Central Heights fourth graders celebrated 'Read Across America Week' by building Truffula trees from the Dr. Seuss book, The Lorax.  Students were given only toothpicks, mini marshmallows, cotton balls and modeling clay.  They were instructed to work in pairs to engineer, design and build a Truffula tree.  The tree had to be at least 6" tall and had to be able to stand on its own.  It also had to be the same color as one of the trees in The Lorax.  The students worked hard and the results were great!

Dr. Whitelaw, Geosciences Professor from ETSU, worked with Emmett Elementary fourth graders this week to create fossil castings. Students, teachers, and parent volunteers gained a wealth of information from this expert!

  

 

 

 

Ketron Elementary School Students Took Part in National Reading Challenge

Students in  Mr. Armstrong's, Mrs. Gravitte's and Mrs. Sybert's classes at Ketron Elementary participated in a nationwide effort to "Read the Most Coast to Coast" on Friday, February 28. They were among hundreds of thousands of students who joined in the 3^rd annual reading challenge sponsored by Renaissance Learning.

Read the Most Coast to Coast encourages students to read more and take part in a one-day effort to beat the record for the number of Accelerated Reader Quizzes taken in a single day. This school year, students set a new one-day record of 4,987,949 quizzes.

"Read the Most Coast to Coast is a fun-filled event that enables students at multiple grade levels to join in a shared reading challenge," said 3^rd grade teacher, Angie Sybert. "Students are engaging in valuable reading practice, all while taking part in an event that joins students across the country in a collaborative effort focused on reading. We're so proud of our Ketron students." All students who participate are eligible to receive a Certificate of National Participation.
   

The 4th grade students at Miller Perry Elementary are studying the Revolutionary War in Mrs. Jones's Social Studies class.  As a part of this unit, each student researched different heroes and the role they played in the war.  They presented their projects on Friday, February 28.  As a part of this project, they could dress up as their hero.  The students that chose to do this were Maci Beedle, Fiona Durham, Colleen Coughlin, Bella Hunley, Brooke Messier, Samantha Bell, Ashley Berry, Braylee Calton, Nevaeh Janulis, Erika McCord, Noah Chapman, Alyssa Colgrove, Gracie Davis, Halee Mounger, Isabella Musick, Ashley Roberts, Keegan Williams, Harrison Willis, and Petie Wooten.

Rock Springs Elementary 4th and 5th grade students have just completed the 2014 Recorder Olympics.   Students worked for two weeks in music class with Mrs. Whitson and some even came in early before school. Medals were earned by demonstrating various musical skills. Some of the skills included playing a scale, playing a song from memory, performing a solo for the class, and naming notes on the staff.

One student from each class was awarded a special award for holding the longest note in one breath, demonstrating good breath support and no squeaking.

A total of 36 medals were awarded to each of the six classes. Eleven students earned a Gold Medal for completing all fifteen skills accurately. In addition to earning Gold Medals, two of the 5th grade students pictured have also earned two levels of Recorder Karate Belts. Way to go Rock Stars!

Music and Technology

On Friday, February 21, five students participated in the Sullivan County All County Band.  The All County Band is an honor band, each student was selected through an audition process, so only the top-performing students in seventh and eighth grade are asked to participate.  Congratulations to Rebecca Firth, Allison Johns, Nathan Lick, Sydney Mann, and Katie Skotty on being some of the top musicians in the county!

On Thursday, February 25, the sixth grade band and seventh and eight grade band performed their first concert of the year.  Selections performed included Shenandoah by Robert Sheldon, Dragonfire by Paul Lavender, and Celtic Air and Dance by Michael Sweeney.  Along with giving a great performance, the students also became pioneers in their use of technology.  This was the first known band performance in the area that was almost completely paperless!  Not only did the students use iPad technology to read each piece of music, but attendees utilized qr code technology to access the program.  Congratulations to our Innovation Academy band students on a wonderful evening of entertainment.

