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Show Thursday, February 15, 2007 0 R E M TIMES Page 7 EMM NEWS AND IDEAS FROM CLASSROOMS AND EDUCATORS notes Champions Melissa Mayntz NORTH COUNTY STAFF The Olympics are a proud part of Utah's heritage, but for the 65 kindergarten students of Foothill Elementary, skiing, figure skating and bobsledding aren't the main events. Instead, scooter racing, jump rope and other fun activities are the highlight of the annual Nursery Rhyme Olympics. On Jan. 25, the school's kindergarten kin-dergarten classes participated in multiple nursery rhyme themed games promoting both literacy and physical activity. Kristi Graham, one of the school's two kindergarten teachers, has been organizing nursery rhyme events for the past 10 years, and the Olympics Olym-pics have been a tradition at Foothill Elementary since the school opened in 1999. Each year, Graham organizes orga-nizes up to 10 different games themed around popular nursery nurs-ery rhymes. Popular activities activi-ties include children playing jump rope to imitate "Jack Be Nimble" jumping over his candlestick, tossing bean bags into jack-o-lanterns in honor of "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater" or building walls with blocks to celebrate "Humpty Dumpty." While Graham acknowledges acknowl-edges that playing games enhances students' hand-eye coordination and keeps them physically active, she said the main purpose of the Olympics Olym-pics is to increase awareness of nursery rhymes and how important they can be for stu- ' dents who are developing reading read-ing skills. "A large number of the children chil-dren coming into kindergarten have never heard of nursery rhymes," she said. With simple rhyme schemes, easy vocabulary and repetitive sounds, Graham said nursery rhymes are an important tool for children to learn about language lan-guage and how sounds form patterns for different words and sentences. "Nursery rhymes are a pre-reading pre-reading skill," she said. In class, Graham uses nursery nurs-ery rhymes in a number of ways to encourage students to expand their literacy skills. The Harmon's Day Melissa Mayntz NORTH COUNTY STAFF For most elementary school students, the prospect of going grocery shopping is boring at best. On Feb. 8, however, students were able to leave the drudgery drudg-ery of aisles of boxes and cans behind in favor of face painting, paint-ing, games and treats during the annual Harmon's Day festivities at the Harmon's grocery gro-cery store at 870 E. 800 North in Orem. Scera Park Elementary has participated in Harmon's Day for several years, and the event has become a tremendous tre-mendous opportunity to be involved with the community as well as earn money for the school, Kelly Seamons, the school's PTA volunteer coordinator coordi-nator for Harmon's Day, said. "It's a great service Harmon's Har-mon's does for the community to be involved with the schools they way they are," Seamons said. "We've been lucky to be involved." Harmon's selects five schools on a first-come, first-served first-served basis to be involved with the event. Each school r.yj, ... I MEXICAN GRILL C"1CKASCAS PvTQtKACHOS IS BfiH I 1 1 i 'MmimvXMf.m b-R- ' I yuiii.i;ii;f.Bivv' J i Ma N StatetrjeeOremJ- Severe Back, Sciatica, or Leg Pain Guide That You Should Know About...AvaiIabIe Free. UTAH COUNTY - Have you tried pills, injections, thera py, surgery, or massage? Dr. Gordon Stapel DC is offering "The Severe Back, Sciatica, And Disc Pain Guide" for local residents suffering from severe back, sciatica, and leg pain. Discover why your a possible new solution. Call emerge at Nursery Rhyme Olympics W Sadie Wimmer, 5, participates in 25. students read and reread the nursery rhymes to encourage memorization, they create art projects based on their favorite rhymes and do other activities to reinforce the rhymes before the Olympics. During the event, students show their mastery by reciting the associated rhyme before playing the game. This year's most popular nursery rhymes include "Hickory "Hick-ory Dickory Dock" and "Little Miss Muffet." Graham said she frequently chooses activities to go along with the students' favorite rhymes to make the event even more memorable. During Olympic years, when students can relate the activities to what is going on in newspapers and on television, Graham will recreate "opening ceremonies" and torch presentations presen-tations to tie the school event into students' lives. Regardless of the year, students earn paper pa-per "medals" that are stamped raises funds contributes volunteers to staff various booths and activities, and the store donates five percent of its net sales to be distributed among the participating par-ticipating schools. In addition to Scera Park Elementary, Foothill Elementary, Orchard Elementary, Orem High School and Timpanogos High School were involved in this year's event. The schools will not know how much the event earned until the day's totals are calculated, calcu-lated, but Seamons said that each year Scera Park has participated