McKay Read Bowl

Read Bowl for Grades 2 & 3 at McKay Creek Elementary School

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Who needs the Super Bowl in February? McKay’s students have the Read Bowl!

Second graders in Shelby Cook’s classroom and third graders in Noele Mead’s classroom have been highly focused on reading with a fun football component. The students in the two classes are participating in Read Bowl, which uses a football theme and some friendly competition in the four weeks leading up to the Super Bowl.

Each day, students get to count the reading they do while at school – this could be reading instruction, reading silently, group reading, or anything they have read during the day. They also keep track of the minutes they read at home. On their own football tracker, they color in how many minutes they read every day.

Second-grade teacher Cook said she saw the idea of Read Bowl on social media and thought she would try it to get her students reading more because she has a lot of students who really like football. “My main goal is to help my students find books they really like so they start loving to read!”

Mead’s third-grade class is also participating. At halftime, or halfway through the Read Bowl of four weeks, Mead’s students have read 26,838 minutes (about 447 hours). “This competition has really helped all my students, even the non-readers, find a love for reading!” Mead said.

So, no matter who wins the Super Bowl, these young readers are stars!

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Families Gather at Holiday TAPP Dinner

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Families Gather at Holiday TAPP Dinner

Washington Elementary School hosted families for some holiday fun at the December TAPP (Tribal Attendance Promising Practices) Dinner on Thursday, December 14, 2023. TAPP is a program focused on supporting the attendance of Native students in nine Oregon school districts. Pendleton School District is one of those districts.

About 250 people enjoyed dinner from Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant and had the chance to visit Santa and get a photo with him. Families were encouraged to take home ornament-making kits, and every student received a free movie pass and concessions from Wildhorse Cineplex. There was a candy jar guessing game and raffles for five chances each to win Safeway gift cards or Arrowhead Travel Plaza gas cards.  Families were serenaded with holiday music by Mrs. Dinkel playing a present wrapped piano.

Stacey Jacobs is the TAPP Family Advocate for the Pendleton School District. “We were really happy about the turnout for our Holiday Dinner. It’s always a fun event to celebrate the season with our families.” Jacobs organizes three dinners each school year with the intention of fostering connection between Native students/families and the school and helping adults feel comfortable in the school.

PELC Snow Globes

Snow Globes for Kindergartners

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Pendleton Center for the Arts Leads Snow Globe Art for Kindergartners

What do you get when you have a few hundred plastic cups, some white fluffy stuffing, silver glitter, and 229 kindergartners? You get a lot of snow globes with cute, smiling faces inside them.

All of the kindergartners at the Pendleton Early Learning Center (PELC) had the opportunity to create their own snow globes on Monday, December 11, 2023.

Staff from the Pendleton Center for the Arts were at the school leading the art activity. Roberta Lavadour, Executive Director at the Arts Center, instructed the young artists about coloring with markers on their clear plastic cups. She also provided directions about where to glue the fluffy “snow” on the bottom paper disc and not to touch the snow after the glitter was applied.

Meanwhile, Kate Brizendine, Coordinator of Education and Outreach at the Arts Center, took Polaroid photos of each student to place inside the globes. For the photo, students could choose from a variety of props to use, like reindeer antlers, a red Rudolph nose, Santa’s beard, a candy cane, and more.

The students did a good job of listening and working, and most of all, not getting glitter on the carpet.

“We love when the Arts Center is able to visit our school and lead a fun, creative art project for our students,” said Angela Lattin, PELC Principal.

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Forest Service - Washington

Forest Service Visits 4th Grade at Washington Elementary

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Fourth Graders Enjoy Visit from U.S. Forest Service

Washington Elementary School’s fourth grade students learned about the U.S. Forest Service and had a special guest in their classrooms on December 8, 2023. Two Northwest Youth Corps interns, Bailey Langley and Fabian Spencer, visited the school and talked about the U.S. Forest Service and the Umatilla National Forest.

The two were there to promote the Every Kid Outdoors program, which provides free access to national forests to every fourth grader in the United States.

First, Langley and Spencer talked about where the Umatilla National Forest in eastern Oregon is and asked students what they could do when visiting the forest. Answers ranged from camping, playing, and fishing to making tree forts and taking a sleigh ride.

Students then participated in a group activity about the ten essentials a person should carry in their backpack when exploring a forest. Through a group effort, the students decided which items were most important, things like a flashlight, matches, map and compass, clothing, and food. They were correct in choosing eight of the ten crucial items, which Spencer said was really good.

Langley then read the students the true story of Smokey Bear, the bear cub rescued from a wildfire in New Mexico in 1950. And then the real Smokey Bear walked into the classroom to the delight of the students! After some high-fives and a couple of photos, Smokey left to get back to his important forest work.

Washington Elementary fourth grade teachers thank the Umatilla National Forest for visiting and leading the lesson.

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Veterans Day Sherwood

4th Graders Learn About Veterans Day at Sherwood Elementary

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Some fourth graders at Sherwood Elementary spent some time in November learning about Veterans Day. In teacher Hailey Kendrick’s class, student groups were assigned a piece of reading on a branch of the U.S. Military. After reading the information and identifying the main idea and supporting details of the text, students had the opportunity to share their learning with each other by presenting the information they learned as a group.

Kendrick said students enjoyed learning about the different branches of the military and that while some were familiar with a few of the branches, almost all were excited about learning something new. “Additionally, many students were proud to share about family members and important people in their lives who are Veterans. They were able to feel a deeper connection and admiration for them through learning more about how they served our country,” Kendrick said.

Then, the students completed a craft honoring the American flag. Kendrick said the students really liked learning more about the American flag and its history and persevering through a fun yet challenging art project depicting the flag.

What does Kendrick hope her fourth graders take away from the Veterans Day lessons? “I hope students have an even deeper sense of respect for the people who serve our country and protect the freedoms we enjoy every single day. I also hope they are walking away with an understanding that the American flag is a figure that represents these freedoms and liberties, which is why we do certain things like standing for the national anthem, taking hats off when the American flag enters an arena or stadium and saluting the flag if they are comfortable,” she said.

Jacey Dirisu, another fourth grade teacher at Sherwood, also worked with her students to explore Veterans Day. Her students read an informational passage about one of the six military branches of their choosing (they worked on the U.S. Army as a whole class, for example) and then identified the main idea and supporting details from the text. After that, groups made a poster to represent what they learned and gave a mini-presentation to the rest of the class.

Dirisu said her students mainly loved making the posters because they were able to use their creativity and teamwork skills and that most of them put a lot of effort into this project.

What is one thing Dirisu hopes her students take away from this project? “I hope my students took away from this activity how important each branch of the military is in keeping our country safe.”

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Beckylyn Jenco-Bellando

New Faces in Pendleton SD – Beckylyn Jenco-Bellando

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The Pendleton School District is happy to feature new PSD teachers.

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