It was fun and games galore during the Kiddie Carnival on the Bucknall campus, held on the very last day of school before the students broke for summer. Students played carnival games, rode a slide, enjoyed snow cones and bounced around in an air-filled castle to their heart’s content. Have a great summer!
2009_06 LS Kiddie Carnival – Images by The Harker School
Liza Turchinsky, Gr. 3, was recently recongized by The Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth for her exceptional performance on an above-grade-level test administered to second through sixth graders. For her accomplishtment, Turchinsky and other students who did well on the exam were invited to a state-wide awards ceremony held in their honor. Congratulations!
LS Girls Basketball
Coach Tomas Thompson reported that the Gr. 4 girls of the junior varsity C team had a stellar season. They were undefeated for the majority of the season, beating most teams by 20 points. The girls finished 6-2 overall, losing only to Pinewood twice. Their last loss to Pinewood was by one basket in their final game of the season. Standout players included Joelle Anderson, Jordan Thompson and Lauren Trihy.
LS Soccer
The Gr. 5 junior varsity B boys, under the coaching of Walid Fahmy, went 2-1-3 in league. They finished with a tied score in their first three league matches against Keys, Pinewood and St. Joseph’s Sacred Hear t and then went on to beat Keys 3-2 and St. Joseph’s 5-4 by the end of the season. Standout players included Nathaniel Stearns, Ryan Fernandes and Nicholas LaBruna.
Every year on picture day, students spiff up, slick down or puff up their hair and try to stay neat until the photographer is done. These photos were too cute to pass up!
Four of six Harker teams advanced to the California Creativity State Finals for their stellar efforts at a Destination Imagination regional tournament on March 7 at Independence High School in San Jose.
The advancing Harker LS teams were the “Spirits of Wisdom” (Eliot Gruzman, Kevin Ke, Elina Sendonaris, Michael Moncton, all Gr. 5 and Kavya Seth, Gr. 4), the cleverly named Gr. 3 “Starbucks Lovers” (Neeraj Sharma, Rishi Iyer, Matthew Lee, Kalen Frieberg and Michael Kwan) and the Gr. 3 “Creative Kings” (Rajiv Movva, Derek Yen and Rahul Bhethanabotla). Representing the MS at the state finals was the Gr. 6 team “Veni! Vidi! Vici!” comprising Sahiti Avula, Maya Nandakumar and Neha Sunil.
Other teams competing at the March 7 event were the Gr. 3 “Fascinating Foxes” (Meena Gudapati, Aliesa Bahri, Vivian Huang, Catherine Lee, Sanjana Avula, Jerrica Liao and Makenzie Tomihiro) and the even more cleverly named “Flaming Tootsie Rolls from the Planet Pluto” (Maxwell Woehrmann, Albert Drewke, Kevin Xu, Sid Chari, Adrian Chu, Derek Kuo). Although these teams did not make the state finals, all students involved performed admirably.
Each team was given a challenge that required teamwork and creative thinking. These challenges required extensive planning in advance of the competition and each dealt with a different topic, such as theater arts, design and construction.
There is nothing like a hat to bring out the sunny side of a child – or adult! The annual Hat Parade took place in April, giving all a chance to wear their finest headgear!
The two weeks LS computer science teacher Joe Chung was at Tamagawa School flew by. “In that short amount of time, I had the opportunity to teach one of my courses from Harker as well as time to observe some of the Tamagawa teachers teach their classes,” he said.
“My lesson was to teach an application called Stagecast Creator. It is a student-friendly application that helps students to learn pre-programming skills along with the ability to problem-solve. It also reinforces the students to do their best illustrating their characters,” explained Chung. “Speaking of characters, I first had the students open MS Word to write a story. Students had a choice to be creative and develop any type of story they wanted. To help them start, I gave an example of ‘Once upon a time….’ The story helps the students get a sense of ownership, which can foster the enjoyment of learning since it is their own and not given to them by a teacher. Once the story is developed, students begin to program it in Stagecast and see it in action.
“The majority of the students I taught were attentive and interested in doing their best on this project. Students who were motivated and excited by the potential of what can be created from this application worked through break time. It is rewarding for a teacher to observe students who are willing to learn and make the best effort possible. A few students were able to go beyond what I explained in class, and I was able to share more ideas, possibilities and changes that could be made to their work. Since the Stagecast used was the demo version, it had limitations, so students were restricted with design and rules. But once again, the motivated students found ways to manipulate the limitations to go beyond my instructions. Overall, I had a rewarding experience sharing with students what I teach back home.”
Tags: Global EducationBucknall received a special visit from author Debbie Yamada on March 18. Yamada is the author of “Striking it Rich: Treasures From Gold Mountain,” a historical fiction piece about the life of Chinese miners during the gold rush. The visit coincided with lessons about the Gold Rush in Gr. 3 and Gr. 4 history classes.
The Gr. 3 class took a trip to the Oakland Museum on Feb. 18 as a special addendum to their lessons about California history. “The museum has always had a terrific California history display which brought history alive for the students,” said history teacher Howard Saltzman.
Students viewed exhibits containing information about the Native American population in California, the mission system and the California gold rush. “I had quite a few students running up to me saying that the docents showed them artifacts and talked about what we had been learning in the classroom,” Saltzman noted.
Gr. 3 science teacher Tamara Kley-Contini also had the students spend some time at the museum’s natural history section.
Saltzman said the museum will be closed for approximately a year to complete renovations that have been ongoing for the previous two years. “We will all look forward to the completion of this renovation project,” Saltzman said.
Students Show Their Knowledge of Knowledge
Asked about knowledge, Gr. 3 students had some diverse opinions!
Vanessa Tyagi defined knowledge as, “The smartness you have. You get it by studying and going to school.”
Albert Drewke also says that knowledge is a good thing to have. “It helps you learn and helps you grow up into big strong people that know a lot.”
Victor Shin added, “I use knowledge to help me study.”
Raveena Panja concurred, and further explained how one obtains knowledge. “Knowledge is something that’s in your brain. You get it by studying and doing lots of homework, and from your parents. Anybody you know can give you lots of knowledge. It’s a good thing to have because then you can think better!”
Kevin Xu reflected on the purpose of having knowledge. “I think knowledge is important because it educates people for the future. You get it from school, parents and sometimes summer camps.”
Krishna Bheda said that knowledge is, “What you know in your brain and you get it by going to school, by learning math and language arts and science and history. And when you go to college you take tests and when you get out of school you know a lot of stuff. When someone asks you something you’re supposed to know, you can tell it to them.”
Mateusz Kranz sees value in knowledge. “Knowledge is good because it helps you be a teacher when you want to grow up and be a teacher. I don’t know what I want to be but knowledge helps me now. I know when to get to class on time and it helps me when I’m studying.”