Chalk Talk — May 11, 2016

Published 4:00 am Wednesday, May 11, 2016

DISTRICT

There will be no OTE (Opportunity to Excel) after-school program on Thursday, May 12. There is no school for students on Friday, May 13. Staff will be engaged in professional development.

The next school board meeting is May 16, with a workshop planned for 5:30 p.m., followed by a regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the boardroom. The boardroom is in the auditorium building, 601 N. Sequim Ave. An agenda is available on the district website under Board of Directors. The public is encouraged to attend and time is set aside at each meeting for public comment.

For more information, contact Marilyn Walsh at mwalsh@sequim.k12.wa.us or 582-3262.

GREYWOLF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Kindergarten classes ended a unit on Colonial Towns and Townspeople by reading the old folk story “Stone Soup” while making the soup from the read-aloud. Students learned all about colonial towns and the important occupations of people that lived during those times such as bakers, millers, blacksmiths, carpenters and masons.

In late March, fifth-grade students from Teresa Iversen’s class walked to Railroad Bridge Park to test the health of the Dungeness River for salmon. The children carefully gathered samples of water and separated out the different types of “bugs” in order to sort and classify them.

HELEN HALLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Spring time is here and along with the sunshine, rain, flowers and the promise of summer on the horizon, students are working hard to achieve their best on the state Smarter Balanced Assessment tests.

In preparation for this series of tests, Jaysa Hill’s fourth-grade class created their own list of reminders and titled it, “The A-B-C’s of Testing.” Each student listed their own idea for a word or phrase beginning with each letter of the alphabet.

The following week, students shared their ideas and voted on their favorites. The final choices were then placed on two large posters in the classroom for everyone to see. This activity allowed students to review helpful test-taking strategies in a fun new way.

Here is the final list:

Always do your best!

Be quiet when testing.

Concentrate!

Don’t copy or cheat.

Education is important!

Focus!

Give your best.

Have fun (by showing how much you know)!

Ignore others and outside distractions.

Just do, there is no try. (Star Wars inspired — Take your time and choose correctly, don’t just guess.)

Kids do their best on the test!

Lose the speed.

My own screen is where my eyes should be.

No talking!

Observe your answers.

Practice makes perfect.

Quadruple-check your work!

RDW and Race (Two strategies used in math and language arts class to help students achieve their best: RDW for math class is read the question, draw (show) your work and write your answer in a complete statement. RACE, a language arts strategy, stands for restate the question in your answer, answer in complete sentences, cite your evidence from other sources and explain and answer every part of the question.

SLANT, which stands for sit up, listen carefully, ask and answer questions at the right time, nod your noggin when you understand and track with the speaker.

Time does not matter (take your time).

Use level 0 voice.

Visualize the problem in your noggin.

Wise decisions.

X-ray vision for checking work.

Yo-Yo the question! (Double check after you answer the problem.)

Zam! You’re done when you’ve done your best!

Third-grade students from Emily Ellefson’s class spent the past several weeks learning about astronomy, researching space using several different resources and writing informative reports as well as opinion articles based on facts they learned.

Here are two samples:

Do you want to visit the moon? by Mckenzie Wandel

Do you want to go visit the moon? I know I do. My opinion is I want to go to the moon. I know this is my choice.

One reason I want to go to the moon is gravity. I want to visit the moon because you can spend time in less gravity and that sounds awesome … floating everywhere weightless.

Another reason I want to go to the moon is the view of space. The view of space from the moon must be awesome looking at all of the planets. Sounds like fun and looks probably beautiful.

The last reason I want to go to the moon is so I can do this … I am on the moon. I would have brought a United States flag and put it on the moon and walk slowly on the dusty gray moon and dust going everywhere.

So now you might want to go to the moon and change your mind about it. Whatever you decide, it is your choice. Don’t do it if a friend is doing it and you don’t want to.

About the Moon, Sun and Earth by Tailynn Francis

Do you want to know about the sun, the moon and the Earth? I’m going to tell you about the sun a little. One thing about the sun is the sun is a star. One thing is the moon revolves about Earth. One thing about the Earth is the planet we call home.

