Turtle Lake-Mercer

TL-M FFA News: Seven officers and Mrs Laib are on their way to Indianapolis for the National FFA Convention. Follow their adventures on the FFA Chapter of Turtle Lake-Mercer Facebook page or on Instagram at turtlelakemercer or Turtle Lake-Mercer FFA. Watch for daily updates!

It's raining outside so come join the TL-M Music Department tonight at 7:00 for Disney Dazzle and enjoy dessert, music, and trivia!

Congratulations to Inaia Way, Jenna Goven, and Lily Christensen for being selected to participate in the 47th annual NW Festival in Minot! Inaia will be playing trumpet in the band while Jenna and Lily sing in the choir.

Congratulations to the Region 7 Junior High Honor Band on a fantastic Concert! Thank you to the teachers and students from Turtle Lake - Mercer, McClusky - Goodrich, Underwood, New Salem - Almont, Hazen, Washburn, Wilton, and Shiloh Schools for your participation in today's festival. It was a wonderful day of learning and performing!

Looking for something to do on the beautiful fall day?! Stop by the Ed Rath Auditorium at 3:30 for the Region 7 JH Honor Band Concert!

The 2024-2025 School Year had a new state assessment that our students completed in Spring of 2025. Last year was the transition from our previous state assessment, North Dakota State Assessment, to the current assessment, ND A+. Students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 took the math, reading and writing assessments while students in grades 4, 8, and 10 also took the science assessment. Since this was a new assessment, the timeline for getting results back was lengthened to allow a group of educators in the state to establish new cut scores. Individual Student Reports(ISR) for each student were printed and sent home during Parent/Teacher Conferences. If you did not receive an ISR for your child and would like one, please reach out to Mr. Ziebarth at kurt.ziebarth@k12.nd.us or 448-2365 to request a printout.

Check out our latest episode of The Wave. Today, Jenna and Nora sat down to talk about fall activities including some very special FFA events that are upcoming. The podcast can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/fwVtJeh7z84

The Turtle Lake-Mercer Music Department will be having its annual fundraiser concert on Monday, October 27th , at 7 pm in the Ed Rath Auditorium. The concert theme is "Disney Dazzle!" Come join us for some fun Disney music, Disney-themed snacks, and Disney trivia! Trivia groups will be limited to 1-4 participants with a $10 donation fee per group. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place will be awarded gift card prizes to local Turtle Lake businesses. Bring your whole family and enjoy a fun night out!

We are excited to announce that Turtle Lake-Mercer School will be hosting the first-ever Region 7 Junior High Honor Band Festival on Friday, October 24th. Brought about by local music teachers Kailee Wyman (TL-M School) and Lia Buechelle (Wilton School), Region 7 music schools were invited to nominate their best JH band students to be a part of this festival. Students will engage in a full day of music-making with a guest conductor, Brandon Bondley (Mandan Middle School Band Director), and conclude the day with a concert. This concert is free and open to the public, starting at 3:30 pm in the Turtle Lake-Mercer School Ed Rath Auditorium. Come join us and listen to some fun music!

Today, the Writing Workshop students worked with first graders to write a 10 Sentence Story about monsters. The first graders made the monsters, and the juniors interviewed the first graders for some ideas for their stories. The juniors will then write the stories and will read them with the first graders next week. We love working with our first grade buddies and hope to do it more throughout the year!

Huge 'Thank You' to Brent Weston from the Dakota Zoo! He presented to grades 7-12 about North American animals and conservation today.

Fall Picture Day is tomorrow, October 15th. Order individual photos online! Make sure to have picture day forms for class photos sent to the office with payment by tomorrow morning.

The music department has had a busy start to October! At the start of the month, Kinli Holtan, Royce Wardner, and Jenna Goven attended the 36th annual NDSU choral festival in Fargo on campus. They spent two days singing with students from all over the state! We are very proud of our students representing Turtle Lake-Mercer at this event. Last week, Dr. Bernier from the University of Mary visited Turtle Lake-Mercer school and worked with our percussionists. He was able to provide some helpful tips and tricks to playing various percussion instruments such as the crash cymbals, triangle, tambourine, and more! Dr. Bernier also worked with the beginning percussionists building a stronger foundation for snare drum rhythms. We are grateful for the opportunity to learn from such a skilled musician. At the end of last week, the 6th graders wrapped up their choir unit in music class by putting on a “mini-choir concert” for their parents in the music room. They started their concert with the Star-Spangled Banner and then sang four choir songs, which included harmony and canons. After singing for their parents, they then went to share one song with each elementary class. The school was filled with smiles and music all morning! Finally, this past Saturday, some 5th and 6th grade students attended the annual Surround the State in Song festival in Bismarck. This event is hosted all around the state at the same time for 5th-7th grade students to join in a day of song! It is great to have so many opportunities for our students to share their music with others!

Today, our PK-12th grade students got together for their first Turtle Talk activity for the year - cookies and cards! Fun and conversation were had by all!

Colder weather has moved into our area. The next few weeks are showing daytime highs in the 40s and 50s. Please help your child come to school prepared for outside recess if they are in grades PreK-6. Attached are the cold weather recess guidelines we use to help students be prepared for outside temps.

Our school store through Jostens is where Letter Jackets or Class Rings can be purchased. Check out the following website for more details.
https://www.jostens.com/apps/store/customer/1050654/Turtle-Lake-Mercer-High-School/

Last week, the Kindergarten Class finished up the week in reading, discussing how tools help us explore. Some of our vocabulary words were tools, discover, and explore. We used a magnifying glass as a tool to discover nature! Things to ask your kindergartener: 1. What did you discover on our adventure? 2. What are some other tools we can use?

Today TL-M teachers engaged in First Aid, CPR, and AED training with the North Dakota Safety Council. We also had a number of staff members complete the DDC4 training with Toni Cottingham.

Mrs. Anderson's PreK has had quite a lot of fun learning all about fire safety! We all loved reading books about firefighters, learning the the Danny Go Firefighter song, and riding in a real fire truck! Questions to ask: What do you do if you find matches or a lighter? What number do you call in an emergency such as a fire? What do firefighters wear to protect themselves from a fire?

Happy 30th Day of School!  First grade created equations today to equal the number 30. Some wrote addition sentences and some wrote subtraction sentences. We even had equations with more than two addends. It was a great day in math!! 🧮