Elementary School News
Stock Market Game
Congratulations to the following students: (L-R in Photograph) Pablo Gallaga, Karla Barboza, Anahy Rodriguez, Gabby Rivera, Juan Alvarez and Owen Nguyen.
They competed in the Stock Market Game and won first place in the Hall County Region. Their team bought stocks from the NY Stock Exchange and returned an incredible $21,004.49 on their initial investment of $100,000, which was 17.1669% above the S&P 500 Growth Model. They also placed 180th out of 3850 teams in the state of GA. Not only did this team win the Region competition, but six other Jones Elementary Stock Market Teams controlled 2nd through 7th place in the Region, with Johnson High School being the closest school to any of the Jones teams. These students will attend the Stock Market Game Luncheon held at the Atlanta Railroad Depot on May 4, 2010. Stock Market Game participants are led each semester by Dr. Michael Boyle, a fifth-grade teacher at Jones
Georgia MathFest
RIVERDALE – After a superb day at the Georgia MathFest competition at Drew High School Saturday, you could make the argument that the Sardis Enrichment School could be the math capital of the state.
The Hall County school took a team of 41 students to the competition, coming away with one individual state champion, two team state titles, and a slew of top 15 finishers in grades first through fifth.
“This is the fourth year our school has taken a team to MathFest, and our students seem to do better every year,” said Kim Allen, a third grade teacher and MathFest coach at Sardis.
Mrs. Allen and Margie Reed, S.E.A.R.C.H. program teacher, spent the last three months preparing the students for the competition with practice competition sessions.
Sardis had ten first graders to compete, with all ten finishing in the top 30 out of 240 first grade students statewide. Three students - Hailey Cliche, Tanner Wiley, and Breigh Ann Smith - received medals for finishing in the top fifteen.
In second grade, Sardis had eleven students competing with four students - Jonah Bull, Jordan Jackson, Alexis Salazar, and Chris Cruz - receiving medals for finishing in the top 15 out of 300 students statewide.
Myers Elementary School Junior Master Gardeners
Myers Elementary School Junior Master Gardeners (JMG) won a grant from The Bulb Project (www.thebulbproject.com) that supplied bulbs to be planted in an innovative and educational way. Myers students from the 4th and 5th grade SEARCH-BRIDGES class designed and planted their ‘Learning Quilt’ in an oversized bed frame, complete with headboard, designed and built by the Johnson High School construction class, taught by Rodney Pressley.
Students learned about bulbs and how a bulb grows, and Master Gardener Robbie McCormac guided them through the process of designing a “quilt” pattern that would cover the bed. The 35 students took turns planting purple, pink and yellow hyacinths, about 240 bulbs in all. Located at the front of the school, the bed is easily visible as you pass the front door. Because bulbs are perennial, this is a quilt that will bloom and inspire students for years to come. The project will be used by students from all grade levels in a variety of ways, include patterning, sequencing and determining percentages. The project was a wonderful opportunity for students to be engaged Authentic Intellectual Work
SEARCH Students at Mt. Vernon Elem.
Mt. Vernon Elementary School 4th and 5th-grade SEARCH students culminated their recent study of sharks by dissecting specimens! They held a mock debate the week before the dissection to argue the pros and cons of using lab specimens for educational purposes. After dissecting the sharks, they practiced creative thinking and English Language Arts skills by writing friendly letters to the dissected shark, thanking him for giving his life to science and also justifying the value of the learning experience.
Riverbend SEARCH Students
Here are pictures from some projects we have done recently:
Picture 1- We learned how tesselations are made, and created our own.
Pictures 2,3,6,7,8,9- Our 3rd graders created their own country from the outline of their body (they tried to create some interesting coastlines!) Then they placed landforms appropriately, named and labeled bodies of water, created a capital, flag, national bird, and seal.
Picture 5- 4th graders made a prediction from our reading and acted out the courtroom scene before reading on.
Picture 10- K and 1 coming out of the Search Room during Read Across America
Studying Tessellating Art at Mt. Vernon Elem.
Fourth and fifth-grade SEARCH students at Mt. Vernon Elementary School have studied tessellating art. They created original tessellating designs from regular equilaterals. The process used to create the designs was called a “slide translation”. Each figure must have a sum of the interior angles that is a factor of 360 degrees in order to tessellate.
Georgia Performance Standards:
M4/5G1; M4/5 P1; M5M1; M4M2; M5N1; M4/5P4; M4/5P5
