The year ended with a rush of classes. We focused on wellness by encouraging game play with our Board Game Collection provided by a BVEF grant, played BreakoutEDU, and reading. Continue reading to learn more.
Students in Connections classes presented their year-long portfolios to us. Students used Adobe Spark to record their work for the year and they each presented their portfolios to us in a small poster-session presentation. They also designed board games that enforce the social skills they learned throughout the year. Students did a great job of presenting their work, explaining the rules of the games, and interacting with their audience.
AP Physics 2 Rollercoasters
Students in Mrs. Rudnick's AP Physics 2 classes presented their rollercoasters in the library. Students were responsible for designing a rollercoaster with as many concepts from the year as possible. The students made extensive calculations to determine the size and shape of their coasters. Parents and other classes came to observe the rollercoaster presentations.
BreakoutEDU
Students in Mrs. Colwell's and Mr. Pittenger's AP Calc AB and AP Calc BC classes played BreakoutEDU. Despite 6 full locks, both classes broke out!
Students in AVID, AP Lang, and AP Euro took a break from studying and played games from our new game collection. Thanks to a BVEF grant, we purchased many games including Uno, Ticket to Ride, Code Names, Secret Hitler, Exploding Kittens and many more. When learning that they would spend one period playing games, one student said, "This is the best news! Can I give you a hug or something? I don't even know what to do, I'm so relieved!" The only stipulation for these game periods were that they were screen and headphone free.
Students in Mr. Taylor's Read 180 classes and Mrs. Norber's Study Skills classes came in to check out books for the summer. With students in Study Skills, we talked about different kinds of books to read such as graphic novels, novels in verse, short story collections, and novels. We also read a short story aloud and realized how much we all enjoy reading aloud and the students enjoy being read to.
More BreakoutEDU
Students in Mrs. Weise's and Mrs. Kollman's Chemistry classes worked in small groups to develop digital breakout games about chemistry topics from this semester. Students were able to play the games of others to help prepare for finals.
Students in AVID played Breakout with their 2nd grade buddies from Valley Park. The game was very fun and the AVID students got special instruction on not helping their buddies too much. Even though it was a rainy day, they had an awesome time in the library.
We received a ton of advanced reader copies of books from our friends at Johnson County Library. These books are all pre-published copies from from publishers intended to gain perspectives about the books before they are released to the mass market. Each book had information for how to review the books and report back to the publisher. We delivered a bag of books to each ELA teacher to distribute to students as they wish.
Credits:
Created with images by StartupStockPhotos - "student typing keyboard" • Andisheh A - "untitled image" • Annie Spratt - "untitled image"