par-ticipated the totals have ranged from $250400. She credits the success of the fundraiser to the efforts of the volunteers who help staff booths and organize activities. Scera Park volunteers coordinated co-ordinated the face painting and temporary tattoos booths, and other events included a fish pond game, prize wheel, cookie decorating and a dance off between the OHS and Harmon's mascots. The participating partici-pating schools' principals also challenged one another in a grocery bagging contest. Seamons said the event makes grocery shopping fun .... ,. ., , i I enchiladas " fuitas , SUPER FOURS I treatments have failed and 1-888-671-8601 (24 hour the Nursery Rhyme Olympics as they completed different games, making everyone a medalist. Coordinating multiple kindergarten kin-dergarten classes with many activities can be a challenge, however, and Graham has devised different methods to structure the event so every student can participate withoot getting lost or missing a game. "The key is being organized," orga-nized," she said. Students get color-coded dots or numbers on their hands so each group can easily stay together, and they practice rotating between different activity ac-tivity stations before the actual day of the Olympics. At the beginning be-ginning of the event, Graham and Karla Bowles, the school's other kindergarten teacher, walk students through the different stations and remind them about how to behave and what each game involves. That orientation introduces students for Scera Park Elementary and gives parents the opportunity op-portunity to shop while their children enjoy the different activities. "The children were really enjoying going from one thing to the next to the next while their parents were shopping," she said. Many students were also active ac-tive participants in putting on the event. The Scera Park singers sing-ers performed for shoppers, drawing quite a crowd. "We were blocking about five aisles," Seamons said. Before the event, students spent several days making decorations dec-orations for the store, which Harmon's displayed for over a week to help promote the different schools' involvement. Harmon's also reimburses the school for the art supplies, keeping the school's out-of-pocket expenses minimal. Not only did students enjoy en-joy being a part of the event themselves, but Seamons said that seeing different teachers and parents volunteer to run activities helps students connect con-nect their education with life outside the school. Five Scera Park teachers volunteered after school, along with nearly WANTED) WATER, WELL RIGHTS & IRRIGATION. Call Ross at Light Her Fire. 1. iff it it 'J. m 5W ;TYlJtali MELISSA MAYNTZNorth County at Foothill Elementary on Jan. to the event and guarantees that everyone knows what to expect. Numerous parent helpers help-ers also volunteer to oversee individual games, helping keep the event organized. Despite the difficulties, including in-cluding reserving the gym so that all the students can participate partici-pate at once and more games can be offered, Graham said the best part of the event is seeing how students enjoy the social occasion as well as demonstrating dem-onstrating their knowledge of nursery rhymes. "I love watching the joy in the kids' faces," she said. "They have so much fun." While the Nursery Rhyme Olympics may be a culminating culminat-ing event to the students' mastery mas-tery of the popular rhymes, the creative games and fun atmosphere ensures that these Olympics become part of the students' heritage at Foothill Elementary. 20 parent volunteers who were on hand throughout the day. "The kids really get a kick out of seeing their teachers outside of school," Seamons said. "It gives them another connection and helps improve relationships." Even more important, however, is the connection between be-tween the school, the grocery store and the community as a whole and what that brings to students. "Every bit of experience the kids can have with local businesses busi-nesses and business leaders encourages them," Seamons said. "It helps broaden their horizons." For Harmon's, the connection connec-tion to the schools each year emphasizes their position as a family-owned, neighborhood company. Cami Lloyd, the People Support Manager who helped coordinate this year's event, stressed that being involved with the community is an important quality for Harmon's. "We want to be able to offer donations to the schools and to help out in the community," she said. 642-0119 County's Largest Jeweler Showroom' iiu to. uiimTMiy rc. rro jryjun www.guldsinitlijewelen.com 1 All Schools I School's out There will be no school Monday in observance ob-servance of Presidents Day. Orem High School I Newspaper seeks ideas The Blue and Gold school newspaper is looking for story sto-ry ideas and other feedback. Suggestion boxes are located in the Main Office, the writing writ-ing lab and the newspaper room, and everyone is welcome wel-come to submit their ideas. I Parentteacher conferences conferenc-es Parentteacher conferences confer-ences are