Elkton student takes third place at business plan competition

Sarah Busselman of Lake Benton took third place in the 21st Annual Business Plan Competition for high school students. The contest is sponsored annually by the South Dakota Bankers Foundation and the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. The third place prize of an iPad was awarded to Busselman at the South Dakota Bankers Association State Legislative Reception in Pierre, S.D. on Feb. 9. Governor Dennis Daugaard, pictured above with Busselman, presented her with the prize.

Something to cheer about

Elkton School held its annual Elks Cheer Clinic for girls and boys in grades kindergarten through six from Elkton, S.D. and Lake Benton. In the after school program, participating girls and boys had an afternoon snack, received a T-shirt, learned a routine, had supper and performed at halftime of the varsity game.

Science Museum comes to Lake Benton Elementary

Lake Benton students helped Sam Horak, Science Museum outreach teacher, piece together the bones from a prehistoric creature as students in preschool through second grade were treated to a lyceum on dinosaurs designed specifically for them.

By Dan Kuss

lbnews@itctel.com

The Science Museum of Minnesota came to Lake Benton Elementary

School on Tuesday, Jan. 25 in the form of two 50-minute lyceums.

The first interactive hands-on session was presented to third, fourth, fifth and sixth grade students who learned all about electricity and its core concepts.

Students were called upon to join in various experiments that showed how electricity is produced, generated and how it is prepared for use.

The second interactive session on dinosaurs was geared toward preschool through second grade students and showed how fossils are created.

In a series of fun experiments, many different students came down to the ‘stage’ area to participate and help out.

Sam Horak, Science Museum outreach teacher, designed the curriculum and props and delivered both educational units.

Horak spent 13 years as a classroom teacher and has been instructing and presenting as an outreach teacher for the past eight years.

“We are on our regional tour,” said Horak. “We travel around the state in regions delivering our presentations to students. Tomorrow I’ll be in Willmar and from there I’ll go south toward Mankato.”

To start off her presentation on electricity, Horak invited several students to help explain electrons. She had one group remain stationary and asked another group to randomly run around them to show that a negative

charge moves while positive charges cannot move.

Horak put a bunch of pie tins stacked together on a Vangraph generator and asked the students what they thought would happen. After students guessed what might happen, Horak turned the generator on and the charge went through the plates and pushed the top plate off.

She then asked Autumn Mendro to place her hand on the generator and though there was static electricity, her scarf moved and so did her hair. She had Taylor

Bales try it with a different outcome.

Bales was wearing a fleece sweater and Horak described that fleece is made out of plastic and conducts differently. When Taylor placed her hand on the generator, her hair stood straight up on end, much to the delight and giggles

from the audience.

Horak went on to describe and show how electrons continually flow to create a current and how it does no good unless you complete a circuit. To show this, Horak asked for volunteers to form a human circuit and when they completed the circuit, they all received a mild shock. Horak explained how electricity is generated and transferred to homes for use and also warned students that it can be very dangerous if used improperly.

Students passed a magnet through a coil of wire to create electricity and in another experiment experienced that opposite’s poles of a magnet attract while like poles repel. Horak explained how a field of force holds a magnet together and then created an electromagnet out of wires and electricity, explaining how cars are lifted and moved around in a junkyard.

Horak also explained how resistance pushes current and how to conserve energy. “There is enough electricity in our brains to light a 15 watt lamp,” said Horak.

At the end of the 50 minute session on electricity, Horak invited everyone down for a large, controlled group shock. Everyone, with the exception of a few students and teachers, held hands in a large circle and when they completed the circuit by the last person ouching the generator, a large “Ooooooh” was heard in unison.

As the third through sixth graders filed out one door, the preschool through second grades came in another and took a seat on the gym floor in front of another display that had been previously set up. Horak moved to the new

display and immediately began her presentation on dinosaurs by asking questions of her audience like how do we know the dinosaurs were here?

She then showed the students how a dinosaur may have died in a creek bed 110 million years ago and the creek bed dried out and layers of earth, ocean and swamp land eventually covered over leaves, fish and other items within the layers, creating fossils.

Horak used visual aids to explain how the layers worked and how paleontologists in Utah in 1968 found a claw, then bones and pieced them together to reconstruct skeletons of the various types of dinosaurs. She would ask the students if these findings would tell us what color of eyes the dinosaurs had or if they had skin, feathers or hair and if we could tell what color that might be. The students would answer “no” in unison.

Horak explained how the dinosaurs left behind many clues in their eggs, poop, bones, teeth and fossils. Using large plastic replicas of bones, Horak explained to the students how scientists figured out the size, shape, depth and what these animals ate.

