in three meets this year.  Both teams captured an impressive first place in the Nation.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, grade 7 Araj Vij achieved Highest Honors for an outstanding individual score of 60/60 on the challenge. Tim Marcille, Grace Grossman, and Michelle Xu received High Honors for their scores.  The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by Mrs. Folk, Ms. Outland, and Ms. Rotchford.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the WordMasters Challenge™, grade 8 Samantha Kelly, Tracey Mills, and Kaitlyn Pham received Highest Honors for outstanding individual scores.  Students who received High Honors are Sarah Buckingham, Sophia Divone, Emily Buckingham, Jisu Kang, Jessica York, and Holly Waters.  Honorable Mention was received by Meenakshi Balan.   The students were coached in preparation for the WordMasters Challenge™ by Mrs. Steiner.

The WordMasters Challenge™ is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably harder than grade level), and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships.  Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically.  Although most vocabulary enrichment and analogy-solving programs are designed for use by high school students, WordMasters Challenge™ materials have been specifically created for younger students in grades three through eight.  They are particularly well-suited for children who are motivated by the challenge of learning new words and enjoy the logical puzzles posed by analogies.

The WordMasters Challenge™ program is administered by a company based in Indianapolis, Indiana, which is dedicated to inspiring high achievement in American schools.  Further information is available at the company’s website:  http://www.wordmasterschallenge.com.

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Kilmer Students Earn Honoable Mention in 2014 Scholastic Kids Are Authors Contest

Kilmer 7th graders, Jessica Maebius, Elaine Zen, and Lindsay Park, wrote and illustrated a picture book as part of Schoalstic's Kids Are Authors contest. They received an honorable mention for their story titled The Magic Shovel.

Kids Are Authors is an annual competition open to students in grades K–8 in the United States and U.S. international schools and is designed to encourage students to use their reading, writing, and artistic skills.

Under the guidance of a project coordinator, children work in teams of three or more students to write and illustrate their own book. The creative process of working in teams helps provide a natural environment to practice editing, teamwork, and communication skills necessary for future success. All students involved get a sense of pride and accomplishment from submitting the team project.

Congratulations to Jessica, Elaine, and Lindsay! We are so proud of your work! Kudos also go out to 7th grade English teacher Mary Kay Folk and Creative Writing teacher Barbara Appling for supporting these students!

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Students Excel in Fairfax County Band Directors Association Solo Competition

Congratulations to Eliza Pastore, Travis Jeong, Diego Stine, and Forrest Johnston for participating in the Fairfax County Band Directors Association Solo Competition. 84 students, county-wide, competed.

For their performances, Travis Jeong received Honorable Mention, Diego Stine placed 3rd, and Forrest Johnston placed 1st. Great job!

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Model UN conference delegates rock WASHMUN!

Kudos to the delegates at theWASHMUN conference held on Saturday, May 10.  Verbal commendations went to Arsh G, SJ K, Aaraj V, Jun C, Shreya R, Lizzie H, and Otilia D.  Reza Z received the Award for Most Prepared.  Most Eloquent went to Yash S and Chris H.  Most Diplomatic went to Rohan S and Lexa H.  Best Delegate Awards went to Misha T and Krishna D.  Congrats to all!

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