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Overall Winner  Nicole Swanson and Morgan McNew – Does calcium affect the strength of egg shells?

Fort Calhoun Elementary had a blast celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday this week. They had many different dress up themes, contests and story times. Some favorites were decorate your hair day and dress like your favorite Dr. Seuss character. Students also earned Cat Cash for every Dr. Seuss book they read. The students made a Seuss Soup Snack to enjoy during their time reading Dr. Seuss books throughout the week. Families joined into the fun by decorating a Dr. Seuss themed sock with their student. The week wrapped up with an assembly to announce contest winners. A highlight of the week was watching the students who earned the most Cat Cash, dump water on the Principal, Mr. Wagner’s, head.

His teacher, Sara Wellman-HighHorse, will also be recognized in the upcoming NETA newsletter for her efforts in using the application website in class.  She will also receive a free membership to this years NETA Conference held in Omaha. Mrs. Wellman-HighHorse commented saying, “I had originally learned about this creation-based website at least year’s NETA conference.  I decided to utilize it in my classroom, as it aligns with my philosophy of more project-based assessments. In addition, knowing about this contest fueled my ambition to use it even more.”

Mrs. Shields took 2 teams to the TSA TEAMS (Technology Student Association Test for Engineering Aptitude in Math and Science) Competition on Tuesday, February 17 at UNO. The teams placed 1st and 2nd in their respective division. The students participating were James Borsch, Sarah Determan, Kyle Owen, Tessa Stevens, Alex Tietz, Daniel Crump, Zane Fickbohm, Riley Grosse-Rhode, Bret Klabunde, Erin Schulz.

Fort Calhoun Robotics class participated in their first contest this weekend at Benson High School. Teams did really well with this being their first contest of the year. They will be participating again at Skills USA State April 15-17 at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha.

Mrs. Clausen’s kindergarteners, this school year, have been working on identifying the shapes: rhombus, pentagon, hexagon and octagon. They partnered with their 3rd grade reading buddies in Mrs. Leishman’s room on January 16th to do a hands-on project building these shapes with spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. The 3rd grade students were able to walk the kindergarteners through step-by-step on how to make these shapes, as well as a few three dimensional shapes such as cubes and pyramids. The students discovered that they can use these shapes to create tents, catapults, skyscrapers,  race cars and much, much more! We enjoyed working with our partners and discovering new characteristics of shapes all around us!