Now I am going to tell you about the sun. It is the center of our solar system. All the plants orbit around the sun. The sun is a star and it is made of hot gas. The sun gives the planets heat and light.

Let’s move on to the planet we call home. Earth is one of the closest planets to the sun. The Earth revolves around the sun every 365 days and that is a full year. Earth has land so we can walk on it.

The moon mimics the Earth’s pattern around the sun. Earth’s moon travels around Earth. It takes 27 days for the moon to go once around Earth. If you see the moon it is one-fourth of the size of the Earth. There are holes on the moon. They are called craters. The moon has mountains. They are 15,000 feet tall. Also the moon does not make its own light. It just reflects off the sun’s light.

Now you know about the sun, Earth and the moon. Now you can go tell other people. They are fun to talk about.

In summary, the moon orbits around the Earth and Earth orbits around the sun.

OLYMPIC PENINSULA ACADEMY

Olympic Peninsula Academy’s Destination Imagination team is looking for ways to raise money to fund their trip to Knoxville, Tenn., to represent our community in a competition with teams from all parts of the country and other countries around the world.

The group has taken on many work projects, including landscaping, weeding, car washes and bake sales. The group also has a GoFundMe page. Dee Dee Nielsen, enrichment coach and DI Team advisor, gave a progress report on fundraising at the May 2 school board meeting, saying they had raised almost $6,000 of $15,000 needed to send the team of seven students and adult chaperones on the trip.

For more information, call Nielsen at 582-3403.

To learn more about Destination Imagination competitions, see www.destinationimagination.org.

Rebecca Bullard’s fifth-grade class spent April 21 hiking up to the upper dam area along the Elwha River. After spending time learning about the Elwha River and its history, they were able to see firsthand how the environment is changing since the dam was removed only a few years ago.

Since the gate to the upper dam area was closed due to a washed out bridge, the class and parent chaperones hiked about seven miles.

The class discussed forest management, Earth Day, native plants and many other things as they made their way up the mountain roads.

SEQUIM HIGH SCHOOL

For National “Poem in Your Pocket” Day, students in Chelsea Reichner’s class shared a wide variety of distilled thoughts, some professionally published, others self-published, some memorized, others held handy on folded paper and locked in phones.

Aaliyah Lundberg memorized and performed a Watsky spoken word poem, “Tiny Glowing Screens,” for several classrooms throughout the day, while Betsy Merrikin chose a more traditional route, reciting Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee.”

Calvin Wade turned his passion into a poem and shared both the sport and his love of words on his Frisbee.

Calvin Hazard proudly drew in many crowds to share his authentic patriotic poem. Though we may not remember his words verbatim, we always will remember his attire that ushered in the moment.

Thank you to all who shared their favorite poems or took the opportunity to craft their own in honor of National Poetry Month.

The Sequim High Operetta Club presents Rogers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella,” directed by Robin Hall, musical direction by John Lorentzen and choreographed by Abby Norman.

Performances are at 7 p.m. May 12-14 and 19-21 in the auditorium.

Ticket prices are as follows: premium seats/$18, adults/$15, senior citizens and children (65-plus and under 18) /$12, all balcony seats/$10. Advanced tickets may be purchased online at www.shsoperetta.org or www.showtix4u.com.

Tickets also may be purchased in the high school’s main office.

The box office at the Performing Arts Center opens one hour before each performance.

IT Academy is a required class for graduation. Students may opt to test out of the class, but passing the test does not earn high school or college credit.

The rigorous bypass test includes demonstration of skills and knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Windows, Office 365, computer literacy and touch-typing proficiency. This test has an 80-minute time limit and is offered twice per year.

The test is difficult and passing requires expert knowledge of Microsoft Office.

This spring, the test will be offered at 7 a.m. May 17 and May 19 in Room A2 or at 3 p.m. in Room A3.

Students must schedule their tests with teacher Charles Kleinberg at ckleinberg@sequim.k12.wa.us for the morning session or teacher Mark Knudson at mknudson@sequim.k12.wa.us for the afternoon session by Friday, May 13.