It started with freshman girls marching the halls and proclaiming their loyalty to seniors all while wearing interesting outfits designed by our senior girls.
Today our king and queen visited St. Johns Lutheran twice, and crowned the Golden Living Center's king and queen. In addition to that a group of volleyball students went over to the elementary to eat lunch and play with the little ones.
I must say that Tuesday was a great day for homecoming. The weather was beautiful, and the students were revved up. Today's theme was opposite day and many of them did a great job of dressing up.
While the dress up day was exciting, I have to say that the highlight to my day was when the royalty and cheerleaders went over to eat lunch and play at recess with the elementary students. Seeing the big kids interact with the little ones was great. I loved the fact that 3rd graders are talking smack to Gavin on the soccer field. You also have Josey, Dylan, and Jenaye pushing students on the playground equipment, and the king an queen posed with various students. It was a great time. The other day while talking to the royalty at coronation rehersal some of the students were reminiscing about when they played on the playground with whoever the big high schoolers were at the time.
Our day was capped off with the total domination of our volleyball team over Tiospa Zina. They really had the train moving last night.
Finally I will be posting many more pictures under the Students in Action Tab on my wiki.
Well the first day of Homecoming 2010 is under our belt, and I must admit that things are falling together nicely. Before I go any further I want to congratulate this year's queen, Annie Hockhalter, and king, Dylan Hanson. Way to go!!! They are both great Representatives of our school. Monday was also 80s day, and while I was disappointed there were no Miami Vice or Micheal Jackson impersonations our students really stepped it up. I was especially impressed by Shane Haskell's Mario costume. I know I spent/wasted many hours perfecting my Mario Brothers skills.
Above are some of the pictures I took today. Do know that I am linking a slide show of all of Monday's pictures on my wiki. I will do this daily. I also want to let you know that later this week I will be interviewing Annie and Dylan for my "10 minutes with Todd" segment.
Congratulations to the 2010 All State Chorus members: Sopie Cutler & Madelyn Anderson sopranos; Erin Sternhagen & Annie Hockhalter altos; Spenser Kavanaugh & Austin Fordham tenors; and Seth Duncan & Sam Smith basses. Alternates are Amanda Worlie, Jessie Krueger, Kyla Larsen, & Lincoln Lane.
I don't know what you think, but that is a ton of students nominated to be the best of the best. Way to go!!!
The Groton High School Band was one of seventeen bands that marched in the 2010 Gypsy Day Parade on September 18th in Aberdeen.Groton received a Gold Medal Award for a superior performance.Three judges scored the bands on the areas of marching and maneuvering, music general effect, and music execution.Also receiving Gold ratings were bands from Langford, Simmons/Holgate, Hoven, Warner, Edmunds Central, Platte-Geddes, Leola, Redfield, Frederick, Roncalli, and Aberdeen Central.Silver (excellent) awards were presented to Ipswich, Bowdle, White Lake, Northwestern, and Selby.Aberdeen Central was awarded top band for scoring the most points with the judges.It turned out to be a great day to celebrate the rich marching traditions of many area schools.The Groton Marching band will next appear at their own homecoming parade on Friday October 1st on Main Street in Groton.
I am linking a really cool project that students completed at Wall High School. Now at first glance you may ask what is the educational function of this video. They are not learning to read, write, who won WWI, or even math. SO WHAT IS THE POINT!!! To this I suggest what about teamwork, collaboration, tech skills, communication, and problem solving. How many of our jobs don't require these skills everyday?
I would even suggest that in my job I use these skills considerably more than much of the other information floating around my head. When was the last time that I had to know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue 1492? Or the quadratic equation? Or even the difference between magma and lava?
I will admit that this is not true of many professions. If I were a geologist the whole magma vs lava thing would be important, and I am sure that engineers need to know the quadratic equation. So until the end students need this information so that they can be well rounded citizens. This is the knowledge that students will rely on in order to make education decisions about their futures. When I was 10 I wanted to be a lawyer or a professional football player. An education is what taught me to choose a path that better fit my personality and aptitude.
Every year one of the highlights to the parade is the marching band, and I would trust that this year will be no different. For my faithful followers I am including a sneak peek of this year's group. I hope you find it enticing. I must admit the fog adds a bit of theatrics. I can see the billboard now "Tiger's in the Mist."
Below are some links that discuss where technology is taking education.
I have been following technology such as this for a couple of years, but this is the first such example of its usage in SD. (That I know of.) To me it simply makes sense, why use a textbook created for California or Texas’s standards when we can very easily create one that is dialed into our standards, our region, and our methodology. What I find extremely intriguing is the coupling of the flexbook or open source text with our one-to-one environment. In this environment students will truly have all of the information they need in one easy to access convenient location. Textbook usage is beginning to decline much like many of our other traditional media. In recent years print newspapers, paper books, cds, etc. have all seen dramatic changes in their usage. These traditional formats cannot compete with the flexibility and portability that technology creates.
The education world continues to slowly evolve, and this will be the next stage in that evolution. All of this means that this will be our next hurdle to overcome.
