The Little Red School House Award was presented to the Woonsocket Elementary School for implementing the most significant, innovative and successful education program or project by the School Administrators of South Dakota (SASD).  The Woonsocket Elementary School set a goal to increase achievement scores in reading for the 2023-24 school year. The idea was to create a reading intervention program called Flight School. Woonsocket started the year with an assessment tool called FastBridge to evaluate all their K-6 students. After the assessment, Woonsocket used the data to determine which students needed to receive extra reading instruction. An intervention program was created where every start of the morning for 30 minutes, 40 plus students with the largest “gap” would go into small groups. In the small groups, students would receive instruction on the specific skill that they struggled with.  The on-level students attended Walking Club which gave them the opportunity to exercise for 15 minutes and to help the younger students with the remaining 15 minutes. The teachers and staff at Woonsocket are committed to these 30-minute sessions to help the students improve. The flight school has been so successful that they have shared this with other school districts.  Woonsocket believes that intervention programs like this one will bring more success to students, not only in reading, but across the board.

The Woonsocket Elementary held summer camps in May and June. The elementary students were able to attend any of the camps they chose. The opportunities were Science Camp, STEM Camp, Art Camp and PK4 Camp (this camp was only available to preschool students).

Science Camp was put together by Mrs. Becky Potrament. The camp theme was Light and Rainbows. The students started the day off with a dance party with a disco ball. The kids loved the reflections from the ball, and it was the perfect transition to learning about light. The students were able to perform many activities to learn about natural and artificial light and then explored transparent, translucent and opaque filters. They were able to use flashlights and prisms to create rainbows. The last experiments of the day consisted of finding rainbows in misty water and bubbles as well as popping balloons using the sunlight and a magnifying glass.  The students had a great time.

STEM Camp brought  on the theme of Amusement Park Rides, in particular the roller coasters and water slides (flume rides). The students first learned about force, friction, and gravity and how they are related to roller coasters and water slides. They also learned about the Shoot the Shoots ride that was located at our very own Lake Prior. The students were challenged to design a working water slide or roller coaster. All groups chose the water slide challenge first. They had to design a waterproof water slide with a point of entry (steps/ladder) that a Lego man would be able to successfully travel down.  The students came up with some great water slides.

Art Camp was organized by Mrs. Karen Jackson. Approximately 30 students attended two days where the students painted ocean themed canvases and created yarn turtles. In between drying times the students were able to dig into their creativity and make creations with foam peanuts, sugar cubes, craft sticks and paper.

Preschool Camp was also organized by Mrs. Jackson. This camp was for any PreK4 students. While at camp, these students were able to focus on the theme All about Me. The students worked on their communication skills while welcoming each other and discussing their current happenings.  They also listened to songs about body parts then drew pictures of people and labeled them. Then, the students drew self portraits on canvases. They ended their time with shapes, the light board, playdough and puzzles. The students also took home play dough and a packet to practice skills over the summer.

…See a picture in this week’s issue of the Sanborn Weekly Journal!