Shout out to Mrs. Stephenson’s leadership class at WHS who recently participated in a "Tower of Pasta" challenge. Each group held the max weight for the same time before breaking. One tower was 10-1/2 inches vs. the other tower which was 8-1/2 inches.
Great collaboration, critical thinking, and team work were shown in this hands-on Odyssey of the Mind-type challenge.
Submitted by Christy English
Heroism is a concept that has been explored in society and culture throughout time--a concept that continues to be worthy of study in ELA classes at Walton Middle School. The first unit in the eighth grade Springboard curriculum introduces the challenge of heroism. Because the word "hero" is used daily--in school, conversations, movies, video games, news, daily life--it is worthy of exploring.
In Ms. Alex Rhodes' classes this year, students are taking the time to reflect on what heroism really means as a societal and cultural concept. On WICOR Wednesday, these eighth graders spent time analyzing how a film--Disney's Big Hero 6--uses the hero's journey to structure its plot. Students closely and carefully watched the film to identify stages of the hero's journey. Ms. Rhodes' students organized their thoughts (a key WICOR concept) using a graphic organizer, recording details from the film that aligned to each stage of the archetypal hero's journey. During Wednesday's lesson, students carefully traced how the film's hero, Hiro, faces a series of challenges that become increasingly difficult as the story unfolds, mapping out the hero's "Beginning of Adventure," "Road of Trials," and "Experience with Unconditional Love." After pausing the film, Ms. Rhodes instructed students to "turn and talk," collaborating with their classmates about how key details from the film support the hero's archetype.
WICOR strategies were in full force throughout the lesson, as students "read" the film as a text, as they wrote down key details and analysis in their graphic organizers, and as they collaborated with their peers to articulate their thoughts. Students at WMS practice these essential skills across campus each and every day--but especially on WICOR Wednesdays.
Submitted by Kristen Nelson
FHS Seniors return to Friday Night Lights, starting with the senior breakfast and ending with a win at home!
Freeport High School students in Jason Burnham's AP Computer Science class collaborated to invent their own “number system” with symbols and rules for getting from one pattern to another. Computers store information using number systems. All commands from a user must be translated into numbers by the computer's number system. We look forward to seeing Mr. Burnham's students succeed on their AP exams in May.
Submitted by Brian Michie
Students in Gary Driver's new Introduction to Robotics class began the year with an engineering challenge. Students were given only 3 sheets of paper and asked to design a structure to support as much weight as possible. This is the inaugural school year for the robotics program at Freeport High School and we are excited to see it grow and succeed.
Submitted by Brian Michie
Congratulations to the following students who earned a level 5 on the biology EOC exam!
Jhacobe Adkison
MacKinnon Campbell-Work
Sierra Carroll
Emily Casey
Konnor Colvin
Mika Crowder
Lillian Feitsma
Anna Graham
Joseph Grgurich
Layla Hagan
Wilmer Hall
Chasity Kemp
Autumn King
Ming Liu
Daniel McCarthy
Mallory Meredith
Haleigh Permenter
Austyn Taylor
Aden Tidwell
Not pictured - Noel Dahl and Makayla Reed
Mrs. Gaby Brown's seventh grade AVID students at Walton Middle School have been learning the importance of social skills and have been practicing solid handshakes and confident introductions all around campus. AVID students self-assuredly walk up to faculty and staff members, introduce themselves as AVID students, offer a firm handshake, make good eye contact, and speak loudly enough to be heard. Bright, successful futures undoubtedly await these well-prepared WMS AVID students.
Headline picture: Peyton Seay confidently introduces himself to his ELA teacher, Mrs. McLaney, who warmly returns his handshake.
Picture #2--Before class starts, Sophia Parker greets Mrs. Ahumada with a kind introduction, handshake, and smile.
Ms. Tara Manson, WMS seventh grade ELA teacher, implemented strategies she learned at EPIC day during pre-planning with her students. To introduce seventh grade writing expectations, Ms. Manson led students in a timed "honeycomb harvest," instructing students to link writing-related word relationships however they deemed appropriate, as long as they could defend their rationales. All students eagerly participated in the engaging activity until Ms. Manson called "time's up!" In the next step, students drew a large four quadrant "placemat" with an oval in the center. Ms. Manson assigned each student a quadrant and asked them to answer the question, "How do writers create a well-written essay?" Many students linked their written ideas to the terms they explored previously in the honeycomb harvest. After writing in their individual quadrants, group members collected similarities between their thoughts and added them to the center oval, then shared out to the class. The lesson served as an excellent formative assessment for Ms. Manson, as she was able to assess her new students' prior knowledge about writing. Ms. Manson simply served as a learning facilitator while students did the heavy lifting of this lesson, which required them to write, inquire, collaborate, and organize (all elements of WICOR). Clearly, Ms. Manson's professional learning transferred to productive engagement for her seventh grade Warriors.
Students provide rationales for their ideas about commonalities between terms in a formative assessment activity
Students jot down their individual thoughts about what it takes to write a well-written essay.
