End-of-Year News & Events at Wilson Elementary School

Posted: June 2, 2009

WILSON LEGACY SCHOLARSHIP

Zach Hosale was awarded the Wilson Legacy Scholarship at the recent HHS Awards banquet. He will be speaking to the Wilson students at an assembly at 10 AM on Thursday, June 11. In 2008, as a way to demonstrate the value placed on higher education, the Wilson School Student Council established the Wilson School Legacy Scholarship to be awarded each year to a graduating senior at Homestead High School who attended Wilson School. As part of the scholarship application process, Student Council officers again recorded a video announcement that provided Homestead students with information about the $1,000 scholarship. The Student Council conducted several fundraisers in support of the scholarship. Fifth grade teacher Dawn Liker is the Wilson School Student Council sponsor.

 

REGINALD BAYLOR TO UNVEIL ARTWORK

At an all-school assemble on June 11 at 10 AM, PTO sponsored artist-in-residence (and Homestead High School alum), Reginald Baylor will unveil the works completed during art classes at Wilson School last month. The unveiling will be video-taped as part of his upcoming work at artist-in-residence at the Pfister Hotel.

 

SECOND GRADE RUNNING CLUB

Wilson physical education teacher, Jeremy LaFleur, has been sponsoring a second grade running club this spring that meets from 8:20–8:45 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nike donated t-shirts, shoe bags, and arm bags to the club. The local Piggly-Wiggly donated $80 for healthy snacks and beverages.

 

TORNADO DRILL

Wilson School participated in the state-wide Tornado Drill on April 23. Students and staff made it one of the smoothest tornado drills ever.

 

GEORGE WASHINGTON PORTRAIT

Wilson School has recently received a full-size replica of Rembrandt Peale’s famous “porthole” portrait of George Washington, provided by George Washington’s Estate and Gardens: Mount Vernon. The painting has been hung in a prominent place in the IMC. Mount Vernon also provided a “Celebration Kit” full of projects and information about George Washington that can be incorporated into social studies lessons as well as a U.S. flag that is documented as having been flown recently over Mount Vernon.

 

SOUND-FIELD CLASSROOM AMPLIFICATION

Thanks to the Wilson PTO, we will begin the 2009-2010 school year with every classroom at Wilson equipped with a Sound-Field Classroom Amplification system. Recent studies validate sound-field classroom amplification as a proven tool that can overcome adverse classroom conditions, providing students with enhanced speech recognition and, therefore, much improved opportunity to learn. Sound-field amplification is now recognized as one of the most powerful and cost effective tools for student listening enhancement. Each teacher will wear a small wireless, infrared microphone. The teacher’s voice (and student’s when using a second classroom microphone) is broadcast as infrared light to a receiver/amplifier that plays it through loudspeakers for the entire class to hear. The amplified voice overcomes background noise, poor room acoustics, and mild hearing loss to make it easier for students to concentrate on what the speaker is saying. The goal of Sound-field Classroom Amplification is to enable every child in a classroom to hear clearly all the speech components of the teacher’s voice no matter where a child is seated relative to the teachers’ position in the room.

 

SMART BOARDS

Thanks to a generous grant from the Mequon-Thiensville School District, supplemented by the Wilson School budget, three new SMART Boards (interactive white boards) will be installed this summer, bringing the total number of SMART Boards at Wilson to six. More than 20 staff members at Wilson have received training on using the SMART board technology. The portable SMART board enables a number of teachers to use it throughout the week and teachers with installed SMART boards in their rooms are always willing to flexibly share space with teachers wishing to use the SMART board for a particular lesson.

 

VOLUNTEER LUNCHEON

As a small gesture of thanks to the many parents and friends of Wilson School who volunteer hours and hours of work in support of our school, the staff will be providing a special Volunteer Luncheon on Wednesday, June 3 in the gymnasium at 12 noon.

 

ORCHESTRAL SOLO AND ENSEMBLE RECITAL

Members of the Wilson School Orchestra will be presenting a Solo and Ensemble Recital at 7:45 AM on Monday, June 8. It is hoped that parents and friends can attend before going off to work that morning.

 

END-OF-YEAR TEAM DAY

On Thursday, June 11, Wilson students will enjoy an end-of-year all-school assembly (10 AM) followed by a variety of games and relays around the schoolyard, a picnic lunch and as a special treat, Truly Remarkable Loon, a juggler and entertainer who performs annually at Summerfest, will be presenting a program at 2 PM. Weather permitting, he will perform on the playground.