Using a large flannel cloth, Horak invited students from each grade up to help her piece together a dinosaur from bones she had ‘found’ with Velcro on

one side. As they figured out where to put the pieces, Horak explained that the

T-Rex has a cousin living here on earth today. She asked the students in the

audience to guess what it was and when she told them it was a chicken, giggles

rippled through the crowd.

As Horak finished her presentation, students had an opportunity to measure

themselves next to a four foot tall femur bone replica and view the fossils and bones used in the presentation.

Horak said they are rewriting the curriculum to align with state standards with the help of a Cargill grant and the engineering program called “Engineering is Elementary” at the Boston Science Museum.

Lake Benton Early Childhood Family Education puts on Family Film Night

Parents and children in the Early Childhood Family Education program listen and watch intently as they eat popcorn on Family Film Night held Jan. 24. The film was “Mickey Mouse’s Clubhouse” on the big screen at the Lake Benton School Auditorium.

Lake Benton School holds annual spelling bee

Twenty-one fifth and sixth grade students participated in the annual spelling bee at Lake Benton School on Friday. Pictured above with their certificates of participation, from left to right in front, are Lillian Rouge, Caleb Goertz, Trevor Sik, Garret Hudson, Brooke Bjork and Blake Oelfke; in the middle row are Anika Finzen, Blaine Hefti, Nichole Jones, Joshua Reese, Wade Busselman and Brayden Nielsen, and in the back row are Cole DeRuyter, Samantha Schindler, Brett Tiedeman, Cody Brockhouse, Carter Bressler, William Sanderson, Levi Markee, Jacob Miller and Hunter Nielsen.

Cole DeRuyter, who lasted through seven rounds against 21 participating students, is pictured above at the podium spelling his eighth round word, whisperer, correctly to win the 2011 Lake Benton Elementary School Spelling Bee. DeRuyter will represent LBE at the regional contest in Redwood Falls, competing against 30 other schools for a chance to go to state.

By the end of round four, six of the 21 participants were still in the running to be the champion.

Elkton School presents thematic workshops

Students and teachers alike danced as they waited for the lunch bell to ring during the leisure time activities sessions held at the school.

Part Two – Fitness

Keeping health in mind

Alex Schwing negotiates an opponent’s position in the inflatable battle arena donated for the day by the South Dakota National Guard. Students had an opportunity to try a variety of exercises and games including ping-pong, bean bag toss and volleyball, and ran the gauntlet in a huge inflatable obstacle course.

By Dan Kusslbnews@itctel.com
Junior and senior high school students at Elkton-Lake Benton School attended two one-day thematic units on health just prior to breaking for Christmas vacation.Teachers at Elkton School worked for months to prepare for the two-day event.“It’s a nice break for them before the holidays,” said Tony Simons, superintendent of Elkton Schools. “It’s been a good year so far. The students and staff are doing really well and we anticipate the rest of the year will go well also.”On day one, Tuesday, Dec. 21, teachers set up stations in different rooms of the school to present information on today’s hot topics of health and safety.On day two, Wednesday, Dec. 22, students participated in games and life-long leisure activities in the north and south gymnasiums.At 8:25 a.m., students met in their regularly scheduled classrooms for attendance, lunch counts, individual schedules, the schedule for the day and to go over the activities for the day.The homeroom session dismissed at 8:40 and students reported for the first session at 8:45.Lunch and activity were held between the fifth and sixth sessions from 11:35 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. when the topic sessions resumed until the end of the school day at 3:25 p.m.All students in grades seven through 12 were broken into groups consisting of three or four students from each grade.Teachers presented health and safety topics in classrooms throughout the school building that will apply to and encounter each student through life. Each session was 30 minutes in length. At each session, students were able to interact with the instructors and ask questions on the various topics.”Teachers worked hard and prepared for the sessions in workshops and on in-service days,” said principal Brian Jandahl. “They set the whole thing up.”Topics presented were “Tattoos and Piercings” by Hemmen and Erickson, “Pharmaceutical and Household Chemical Disposal” by Robbins and Farnham, “Using Music, Art and Writing as Therapy” by Blake and Timm, “Blood Pressure, Biofeedback and Relaxation Techniques” by Leech and Kinner.Students had an opportunity to get their glucose tested by Livermont and the local ambulance crew.Baker and Gebhart presented “Mental Health Topics” while Leuning and Bueckens presented “Drugs – Mixing Prescriptions found at Home.”“Brown Bag Food on the Go” was offered by Remund and Landsman, “Depression and Anxiety” by Harrington and Mathis and “Aromatherapy” by Bisson and Sudtelgte.Students hustled between the workshops in a full day of informational activity before the school day ended.In addition to gaining lifelong lessons on the various topics in the interest of health and safety, students participated in group activities and experienced participation in a convention style setting by attending the sessions in ‘hospitality rooms,’ which gave them practical experience for participation in future groups as well.Next week, the Valley Journal will feature the physical activity portion of the two-day workshop.

