On March 8, students will celebrate the National Education Association's ninth annual Read Acros... Ankeny school updates...

On March 8, students will celebrate the National Education Association's ninth annual Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss's 102nd birthday. Guest readers will come to the classrooms. Students will work on Seuss trivia and activities and enjoy food provided by the school's business partner, Community State Bank. Students are invited to wear Dr. Seuss outfits or other reading-related clothing.

l To celebrate Presidents Day on Monday, first-grade students made portraits of presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. They read nonfiction books about the presidents and wrote president-themed papers. They learned songs and poems, including one that names all 43 presidents.

l Jen Gebhart's fourth-grade students celebrated George Washington's birthday and participated in an Iowa Communications Network session, "Meet George Washington," on Wednesday. The George Washington Historic Press Conference includes a man portraying Washington making opening remarks, then allows students to assume the roles of reporters and asked questions.

l Fifth-grade band students participated in an individual event and a team event in the Band Olympics on Feb. 13 and Feb. 15. Long tone, speed drill and rhythm reading were individual events. The team events were speed skating sprints, team relays and a two-minute trivia challenge. Students received first-, second- and third-place ribbons.

l This month, the second-graders did paper mat weaving and the fourth-graders did mola designs, which are based on the colorful fabrics from the Cuna Indians of Panama. The following students have work displayed at the Community State Bank branch at 1701 W. First St.: Second grade: Sam Parker, John Orlanes, Jacqueline Smart and Conrad Lynch; fourth grade: Kyle Cook, Joseph Bleeker, Madison Friedrich, Dax Hagge and Sierra Phipps. The following students have work displayed at the bank branch at 817 N. Ankeny Blvd.: Second grade: Madison Rohn, Sydney Downing, Brad Hubbard and Mackenzie Mulhern; fourth grade: Chad Schultz, Ryan Steem, Nathan Haiwick, Garet Palmitier and Christine Orlanes. The following students have work displayed at the 902 S.E. Oralabor Road location: Second grade: Alexa Moon, Jack Patrow, Evan Nelson, Ryan Gudka and Nick Muhlenbruck; fourth grade: Shandy Amsden, Toni Ugolini, Aly Leto, Lindsey Broadhead and Ashley Huff. These exhibits will be on display until the middle of March.

l Cortney Ragsdale's first-grade class, and Jen Gebhart's fourth-grade class, met to write valentine stories. Each pair was given five candy hearts and were instructed to include the words from the five hearts in their stories. Fourth-grade students taught first-grade students to add characters, a setting, problems and solutions as they wrote the stories.

l Beth Hron's first-graders wrote valentine messages. They attached these messages to balloons and launched them into the sky. The students hope to get responses from the people who find the messages, and plan to keep track of where the balloons were found.

Fun Night 2006 will be from 5 to 7:30 p.m. March 4 at the school, 710 S.E. Third St. The theme is, Dare to Survive The Island of East. Dare to Spin, the worm grab, an obstacle course, treasure-chest race and other games are planned. There will be prizes. Food includes pizza, walking tacos and dirt cakes topped with worms. Game tickets are four for $1 and raffle tickets are $1.

l First graders began working in the Cookie Factory about two weeks ago, baking cookies on sheets of four and keeping careful records of how many cookies they have. They did so well they were quickly promoted to the Shell Factory. This job is more challenging, as students packaged shells into groups of 10 to learn more about the place value of numbers up to 100. Students were required to keep careful records of how many 10s and ones they had, and how many shells they had in all. Many students packaged over 100 shells.

l Marcus McIntosh from KCCI-TV will present a $500 check to the school at 9:30 a.m. today. First-grade students wrote "The Top 23 Reasons Marcus Should Come Read To Us." The award is from the television station and EMC Insurance, and is part of their "Read With Me" contest.

Joy Ford's students participate in Read Around for half an hour each Friday. Relatives and neighbors visit the classroom to help the kids read. The children move around, either listening to the visitors read or reading to the visitors.

The fourth-graders did a service project that demonstrated the pillar of caring. They made Valentine's Day cards, which were sent to veterans in the Des Moines Veteran's Administration hospital.

l Students attended a Feb. 8 assembly by Primary Focus, a group based in San Diego, Calif. They discussed the different character pillars through song, dance and group participation.

l Opera Iowa will present "The Three Little Pigs," a program that features the music of Mozart, on Tuesday. The parent-teacher group will sponsor the assembly as well as workshops with the performers for students in third through fifth grade.

l Second-graders attended a performance of "Alexander Who's Not, Not, Not Going to Move" at the Civic Center on Feb. 9. This was a special production for area school children. The students studied the author, Judith Viorst, in preparation for the play.