Wednesday from 330 p.m. Call 227-8765 for more information. Canyon View Junior High I Battle of the bands Canyon View Junior High presents the "Battle of the Bands" Friday from 6-8 p.m. Tickets are $5 at the door. Call 227-8748 for more information. infor-mation. I Community council meeting meet-ing There will be a school community council meeting Tuesday at 2:45 p.m. Everyone Every-one is welcome. Noah Webster Academy I Update carpools Parents Par-ents are urged to update their carpool information to receive a more secure carpool number. Visit www.helpnwa. org for details and an online update form. Cascade Elementary I Box top progress As of the end of 2006, Cascade Elementary El-ementary has collected more than 12,000 box tops, 22,000 Campbell's soup labels and 600 Cream of Weber milk tops. Every one of these items helps earn money for the school, and the collections are continuing. Foothill Elementary I 'Race to Read' ends Friday Friday is the last day of the "Race to Read" spring book fair. Parents can purchase rtsnsr J. ! CONNIE WAGNER I'll wager every high school student has heard, and used, Shakespeare's famous line, "To thine own self be true." But how many of those students can tell you it is from "Hamlet?" How many of those students can summarize sum-marize the plot and context of the play, describe Ophelia, Gertrude, or Polonius? Not many. The sad thing about high school English courses nowadays nowa-days is the horrible absence of teaching classic, classic, classic literature. I'm talking talk-ing 1600s literature. Yes, I thoroughly enjoy "Native Son," "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "1984." In fact, those are a few of my very favorite books. However, as wonderful as those modern classics are, they do not force analysis. Savel Trailer K Trailer Jack O w Wheel () $1M5ea Trailer "D" Rings 0' 12" $5.95 A. in" - 47 OK KEWVLTnarT Call 181 South 1200 East lent 768 DO IT YOURSELF Experience A New Way To Shop. Cook, Freeze, Wash & Dry Before You Buy. tho MAYTAG store."" PARTS - SALES - SERVICE books for classroom libraries and this is an excellent lime to stock up for upcoming reading read-ing programs. The fair will lx' open from 1 1:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. I Spelling bee finale The final spelling bee competition is Wednesday in the auditorium. audito-rium. The junior division will compete at 6 p.m. ami the senior division at 6:30 p.m. Parents of finalists are invited to attend. Hillcrest Elementary School I Donuts for Dads 1 1 ill-crest ill-crest Elementary dads are invited to the Donuts for Dads reading event Wednesday from 8:15-8:45 a.m. This is part of the ongoing read-a-thon events that will run through March 2. Contact Heather Miller for more information. in-formation. I Newsletter submissions due Submissions for the March 2007 I lillcrest Hawks newsletter are due by Tuesday. Tues-day. Contact Becky Kreis for details. Scera Park Elementary I Krispy Kreme cards available avail-able Krispy Kreme cards are still available. Scera Park benefits from each sale and the recipients can earn free donuts. Contact (ilenda Tol-man Tol-man for details. I Want to join PTA? Parents Par-ents interested in joining the PTA or volunteering with different events should contact con-tact Vicki Jenkins for more information. Sharon Elementary I Parent volunteers needed Parent volunteers are needed for the upcoming fourth grade field trip to the Hutchings Museum on Feb. 23. Volunteers must he fingerprinted finger-printed at the district office. Interested parents should contact their child's fourth grade teacher for details. I Sixth-grade tests Sixth grade students will begin direct writing assessment testing on Tuesday. Testing will continue through March 9, and parents are asked to minimize student check outs during this period. Let me explain. Yes, these modern classics contain such deep meaning and insight. So much can be explored into them. However, they can also easily be read as a skimmed-through, skimmed-through, just the "jist of it" story. They can be analyzed wonderfully, but how many high sch(X)l students actually do that? Older literature, such as "Hamlet" and other Shakespeare, Shake-speare, "Beowulf" and other such pieces, cannot be skimmed over and understood. under-stood. It is simply impossible. Why? Because the language lan-guage is so old it is nearly foreign to the average high school student. So, the benefit ben-efit of the older literature is that students, in order to understand the very plot, are forced to interpret every (or nearly every) line. The benefits, I dare say, are quite obvious, but I shall name one anyway: Critical thinking skills. And, yes, my dear friends, to be a "critical thinker" happens hap-pens to be one of the three objectives ob-jectives in the Desired Results for Student Learning (I)RSL). Eureka! Accessories! Ready To Install - Hitch Receivers 6" & 12" $9.95 $14.95 Drilled - Painted - Save $ Trailer Couplers 8i Many Sizes Stop in anil hnnvsr! Todayl ES - 3332 recorded message) or go to: www, drxutah. com M Copy I |