Congratulations to Jake Polesky

Congratulations to Jake Polesky. He was one of the top entries in NETA’s 2015 Infographics Contest. He created an infographic over the grammar concept Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement using the website Piktochart.com.  An infographic visually organizes both text and graphics to communicate information. His work will be published in an upcoming NETA newsletter, which is received by educators all over the state of Nebraska. Hopefully, educators will use his piece as an inspiration to use this technology in their own classrooms.

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.”

201564

2015 Engineering Competition at UNO

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.

TSATeams

Robotics Contest

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.

robotics2robotics3robot5robot4robot3robot2Robot1photo 4robot6Robotics1robot7

Geometry Project

IMG_0176 IMG_0189 IMG_0186

The student took a picture of a pioneer, put a 1-inch grid on it and then increased it to 8 foot tall pioneer. Making a shape bigger is called a dilation.

Kindergarten Math Exploration 2015

KindMath6KindMath1 KindMath4  KindMath9

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!

UNO’s Middle School Honor choir 2015

JRHChoir
Friday, January 9th, six Jr High students participated in UNO’s Middle School Honor choir. These students went through an audition process in September and were chosen to take part with 160 other Middle school students across the state. For the auditions, students sang a solo song and a scale to show their voice capabilities. The UNO Middle School Honor Choir staff chooses the final list of participants. Throughout the day, students worked with guest conductor, David Puderbaugh in a music clinic setting and ended the afternoon with a final concert at 3:00 pm in the Strauss Performing Arts Center on the UNO campus. The students have been individually preparing the music on their own since they found out they were selected in November. This honor choir gave the students an opportunity to go above and beyond and challenge themselves with new music. It also gave the students a chance to really expand and grow in themselves as musicians.
 
These student were selected:
Oliva Evans (8th grade)
Julie Klemm (8th grade)
Jordan Wear (8th grade)
Joshua Nachtigall (7th grade)
Riley Mitchell (7th grade)
John Crump (8th grade)
 
The songs they sang on the concert were:
The Falcon
I Will Arise and Make Music
Amavolovolo
He Never Failed Me Yet
O Swiftly Glides the Bonny Boat

Conference Choral Clinic

On Monday, November 10th,  the concert choir went to our annual conference choral clinic at Platteview high school. A guest clinician was brought in to work with the choirs. As a choir we prepared our own individual piece which we worked on with the clinician and then performed our song on the final concert. Along with that, the students have been rehearsing and preparing 4 other pieces that they sang along with all of the other 7 choirs in our conference as a huge mass choir of over 400 students.
Our students represented our school SO well – we got many compliments on our performance, our behavior, and our preparedness for the day!
Choir1 Choir2

Drama performance of “Going to School” coming soon.

Going to School Cast

This year we will be performing “Going to School” by Ed Monk. It is a One Act play, in which Nick makes the big transition of heading off to college for the first time. The only problem is, his family is taking him – his mother worries he will starve to death, his father forgot the tuition check, his sisters definitely do not want to go along for the ride, and his grandma “don’t hear so good no more!” It is definitely going to be a fun-filled day.

November 23rd – “Going to School” community performance – 2:00 pm at the Fort Calhoun High School gymnasium. Admission: $3.00 adults – students/children free
November 24th – One Act Capitol Conference competition at Wahoo High School. Fort Calhoun performance: 10:00 am
December 3rd – One Act District competition at Bennington High School. Fort Calhoun performance: 9:00 am

Honoring our Veterans 2014

On Tuesday, Fort Calhoun Community Schools honored our Veterans by having a Veteran’s Day Ceremony. The event was hosted by our Skills USA students. The Band performed several patriotic songs including the Armed Forces Salute. Both the High School and Elementary Choirs gave performances as well. Fred Carritt, the Washington Country Resource Officer, was the Keynote Speaker. Fred served in the Navy on the USS Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War. Several service members from every branch of the Military were in attendances and enjoyed a luncheon prepared by the school kitchen and served by the Skills USA students. Thank you to everyone who helped with the event including the American Legion, school administrators and staff, and Skills USA students. Once again, Fort Calhoun Schools would like to thank all our Veterans their service to our country.

IMG_4338 IMG_4341 IMG_4342