Fifth grade will begin the Tour Iowa project in the coming weeks. Students will learn about cities in Iowa and tourist attractions in those areas.

&149; Fifth-grade teachers Julie Houge, Kristin Luther and Lori Kiene completed Web page training using IowaPages. Their students will bring home information on how to access their classroom Web pages.

&149; Third-graders used Microsoft PowerPoint to complete a research project about American Indians. Students from fifth grade helped by keyboarding and proofing. Projects will be shared with parents at conferences.

&149; Third-graders will celebrate learning subtraction facts through number 18 by having a party today. Wal-Mart helped with the sub sandwiches for the party.

&149; Cindy Crouch's second-graders published books. Each child wrote a story, then edited and illustrated each page. These stories will be shared with families at the spring open house.

l Students are learning about the Olympics and keeping a medal count for the U.S. Olympians. Each Day, Molly Buck's class reads a trivia question over the intercom for all students to answer.

Character Counts family groups met Feb. 9. The student body is divided into multi-age groups of 15-17 students. The Character Counts theme for this month is trustworthiness. Each family group discussed what it means to be trustworthy and played a game citing examples.

l Fourth-grade students are working on "When I Was 9" books. The children are writing and illustrating their own books and will design covers in art class. The completed books will be professionally published and each child will receive a hardcover copy of their book.

l Third-graders are participating in activities related to the 2006 Winter Olympics. They are graphing the medal count each day, researching winter sports, studying the history of the Olympics, designing decorative flags to represent the nations and studying the geography of Turin, Italy.

l Third-graders celebrated Chinese New Year by learning about Chinese culture. Students learned about China's geography as well as calligraphy, traditions and customs, facts about the Great Wall, panda information, and how to eat with chopsticks. The students conducted technology lessons about Chinese counting in the computer lab.

The eighth- and ninth-grade show choirs, WATTS and Internal Combustion, competed at the Urbandale Show Choir Invitational. WATTS earned a seventh-place finish. Internal Combustion earned first-place honors and received the award Best Show/Choreography from all entries in the performance center. Internal Combustion's final competition will be Saturday at Southeast Polk High School.

Second-graders at Central Elementary are beginning the scientific study of solids and liquids. Students will observe the properties of many solids and liquids, comparing how different solids and liquids are alike and how they are different.

Parent-teacher conferences will be held Tuesday, Wednesday and March 2. The notes and reminders were sent home with students. If the scheduled time is unacceptable, contact the teacher at 244-8173 to arrange a new appointment.

l The parent-teacher organization will hold a book fair in the media center at Cornell during conferences. It will be open from 2 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and March 2, and from 3 to 4 p.m. Wednesday. Parents are invited to visit the fair during conference times.

Parent-teacher conferences will be Tuesday and March 2. Parents or guardians should contact the school at 266-3109 for an appointment to meet with a child's teacher regarding academic progress.

l Students in Marilyn Jungman's fifth-grade reading class completed a unit on planets. Each student chose a planet to research in the library and on the computer. The following students have reports and posters on display in the library: Kayla Durnell, Alliance Easley, James Johnson, Brent McCracken, Gage Olsen, Mia Palladino and Jordan Wise.

l Breanna Severin and Aaron Beckman earned work of the week honors. The students all created three-dimensional pictures that had animals drawn in detail. They cut away the negative space around each animal to reveal backgrounds. The students learned about overlapping, atmospheric perspective, low- and high-placement and size difference to create the illusion of depth. Their works will be on display in the library this week.

l Julie Rolf's class is conducting a reading olympics. The students were divided into groups named after six countries: Norway, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy and Canada. They are keeping track of the reading they do at home and move a model ski racer down the hill based on how many minutes they have read as a team. Germany is in the lead. The members of that team are Jake Hassett, Sidniann Rummans, Ben Rice and Myleka Fox.

l Carolyn McCauley's fourth-grade class collected $197.27 for the Pennies for Patients drive for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Association. Katie Mary's fifth-grade class collected $437.98. The total collected by the school was $1,154.75.

l Two students from each class went to the Mill Pond retirement community in Ankeny on Valentine's Day to deliver cards that were made by all students.

l Teachers Amy Overton and Marsha George were accepted as people-to-people facilitators for the Washington, D.C. trip over spring break. They will work with a group of students from around the country and learn about American history. Overton and George submitted a written application, did phone interviews, submitted recommendations and took a test.

