Great Happenings in East Grand Schools the week of March 27. We have asked our teachers, students and parents to report what is happening at the new, distance learning East Grand School District. The following are some of the reports.
• We’ve been having so much fun schooling at home, but how the kids miss their teachers!! — Jennifer Bauckman with Hannah, Aspen and Taylor
• Briell Eaton-Ahrens, grade 5, has been participating in her online classes as well as training and learning to take care of her puppy Rocky.
• First-graders at Granby Elementary School have been letting their teachers know what they’ve been up to during the last week. The list includes making a cosmic space box and a Mo Willems finger puppet, performing a play, riding bikes, beating dad at memory games, taking family members’ fingerprints, helping side the garage, cooking with the family, reading to new baby chicks and celebrating a birthday with music, cake and family. At least two students lost a tooth, and others have enjoyed long walks, baking a cake with mom, shopping online for toys, playing games with the family and playing on the trampoline with and mom and dad, and the student’s favorite part was having mom and dad there.
• Brady Acker was so excited to “see” Mrs. Weimerskirch he couldn’t wait to read her the book he has been practicing. We had scheduled it a few days ago, and what perfect timing. He was crying this morning because he just wants to go to school. He is looking forward to “seeing” her again soon.
• A message sent to Mrs. Rothboeck at EGMS: I hope you are well and hanging in there through all this craziness. Thank you for all the time, meetings and work you have put into making this distance learning successful. I just wanted to give a shout out to Mr. Hicks and Mrs. Henderson. Mr. Hicks has been posting a daily podcast to his Google Classroom. Recently, he posted one where he interviewed Zach Boor from the high school. It was awesome! Barrett is even working on his own podcast to share as well. Mrs. Henderson has been doing a daily video post that is pretty entertaining. It is not only the highlight of Barrett’s day, but also our family’s. We have been listening to and watching them together. Both, as well as Mr. Pregeant have also been having back and forth Google Classroom conversations with the kids. We are feeling the love here! All the teachers are doing an amazing job to make this time meaningful for the kids.
• MPHS Drama students are now practicing MONO-Blogs instead of Monologues. This will be an evolving script written by our theater students during the quarantine.
• From Mrs. Loberg: In eighth grade social studies, students were already working on their Westward Expansion projects. They could choose from among six different options to research and create a project about America between 1840 and 1880. Once we canceled school, I’ve been in contact with nearly half of my students who have been working on completing their projects from home. They can get creative about taking photos of their maps and models and submitting them to the classroom. They won’t be able to present their projects to their classmates, but I’m still very proud of the kids.
• From Mr. Young: I was able to video chat with over half of my class on Google Meet. It was very nice to see their smiling faces and be able to explain how the online Google Classroom is set up.
• From Mr. Hicks: As a fun thing, I started a podcast for my kids with some school related news and telling fun stories. It will also be available to parents and the public on Apple Podcast and Spotify.
• From Mrs. Wehmeyer: Our students are amazing and thoughtful young people. One student sent me all kinds of pictures and captions of what he was up to today. The final picture and a nice note with it made me cry. This is why we have been stressed and working so hard; it’s for them.