D.C. Everest Senior High

Money Smart students win big

Students in finance classes at D.C. Everest Senior High School got involved in Wisconsin Money Smart Week.

They created signs and posters to advertise the week, and prepared and presented projects to promote financial literacy within the school. They designed brochures and fliers, developed contests with money prizes and prepared daily financial tips as announcements to encourage students to become financially literate and aware of how to handle their finances. Multimedia and design students created a "Money Tips for Teens" pod cast.

The main theme of the week was to start saving, so there were opportunities to win money prizes to start savings accounts. One of the contests was to find the coin hidden daily somewhere in the building, and answer the financial question on the back correctly to win $5. Tyler Ebert, Tyler Messerschmidt, Ben Barton and Morgan Zunker were the winners of this activity.

In homeroom, there was a money trivia contest, and the winning homeroom received a food prize. There was also a lunchtime contest to answer financial questions to put your name in a drawing to win a $25 Visa gift card. Austin Thompson was the winner. Some students in class also received $5, $10 or $15 to open an account for winning the "thousandaire" game.

Brokaw Credit Union helped to make the students money smart by speaking in all of the business classes. Mary Zillman, Connie Frieders, Lyman Cline and Greg Kaiser spoke about saving, compounding, credit and debit cards, loans, credit reports and other topics.

D.C. Everest Junior High

Quilters recycle to remember

The ninth-grade Sew What? classes at D.C. Everest Junior High School recently completed a project that used recycled materials, including old T-shirts, to make a quilt. The students worked in groups as small companies to plan the quilt production and decide where they would like to donate each quilt. Some of the donation sites included nursing homes, the Humane Society of Marathon County and a group home.

One group wanted to create a quilt in honor of their classmate, Forrest Goetsch. This group worked very hard to acquire T-shirts that represented Forrest's interests, such as soccer and cross country. Once the quilt was completed, the group invited Mr. and Mrs. Goetsch to come in and receive the quilt. Forrest was obviously an inspiration to many fellow classmates, and this particular quilt helped these nine students honor his athletic abilities and pay tribute to his inspirational spirit.

Through this project, students learned and applied many different skills such as critical thinking, teamwork, problem solving and time management. They were also fortunate to learn even more about sharing the benefits of their talents with others.

Students honored in social studies

Students nominated by their social studies teachers as Social Studies Students of the Month for October are eighth-grader Jennifer Keenan from Mr. Bohlman's class and ninth-grader Emily Thiele from Mr. Bergstrom's class.

Mr. Bohlman recognized Jennifer because she is doing an exceptional job in American History class. He also stated Jennifer is very generous to other students needing help and in volunteering her time and talents during class activities. He said she does a great job balancing her schoolwork with all the extracurricular activities she is involved in.

Mr. Bergstrom stated it is with great pleasure that he nominated Emily Thiele because she comes to class each day with a positive attitude, a willingness to participate and a smile on her face. He also said Emily excelled during the recent class mock congressional hearing and used modern and historical examples to analyze and discuss the significance of classical republicanism, natural rights and the Declaration of Independence. More importantly, he said, Emily is a concerned, active and engaged citizen.

Only a handful of students receive this honor each school year. Students are selected for this award based on the following criteria: showing a positive attitude in class, demonstrating a high-level understanding of social studies concepts and skills, exceeding classroom expectations and demonstrating good citizenship in the classroom, other school areas and in the community.

Congratulations to these students.

Elementary schools

Easton-Hatley

Featured reporters ready to write

Hatley Elementary School's journalism club is up and running. The club is open to any student in grades three to five. Our focus is to allow students to learn what it takes to create a newspaper. We have created our own student newspaper called The Hatley Hawks Herald. Each month we have several featured reporters that will be writing articles about activities and events around our school. This week, reporter Rachel Keenan writes about her field trip experience.

Fourth-graders find fun on the farm

By Rachel Keenan

Fourth-graders from Hatley Elementary School went to the Fust farm last week. Mr. Endrizzi wants us to learn more about living and working on a farm. I got a chance to interview Mr. Glynn. He runs the FFA.

I asked him why he thinks it is a good idea to have kids come to this farm.

"It's really great to bring them on the farm to actually see the animals and see the equipment. You could tell them about it all day, but until they are standing next to a cow, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It means more when they're right by the animals," Mr. Glynn said.

I also got to talk to Kate Coenen, one of the students who went to the Fust farm. I asked her what she learned.