l Students finished the Fast on Facts competition. Students that scored 100 percent on 25 multiplication facts, 100 percent on 40 addition facts and 100 percent on 40 subtraction facts, earned an orange level - or the highest level in the competition. The following students from Marsha George's class earned the orange level: Nathan Anderson, Melia Black, David Cahill and Karen Overman. The following students from Katie Mary's class also earned the orange level: MacKenzie Bianchi, Shelby Gillespie, Brenna Severin and Jonathan Gomez. Madison Clark and Kayla Greiman, in Jill Biwer's class, received their orange sticker for Fast on Facts. Jordan Wickre also reached the orange level. Noah Pick from Carolyn McCauley's fourth-grade classroom also received his orange dot for completing the highest level in Fast on Facts.

l Students will participate in a community service project called Pennies for Patients during February. Students and staff will be asked to donate their spare change to help children through the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

l The following fifth-graders earned work of the week honors: Monica Beamer, Samone Coleman, Danielle Epp, Ryan Horsch and Mercedez Hernandez. The students created three-dimensional pictures that had penguin as the subjects. Students drew animals and cut the negative space around each animal out to reveal backgrounds and complete the artwork. They learned about overlapping, atmospheric perspective, low- and high-placement and size difference to help create the illusion of depth. Their artwork will be on display in the library this week.

The following students have artwork displayed at the Johnston Area Education Agency office: Zach Roth, Adriana Volbrecht, Ashley Halls, Jenna Hall, Megan Howell, Dan Cahill, Steph Avery, Jerad Mingus, Marcus Fleming, Chelsea Thomas, Carla Hernandez, Dawn Hadley, Tyler Critchlow, Elizabeth Young, Brooke Jobes, Spencer Shafer, Alyssa Smith, Tanya Caranhan, Wes White, Shelby Swank, Brandon Weatherly, Kaylee Balaski, Nicole Polhemus, Daniel Nemmers and Joe Godwin.

l The following students earned artist of the month honors for February: Blake Goodale, Taylor Walker and Pakou Lor. These students were chosen for a creative approach to assignments and demonstrating quality craftsmanship.

Loren Carroll scored 24 points and had 23 rebounds in a 91-21 senior-night basketball victory over Russell. Carroll, of Pleasant Hill, is the team's only senior.

l Students and parents who are considering Christian education are invited to visit Ankeny Christian Academy from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday. Students may visit first- through 12th-grade classes. To arrange a visit, call 965-8114 or e-mail info@ankenychristianacademy.com .

l Higher Power, a gospel quartet from central Iowa, will present a concert at 7 p.m. Saturday at Ankeny Christian Academy, 1604 W. First Street. Admission to the concert is free and no reservations are required. A freewill offering will be taken. All proceeds will go to Ankeny Christian Academy.

l The elementary speech meet will be held Tuesday. All students in first through sixth grade are required to participate. Categories include poetry, Bible memorization, fable and folklore, dramatic Bible prose, patriotic and original speech. The top students in each category in each grade advance to the Association of Christian Schools International district speech meet at Des Moines Christian School on April 7.

Instructor Jerry Bradley won the Ivan D. Livi Aviation Maintenance Educator of the Year award. The Aviation Technician Education Council Awards Committee selects the winner from nominations. Bradley will receive free airfare, registration and hotel costs for the national ATEC convention April 2-4 in Las Vegas.

A college information session is set for 6:30 tonight at the Pappajohn Center, 12th Street and Grand Avenue. Sarah White, admissions officer from Grinnell College, will answer questions.

State Sens. Brad Zaun and Paul McKinley and caucus staff member Angie Lewis were invited to visit the career and technical programs and explore other unique educational opportunities.

Elementary and middle school students are writing and publishing their own books. Some created books covers using collages while others wrote nonfiction pieces about growing up. The students shared their books with classmates and staff members.

On Feb. 10, pre-vocational students hosted the staff appreciation brunch. They followed instructions, served, cleaned, did dishes and practiced good manners. Hosts were Nick Carr, Alee Melby, Becky Sanders, Miguel Paramo, Stuart Kennedy, Salvador Benitez, Jenny Long, Jasmin Byrd, Tim Winger and Tyler Hindley.

Winners of the Hot Shot basketball contest were Amanda Reineke and Cortez Stewart, first; Patrick Cunningham and Kayelinda Atkins, second; and Ben Sudbrock, third.

Teachers help students set goals and become independent learners. Students use CRISS, or Creating Independence through Student-owned Strategies, to learn concepts taught in the classroom.

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