On Monday, the School Board honored Student All-Stars from Waverly Elementary School for earning the highest scores on the 2016-17 state assessments in language arts, math and science.
The students were introduced by Principal Anne Griffith. Waverly students are:
Erica Hildenbrand, fourth-grade English language arts
Erica loves to read a wide variety of books and willingly shares her understanding of the stories. She is a creative writer who always includes many details.
Takoda Cunningham, fourth-grade math
Takoda perseveres through challenges and looks for new and different ways to solve problems. He looks for and finds patterns and structures in numbers.
Jaelyn Johnson, third-grade English language arts
Jaelyn is an incredibly hard worker who is always focused and determined to understand new concepts and ideas. Jaelyn is a kind friend to everyone.
Caelen Riley, third-grade math
Caelen is a learner who is eager for a challenge and challenges himself. He is always making sense of number systems and is always willing to share his thinking and learning with his classmates.
A dual language program was established in 2009 at South Shore Elementary School to teach students in English and Spanish. The program was recommended after a six-month committee process to determine the best options for Spanish-speaking students.
Since then, it has grown from two kindergarten classrooms and a first-grade class to a whole-school program that benefits both native Spanish speakers who are learning English and native English speakers who are learning Spanish.
Last night’s School Board meeting included a special performance by the Lafayette Elementary School honor choir. They opened the meeting with two songs from their holiday line-up.
The honor choir is audition-based and made up of fourth and fifth graders. It is led by music teacher Teresa Buckley. Last night’s performance was directed by music assistant Marissa Johnston.
On Friday, Tangent Elementary held its 45th annual senior dinner. Held in the school cafeteria, the event is put on each year by the Tangent parents. The “Seniors” are the grandparents and great-grandparents of the students as well as some of the “mature” people in the community.
Cafeteria set-up is done the day before by the custodian, parents, and the fifth graders. All classrooms contributed hand-made art for the decorations. Poinsettias were donated by a local nursery.
Most of the food was prepared by the district food service department and delivered to the school. Volunteers prepared individual plates and served them to each student and guest. Some students sat with their grandparents or great-grandparents. Others sat with the senior guests.
After dinner, the students sang several songs in a combined choir led by music teacher Serianna Rosberg.
It was a full house. In addition to the nearly 170 students, there were approximately 120 senior guests and dozens of volunteers and staff members.
The First Lego League (FLL) competition season has started, and Oak Grove Elementary School is bringing two teams to compete this year – a girls’ team and a boys’ team. The competition starts tomorrow at a regional qualifying event at Oregon State University. The teams are competing under the leadership of third-grade teacher Mark Gullickson.
There are three aspects of competition. Each team builds and programs a robot to complete a course with a series of tasks. Points are awarded based on the level of difficulty and the number of tasks that are completed. There are 18 possible tasks on the course. The teams predict they will complete between nine and 12 tasks in the allotted time. They select the tasks strategically to earn the most points.
Judging is also based on a research project that defines a problem and proposes a solution, and team core values, or how well they work together.
The veteran Fin-tastic Fish girls’ team will compete for the second year with two new members. In the team’s first year, the girls qualified for state competition and were named a featured team by First League Lego as a Celebration and Shout-Outs featured programs.
Pictured from left: Nicole Williams, Greta Babbit, Lena Larson, Ellie Grace, and Brianna Williams
In addition to the Lego competition requirements, the Fin-tastic Fish have been awarded a grant from Boeing to develop their research project’s innovative solution to generating power. They have built a micro-hydroelectric power generator for their research project. The project is meant to provide electricity to allow students in small villages without electricity to study at night.
A boys’ team has also formed with help from parent volunteers Matt Gelhaus and Raylene Babbitt. The coaches are available to support the team, but the students must perform all of the work.
Pictured from left: Salavat Galimov, Ural Galimov, Henry Glass, Ronan Gelhaus, not shown, Fieldin Babbit
This is the second year of competition for the team, which includes two fifth graders, one fourth grader and two third graders. The team has two returning members and three new ones. This year, they are working with a better Lego kit. “I think we can do it (qualify for state) this year because our kit is a lot more expensive,” said Henry Glass.
The team research project proposes a solution to water quality in flood-damaged areas. The project treats the water to allow for reuse by trapping it in tanks, treating it and returning it to the community water system for use.
