What's Happening at School?

Mrs. Klepper's fourth grade class is collecting plastic bags to construct pillows. For every 50 bags given Walmart has donated a reuseable bag.The mountain of bags continue to grow in the corner of their classroom. There have been over 3,200 plastic bags donated.

The freshman students have learned about Newton's Three Laws of Motion in Mrs. Beisell's science class. The students could choose how to share their knowledge with the teacher by creating a video, slide show, or book. The project is graded by a rubric.

The Graettinger-Terril and Ruthven-Ayrshire participated in a full day of professional development on Friday, February 21. In the morning, the teachers learned about the development of the brain through a game lead by Mrs. Cook called Brain Architecture. This gave staff the understanding of the powerful role of experiences on early brain development – what promotes it, what derails it, with what consequences for society. Mrs. Price taught the teachers the importance of being mindful and present in situations. Surprise and Delight is an approach that seeks to attract and nurture customers by enhancing interactions with them and offering them unexpected rewards.That afternoon the teachers were surprised with a team building activity of bowling in Estherville.

The GT first grade students in Mrs. Jacobson's wrote their own paragraphs while learning about main idea and supporting details.

These three preschool students in Ms. Fredericksen's class are writing about the book, "Where is My Nest?" The students wrote the sentences about the color of eggs in each nest.

Speaking voice, eye contact, and presentation are all skills being addressed in Ms. Voetmann's 7th grade Reading and Language Arts class. Listening and understanding is also an important skill in life. Students shared their knowledge of topics of their choice with their classmates. The students and teacher then used rubric to critic their peers on the presentation. Before students could critic their peers, they were required to watch to video presentations and critic the presenter using the rubric. This brought understanding of the rubric before actually using it with their peers and understanding of how they were evaluated.

Mr. Boe created a relay race for the students at GT Elementary. Students dribbled a basketball, rolled a tire, slid on scooters, threw a football, and carried a heavy rope from one end of the gym to the other. Students learned about encouraging others, teamwork, and developed motor skills with the activity.

Mrs. Hersom writes student responses on the whiteboard about what snow is, what it has and can do, and what you can do with snow. The students then wrote paragraphs describing snow on a snowflake.

Students in Mrs. Myers' Foods Class worked with recipes that included two different types of grains. Apple crisp and oatmeal cookies were two dishes that were created.