The first week is under the belt

Students leave the school building and head for the buses after their first week of school at Lake Benton Elementary School. - Photo By Dan Kuss

Physical education at Lake Benton Elementary School

Lake Benton teacher Kelli Larsen instructs her sixth grade class in physical education at the school playground. Teachers at Lake Benton School enjoy spending the extra time with their students outside of the classroom. - Photo by Dan Kuss

By Dan Kuss
lbnews@itctel.com

Lake Benton School teachers have extended the classroom walls to reach the great outdoors and the gymnasium. Teachers and students alike have embraced this opportunity.

“It is a way to better utilize our resources to provide research,” said Lake Benton School Principal Ryan Nielsen. “With the Response to Intervention program, we needed to shift staffing and this seemed like the right thing to do.”

RTI is a reading program that helps schools identify and help at-risk students. It allows schools to provide one-on-one or small group instruction in math or reading.

Kindergarten and first grade, second and third grade and fifth and sixth grade have combined classes, while fourth grade has their own class.

Second grade teacher Alissa Christianson and third grade teacher Kris Benson have combined their physical education classes and are setting a system in place to take turns teaching the class, using the two or three days not teaching the class as their prep time for regular classes.

“It’s kind of fun and it is going fine,” said Christianson. “We get to see a different side of kids we would normally not see outside of the classroom and let loose a bit. Last week I got to play quarterback and did my fair share of pushing on the merry-go-round. We’ll play kickball next week.”

Christianson said the biggest thing needed right now is supplies and equipment. Teachers sometimes bring things from home to incorporate into their curriculum.

“We’re not too in-depth at this point,” said Christianson. “We had a workshop with an experienced physical education instructor from Westbrook-Walnut Grove Schools who gave us great unit ideas on how to introduce volleyball and basketball.”

“I have a lot of experience with basketball, but we will use balloons to help with the younger ones with fine motor skills in volleyball, such as bumping and setting.”

Christianson and Benson hope to do an archery unit and share equipment and resources with WWG. They’ve set up stations, so students are in charge of carrying equipment and picking up when class is done.

Students created their own names for their stations like the Ladybugs, the Vikings and the Grannies. “We will have a four day structured unit with a free play day or kids’ choice on Fridays,” said Christianson. “We’ll go outside if it’s nice or be in the gym if it storms.”

Sixth grade teacher Kelli Larsen and half-time fifth grade/half-time Title 1 teacher Cynthia Duus combined their classes to team-teach physical education as well. Duus is the RTI instructor half-time at the school.

“It’s a wonderful change of pace to see the students outside of the classroom,” said Larsen. “You get to see how they work in a team setting and who needs to work on their social skills. This week we are learning stretching, warm up techniques, running and teamwork.”

Larsen said teachers are still getting used to the dynamics of their classes and how the students interact and work together.

“We learned oodles of information on managing a PE class from the veteran phy. ed. teacher from Walnut Grove,” said Larsen. “We learned different ways to introduce sports, received a lot of games ideas and information on the President’s Fitness Program. We’re hoping to get more equipment.”

Larsen and Duus hope to do a bowling unit, juggling, Frisbee golf using hula hoops and cup stacking, a timed competition in which students race against time stacking cups into a pyramid.

The pair has also set up squads much the same as the stations Christianson and Benson set up. “Squad 1 will give a sports report on how the Minnesota Vikings did or who won the Elkton-Lake Benton Volleyball match; Squad 2 will deliver and set up equipment; Squad 3 will pick up and put equipment away and Squad 4 will be on vacation. Then we’ll rotate the squads the next week,” said Larsen. “I coached volleyball and basketball at Elgin, Neb., so it’s nice to get back in the gym with the kids.”

Since the state is cutting money, the district saves one half of a teacher by teaching its own physical education classes. “It also improves our educational program by allowing us to do the RTI program,” said Nielsen. “It creates a more flexible schedule for RTI and saves the district money.”

Lake Benton School Board gets update on transportation

By Dan Kuss
lbnews@itctel.com

The Lake Benton School Board met for its last summer session before the start of the school year on Aug. 18 at 7 p.m.
Anthony Schwing and Virgil Becker have filed for the school board as their terms expire this year. Voting will take place in the general election on Nov. 2. There is one vacancy on the board that may be temporarily filled.

In the transportation update, the school received the 1999 leased bus and it runs very well down the highway. It is a nice, clean bus with chrome exhaust and looks good.

The other buses had the wheels sandblasted and painted to preserve them. The school will add four seatbelts and will require a para on the Wednesday morning route, as there is one special needs student in preschool.

The routes have been put in place and though they are not real short, no one is getting home too late. The board declared bus number one surplus and the spare bus needs new tires before it can be used. Continue reading »