Innovation Academy Maritime Challenge 

Sixth graders just completed their study on aquatic transportation.  It was wonderful!  Students used the Engineering Design Process to design, create, and test a cargo ship.  The "Maritime Challenge" required them to build a ship that would hold at least 12 marbles and remain afloat during a wave test, and then calculate the volume of the cargo and the ship.  Each group's best ship was given a numerical score to find a winner.  Group thirteen, Mackenzie, Matthew, Jacob M, and Grace, were the winners of the challenge.

After the challenge, students worked together to research the effect of ocean currents on different cargo ship spills.  Did you know that Nike had a spill and shoes washed ashore in Washington?  Legos were spilled in the North Atlantic Ocean!  Our students were amazed that other cargos besides oil pollute the ocean.

The last requirements focused on the Vikings.  Students mapped the Viking routes on their iPads.  Then they created a Viking journal.  The journals were extremely creative and VERY entertaining.

Multi-Media and Fossil Fuels

During the Fossil Fuels Unit, all IA students learned the basics of Adobe Photoshop in Multi-Media class.  Adobe Photoshop is software for editing, enhancing, and creating professional-looking graphic images.  Sixth graders used Photoshop to create posters to illustrate the transformation of energy, which they learned about in Science.  Seventh grade students used Photoshop to create articles about the vehicle their group created to travel to the center of the earth.  The articles were then compiled to form the Drill and Driver magazine.  Eighth graders used Photoshop to create posters about the generators their groups constructed.

Below are examples from each grade.

Racing to the Top

IA's seventh graders have just experienced "The Last Great Race on Earth":  the Iditarod, the renowned dogsledding race held annually on Alaska's Iditarod Trail.  Our students honed their writing skills researching care of the mushers' extraordinary dogs and learning just how much time and effort is invested in preparing for the race.  Writing and editing their work on the Iditarod has helped our students through troublesome words and prepositional phrases, and has sharpened their mechanical skills in grammar.  It has been great practice for their upcoming writing assessment.

They haven't just mushed through language arts during this unit, of course.  They took out the map in social studies to learn about lines of longitude and latitude and moving through different time zones.  They studied the relationship between acceleration and velocity in science so you can ask your student what the difference is, and how to calculate velocity.  They also touched on how dog trainers use selective breeding to raise up the best dogs for the icy, rigorous race.  Dr. Mears took time away from Indian Ridge Animal Hospital to speak to students about the profound care that trainers must give to the dogs to weather the harsh conditions on the trail.

Our students began to tie everything together as they took their new mapping skills from social studies into their math classes to plot the line of best fit, representing the rate of change between height climbed and the proposed distance a team would move.  This is where calculating velocity came in, and the whole process gave students the opportunity to learn to factor polynomials and solve quadratic equations.  All this research and leg work paid off when our seventh graders piled the data together in their essays.  It was a great success, and our students were as fully engaged as the mushers and their teams in learning about the Iditarod.

Mr. Petrie helps students understand and utilize the map skills they learned in his class.

Go West Young Man...But First You Need to Build a Bridge

For this unit on Transportation, the eighth grade students studied the engineering concepts needed to design and construct a bridge.  The bridge had to be wide enough to span a body of water, be high enough for a boat to pass under, and be strong enough to hold the vehicles using it.  Chris Sweat, of Smith, Seckman, and Reid, came and talked with the eighth grade about bridge building and reviewed the need for an Engineering Notebook.  In math, students analyzed structural design and estimated weight allowances.  The science curriculum addressed key components of bridge design such as weight vs. mass and how acids and bases affect building materials.  Once the bridge was built, it was put to a weight test.  Each group videod the test to pinpoint areas of design weakness and aid in their reconstruction.  The eighth grade teachers decided to get a healthy competition between the genders going, so the groups were either all boys or all girls.

Justice Dawson, Isaac Whitehead, Austin Mullins and Jacob Cox