Village Happy Campers

By: Maddox A.H. Tate C.

Each year we, Village Elementary, have a different theme. In the p
ast few years, we have had a “Groovy” theme, a “Disney” theme, and
this year, we have a “Happy Camper” theme. We decided to survey on
how many people like the theme. Each year we have a different theme.  
What could be next year’s theme?  Comment below what you think.
Maddox thinks the Village Happy Camper theme is a cool theme to have
this year. Tate thinks the new theme is cool. I want the theme at Benold to be
baseball. I like baseball because you are outside and it a lot of fun. Next,
year here I think the theme should be fishing. Is good on your back and you
are outside like in baseball. I think baseball and fishing are both really good

themes for schools. I hope you enjoyed see you next time on the village sting.

What do people think of the new theme?

Like It	24
Don’t Like It	13
Don’t Care	20

We interviewed 57 people total, and 24 people

liked it, 13 people didn’t like it, and 20 people

didn’t care about it.

Flexible Seating

Pros and Cons   

By:Susanna, Sydney, Wendy

   

Have you been wanting flexible seating in your classroom?  

We interviewed a few teachers and we got there opinion.  The

first person we interviewed was Mrs.Blankenship.                                          

       Mrs. Blankenship                                                                                                                  

We asked her a few questions.  First ,we asked Mrs. Blankenship

if she liked flexible seating. She said ”Yes and no. I do like

flexible seating.  It gives my students options,  but I also don't

like it because kids will sit by people they are going to talk to,

and they get distracted which makes the teacher gets distracted.  

Next, we asked Mrs. Blankenship if she would like to keep

flexible seating?  Mrs. Blankenship replied, “ Yes, I want to

keep flexible seating, but there was a problem with the yoga

balls.  They broke very easily.” Then, we asked Mrs. Blankenship  

if she thinks flexible seating helps kids.  “No, I do not think

flexible seating helps kids.” she replied. Lastly, we asked her

if there are consequences.   She replied “The kids get to pick

their seat when they come in, and if they start to talk and get

distracted they will get a warning but after that they will have

to move seats.”                    

The second teacher we asked was Mrs Knudsen.

Mrs. Knudsen

We asked her a few questions. First, we asked Mrs.Knudsen if she

liked flexible seating.   She said, “I do like flexible seating.  

It helps kids be creative and let them explore their minds, it also

lets them be independent.” Next, we found out what Mrs. Knudsen

doesn't like about flexible seating.  Mrs. Knudsen replied, “ That

the kids don’t have anywhere to put their things, so their supplies

have to go in crates, otherwise it makes the floor cluttered and it's

hard to get around to every kid.” Afterward, we asked Mrs. Knudsen

if she wanted to keep flexible seating. she replied, “Yes, because it's

more comfortable and it helps kids when we do group activities and

partners.”  The last question we asked was “Do you think flexible

seating helps kids?” She said  “Yes, it helps kids to feel comfortable

and be happy to be in my class.”  

                                                                                                                                                                                   

Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Malina

We asked the 4th grade teachers a few questions,

“Do you have flexible seating?”  They said, “Yes we do,”

Our second question was, “Do you like flexible seating?”  

They replied, “No, we don’t like flexible seating because of

the clutter and our students destroy the furniture.”   The

third question we asked was “Do you want to keep flexible

seating?” Mrs.Malina replied “No, I have a grant and I don’t like

it because the kids wreck the furniture.” The last question we

asked was, “Do you think it helps kids?” she replied, “Yes, some

kids do need it and some kids don’t.

Thank you for reading and thank you to all the teachers

who helped us make this article.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Village Grow Garden                  

By McD & Olie

The Village Grow Garden is an important part of

Village Elementary. It was started by Lindsey McDaniel

and Caroline Rosenbaum. At first, Lindsey and

Caroline thought planting a garden at Village was a

crazy idea. They were researching to see if any other

schools have planted gardens on their campuses.  

After a few weeks of researching, they became more

confident about the idea while seeing that many

schools had done it. The two went to the Village principal,

Debra Barker, and asked if they could have permission

to plant a garden. Once she approved the idea, they

got to work. When Lindsey went home, she asked her

husband Ben to help build the garden. The Village Grow

Garden was born.  A few weeks later Ben got to work

getting supplies from the store and came up with a plan.

Ben, started to build the wicking beds where everything

would be planted. Once he finished laying the tarp at the

bottom and the dirt on the top he installed an irrigation

system. Next, they ordered many plants but had to wait

awhile until they came. Once the plants arrived, they

hired some workers to help them . They finished

planting and about 3 weeks later and they introduced

the Garden to the kids of Village Elementary. After a

few weeks, Lindsay made posters to inform the kids

about the garden.  The kids were eager to see the

Garden. She went to a few classes and told the

kids about the garden, then the classes received

seeds to plant in the planting boxes.  When the

year was over, the summer came dashing by.  So

when the next school year came the two didn’t

realize how much the Garden needed them. After

discussing with a few volunteers Lindsey and

Caroline decided to take more care of the Garden.

But Lindsey came across an issue. Her daughter

Emily, was going into 5th grade and that would be

Emily's last year in elementary school. Caroline

also had a problem. Her son Hudson,was going

into 6th. So, in the long run they had to retire

from the garden. So the two started to look for

some new leaders to run the garden. After a

short time they found somebody new. Her name

is Leslie Walker. She had plenty of time to run the

Garden because she had some younger kids that

would stay at Village for a few more years. But

hopefully the garden would stay apart of Village

Elementary for a long while after them.

Easy Bake or Solar Oven

By Abrielle and Blake

          

  Abrielle and I want to see which was easier to use
when making  pretzels:  Easy Bake Oven or a
homemade solar powered oven?  We got the idea to
do this when we made a solar oven experiment

and we made smores earlier this year in Mrs.Rogers’
math class and it worked well.

  This time we are making  pretzels using the Easy
Bake Oven mixes. We waited until we had very
warm weather to do this experiment.

We  let both of the ovens bake for 10 minutes.   Now,
we are seeing which one cooked better.   

                           materials   

•    Solar oven
•  Easy bake oven                       
•  Spoons/whiskers
•  Bowls
•  Measuring cups
•  Water
•  Pretzel mixes

 

How To Make A

Solar Oven

These are the things you will need to
make a solar oven…A shoe box (pick a size),

duct tape, black paper, aluminum foil,
decor(optional), and saran wrap.  

First, you take the shoe box and if you choose to
use duct tape, you cover all the box with it.
After,  you cut the top or bottom out whatever
side you would like to use.  Be sure not to cut
off the flap of the box when  you cut. Once
you cut your hole, put foil on your flap so that
the sun will reflect more heat into the oven.
The sun shines on the foil and bounces off into
the pretzels. Next,angle your flap so that the sun
is shining on your oven.  If your flap

will not stay up by itself use a Popsicle stick or a
wooden stick.  

Cover the inside of your oven will black paper.  
When you decide to use your solar oven, put your
food in it. Once your food is in it put your saran
wrap over your hole on your oven.  

Finally,  you have made your very own solar oven!

Here are the steps

to doing the

experiment

1.You turn on your easy bake oven and you
put your solar oven outside were a lot of sunlight
will hit it.

2.Follow the directions on the Easy Bake Oven
pretzel mix and make pretzel in the shape or
form that you would like.

3.When your are done making the pretzel  
dough put your dough in your easy bake oven
and solar oven.

4.Put saran wrap over the solar oven and set
timer for 10 min.

5.When your timer goes off  pull your pretzels
out of the

easy bake oven and out of the solar oven.

6.See which one cooked better.

7. Enjoy your pretzels!