Students worked in partnerships to research and ecosystem and create a food web for it. To present their learning, students created posters showing some of the producers, consumers, and decomposers in their ecosystem. Check out students hard at work. I had very little to do except admire their efforts!

To practice classifying polygons by their properties, students played a fun game I created called "Polygon Capture." Students gambled to see if they could match the most polygons to a random set of properties. 

For this project, students thought up an invention that they believed would solve  problem. They then created a prototype of the invention and designed promotional materials that explained the uses and benefits of the invention as well as user feedback and pricing. Check out some student work below.

By Robert Rosen
Hometown Weekly Staff

On Friday, April 1, the first annual Pine Hill Talent Show was held for students in grades three, four and five. It was the first talent show at Pine Hill since 1993, and the event was such a success that it is expected to be held every year from now on.

“Students in grades 3-5 are sharing their amazing talents, ranging from singing, piano and violin to karate, gymnastics and dance,” said Pine Hill fifth grade teacher Meri Kimball, adding that approximately 52 students either performed, emceed or were in the stage crew.

As Kimball mentioned, there were many talents showcased, including a piano solo by Caetlyn Embree, who performed a piece by Beethoven; a band performance by Tatum Goldberger, Ava Toney, Aza Whittlesey and Angie Feng; board breaking by Leila Sapponaro; gymnastics by Julia Martin, Sarah Parrish and Alice Quinn; a clarinet duet by Riley Delaney and Emily Worcester; a hip-hop dance performance by Kelli Kamphaus; and karate by Gabe Goldstein, Luca Mariano and Felix Giesen. These were just some of the talents shown off at the show on Friday night.

Pine Hill special education teacher Chris Randa worked with the emcees in the weeks leading up to the talent show and was really excited beforehand after helping the students write and practice skits.

“They are so funny and talented,” said Randa, who was a student at Pine Hill who performed at the last talent show back in 1993. “I’m really proud of the work they’ve done.”

The driving force behind this year’s talent show was Pine Hill music teacher Kelly Hodge, who heard students’ pleas for opportunities to show off their own talent and see their classmates’ talents and decided to launch the talent show.
Hodge runs the weekly All School Meetings on Fridays where she leads singing, skits and news and the meetings used to include a segment where students were able to show off a talent, but unfortunately it took too much time and they had to stop doing it.

Kimball immediately offered her assistance with set design, stage crew and lights, and Randa came on board quickly as well. In addition, school librarian Laurie Ryan volunteered to run the sound for the event.

But it wasn’t just the students who got to show off their talent. The show ended with teachers performing “Shake it Off” by Taylor Swift while the entire audience of parents and students joined in by dancing.

In addition to all the fun everyone had, the event helped out a good cause as $460 was raised for Autism Speaks in celebration of World Autism Awareness Day, which was the following day.

The first annual Pine Hill Talent Show was a success, and Pine Hill students are already excitedly waiting for next year’s talent show so they can show everyone what else they can do.
​
Robert Rosen is an Editor at Hometown Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @roberterosen.

For part of their Global Citizenship project, students created artwork designed to shock and alarm viewers about a particular world issue. Check out students' powerful images.

We call them "RAFTS," which stands for Role, Audience, Format, Topic. Students got to take on the role of someone from Colonial America and write a document that could have been a primary source. Students researched a variety of topics, from the Salem Witch Trials to medicine to clothing. Check out a few samples of student writing below.

Students explored human rights in this project. They created a mini book about what they feel should be the top 10 human rights. They researched a person or organization that defends human rights and created a presentation to inform the class. Lastly, students designed artwork to express their vision of what it means to be human. 

​Check out student work below!

Students wrote some fantastic stories about an experience in their lives. Topics ranged from an escaped horse, an injured foot, a lockdown, a ballet recital, a harrowing rollercoaster, a first chapter book, and much more. 

To develop students' narrative technique, they focused on the following skills:

• Crafting introductions that hooked readers and wove in important details
• Structuring the story around a story arc that developed a problem into a climax and then a resolution
• Using dialogue, inner thoughts, and vivid language to elaborate
• Slowing down the most important parts and describing them bit by bit
• Crafting an ending that reflected back to the big meaning of the story

​You can read some students' stories in the Comments section. Enjoy!