AN IB WORLD SCHOOL

Lower School News

The Lower School teachers and staff shared kind words about each 5th grader as they recognized them for completing their time in the Lower School and preparing to enter the Middle School.  They also put together a slideshow of the 5th graders' year.  See the 5th Grade Kind Words Video and the 5th Grade Slideshow Video.  Well done, 5th graders!

The Lower School students created artwork to say "Thank You" to their teachers for their hard work this year.  Art teacher Jennifer Davenport put it together with music for us all to enjoy.  See the Primary (K-2) Student Artwork Slideshow and the Intermediate (3-5) Student Artwork Slideshow.  Thank you, teachers -- have a wonderful summer!

The usual Lower School Friday Assembly on June 5 finished with music teacher Judy Hafso singing Grandma's Feather Bed and an Irish Blessing.  See videos of both songs and watch the Lower School kids singing along over Zoom!

The 2nd graders each researched a figure from American history this spring for their Wax Museum presentations.  They created a poster about the historical figure that they researched, and wrote and performed a talk in character (and in costume).  See a Video of Their Presentations, as well as photo galleries of their Characters in Costume and the Research Posters they created.

The Student Showcase Extravaganza (formerly known as Genius Hour) on Monday, June 1st, will consist of live presentations from 10-11:30am in a virtual format!  All 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students, as well as their parents and siblings, will be invited to present their projects on Microsoft Teams in cohorts of 9-10 students.  Each student will give a 3-to-8 minute presentation, based on their grade level, to the other students in the virtual room, their families, as well as other community members and staff.  These presentations will hopefully display what they have been working on, how the project went, and allow the student to reflect on the process and what they learned.  See More Information on the Student Showcase event.

The Lower School's LEGO League Jr. Club thanks Laura Bradford for her countless hours of organizing and coaching.  Thanks as well to the coaches who assisted Laura: Toshi Shimizu, Jacob Swartz, Jamie Mitchell, Sarah Hill, and Mirna Tohmeh.  A special thanks goes to 4th grade teacher Rick Petrini, who was always on hand for support and guidance.  The four teams -- Boomerang Builders, Crazy Creators, Pentagon Builders, and LEGO Dragons -- excitedly explored their projects and worked on their structures this winter before classes went online in March.  Over the last weekend, Laura busily made certificates and medals to be sent to the kids along with their engineering notebooks and pictures of their structures.  See a Photo Gallery of the kids hard at work!

On Saturday, May 2, five Saint George’s students competed online in the Washington State Elementary Chess Championships.  Noah Hochheimer, Eshan Reddy, Donovan Bradford, Adrian Rooney, and Preston Sevigny were among about 1200 students who participated from across the state.  Previously, these five had competed in local online tournaments through March and April, said SGS chess coach James Stripes. 

Hosted on ChessKids.com, the seven-round tournament started with a few technological hiccups.  After 90 minutes, the competitors began to play their games.  Eshan finished with a 4.5 for 40th place in the fourth-grade division and was the top scoring SGS player.  Donovan, who also competed in the same division, finished with “one win and one draw,” Coach Stripes said.  Fifth graders Adrian and Preston both scored 3.0, while third grader Noah got 3.5 in his division. 

See the Preliminary Results of the tournament.  “The results are preliminary because there is still a process of investigating possibilities of cheating (a constant problem in online chess),” notes Coach Stripes, who will receive the full results from the event once they have been verified.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many events have either been cancelled, postponed, or switched from in-person to online formats.  The Washington State Elementary Chess Championship organizers chose the latter, allowing approximately 1200 young players to still compete.  This may be a new historical record for the “largest online chess tournament,” said Coach Stripes.  View a Recording of the Event on Facebook.

In honor of Earth Day and "Save the Frogs Day", the first grade learned about frogs!  They drew frogs and read books about them in Epic! and at home.  Then they shared their facts and frogs with each other.  Here is a Frogs PDF you can view of their class PowerPoint presentation. 

The Virtual Living Artist Exhibit created by our 5th graders is now ready to share with the world!  Here is a link to view it: https://www.emaze.com/@AOZZQOLQQ/living-artist-2020  It is best viewed on a computer so that you can see the full museum effect.  You can view it from a phone/mobile device as well, but it will look more like a traditional slide show. 

The Living Artist exhibit has been an annual event in the Davenport House in the spring.  The 5th graders would dress up as the artist they are studying, share facts about their artist, and display the artist's painting that they have reproduced.  While they couldn't dress for the occasion, you can still enjoy seeing their paintings and some of the background research on each artist in this virtual exhibit.  Thanks to art teacher Jennifer Davenport for setting this up!

The 2nd graders created space-focused items at home for a project about our solar system.  See a Photo Gallery of some of their out-of-this world creations!


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