"I learned all about how to take care of bunnies, horses, and I learned more about dogs that I didn't know," Kate said.

When I was there I learned one cool fact. When cows are full-grown, they weigh 1 ton.

I hope that each year fourth-graders can go to the Fust farm because they can have a lot of fun. Mr. Glynn was right. You can learn so much more about the animals when you are standing right next to them.

Weston

A lesson in emergency care

Mrs. Xiong's kindergarten class at Weston Elementary School got to visit the Aspirus Wausau Hospital's emergency department for its Teddy Bear Clinic on Oct. 7.

They met Mary Patefield and learned about what the emergency department was for. They talked about their bodies and the organs that help them every day. She also taught about their bones and she used her skeleton friend, Harry, as a visual.

It was great for the kids to see Harry so that they could connect him with what they already know about their bones.

The students also got to take their stuffed animals to see the nurses and doctors to get treated for their injuries. The injuries varied from a broken leg to a high fever. Each animal was treated, bandaged and given a shot to help with the pain.

The students recieved instructions on what their jobs were and what they needed to do to take care of their stuffed animal. The students were really happy after their animals were taken care of.

The students then got to see inside a real ambulance and the medic talked about the equipment and answered questions.

Overall, the students had a wonderful hands-on learning experience.

Parochial

NCES at St. Mark

Exhibit offers lessons in art

Students from Newman Catholic Elementary Schools at St. Mark Parish visited the Woodson Art Museum to view the Birds in Art exhibit.

The students enjoyed learning about a great variety of bird paintings and sculptures. The visit helped them gain an appreciation for artistic diversity including medium, style and design.

One interesting style they learned about was trompe l'oeil, which gives the illusion of photographic reality. The students observed objects that were painted in such a way as to make the viewer believe the painting was the object itself.

The students also viewed art work that was done using scratchboard techniques. All students became artists as they experimented with creating their own scratchboard pictures.

The art park, which is filled with bird activities held a special attraction for the younger students.

Halloween for the soldiers

Students at Newman Catholic Elementary Schools at St. Mark Parish gathered together to honor and support our troops. Each student made a Halloween decoration or silly card to be mailed to some special soldiers.

Excitement filled the air in the cafeteria as 130 pre-schoolers to fifth-graders worked with their individual projects. The room was filled with students cutting, gluing and coloring their Halloween decorations. Students also donated bags of candy and treats to be put into the boxes going to each unit.

The school mailed 14 packages to seven different units in Iraq and Afghanistan. We hope memories of fun Halloween celebration will brighten the soldiers' days.

St. John Lutheran

Update on St. John happenings

The fifth- through eighth-grade students at St. John Lutheran School had the opportunity to perform a readers' theater at St. John Lutheran School's Family Literacy Night.

Readers' theater is a favorite of the students. It is a form of performance reading that requires practice and is like putting on a play but without all of the extra work, such as memorization, costumes, props, scenery, etc.

Some of the other strategies we use in the classroom to promote literacy and increase reading fluency include buddy, or paired reading, and repeated reading. We also have "Reading Buddies" where each student will choose an appropriate book, practice reading it and then share it with one of the preschool students.

Our class is beginning an author study, and we will be looking at some of the short stories and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe.

Each student has the opportunity to research online, and in other sources, in order to gather facts in preparation for writing an obituary. An obituary is a great way for the students to practice summarizing because they look at the important things over an entire lifetime, and write about them in four or five paragraphs.

We will look at some of Poe's work, his style of writing, his poetry and short stories. Working with the students both in separate grade-level groups and as a whole class will help to increase understanding. While looking at Poe's life, we can also make connections to our prior study of American history, as Poe lived during the early to mid-1800s.

Our study in social studies for the fifth- through seventh-grades is taking us to Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. We are looking at the building of civilizations in the area and will be making connections to all of those stories we've learned in our Sunday school and religion classes. This will be an interesting study, with some good discussion topics. We look forward to this opportunity to dive into this rich history.

Our eighth-graders will be looking at Islam. We will look at a similar geographic area, but a later time period. The Golden Age of Islam provided a rich wealth of contributions in many cultural areas. We also will learn about the Islamic beliefs and will be taking the time to refute Islamic teachings with scripture. The importance of learning the background of the Muslim nations is so important in this day and age.

Send your school news to Tamara Obermeier, 800 Scott St., Wausau WI 54402; call 845-0772; or send e-mail to submitnews@everestherald.com.