Idaho Hill takes in reading, writing and drones

OLDTOWN — From recess and robots, to horses and butterflies, Idaho Hill Elementary students wrote a variety of fascinating stories for the school’s writing celebration.

“I wrote about me going to my aunt Shannon’s to spend the night,” said kindergartner Jasen Reed, adding that he sang to his aunt and watched a movie before he went to bed during his sleepover.

During the writing celebration assembly, all the students from kindergarten through sixth grade were tasked with reading their writings to other students, staff and parents in attendance. Idaho Hill librarian Launa Lewis said it is all about encouraging kids to be excited about writing, and also to show the progression of writing between kindergarten and sixth grade.

“So if a sixth-grader is reading to a kindergartner, they actually see that the writing is progressing,” Lewis said.

In the hallway of the school is an example of the progression, demonstrating end-of-the-year writing expectations for K-3 grades. The story example for each grade is based around a youngster teaching their brother how to ride a bike, with the kindergarten story at about 25 simple words, to about 200 words in third grade, using quotes and more detail in the writing.

Each quarter carries a different celebration, Lewis said, so the first quarter celebrated reading and the second quarter focused on writing. The school also holds quarterly reading challenges to encourage the kids to read at home.

The Feb. 8 assembly concluded with the school’s second quarter awards ceremony, where students were awarded for their achievements by their respective teachers. Sixth-grader Athena Welker won a special trophy for her STEaM skills, particularly in the areas of technology and engineering. Her teacher, Wilma Hahn, said Athena aspires to be an engineer and had an impressive run with her drone on a Lego obstacle course.

Athena and three of her classmates, Hunter Rose, Tyler Cooper and Autumn Sedgwick, said they spent most of the second quarter learning to fly the drones, then built their obstacle course. Autumn said they started out learning how to get the drone to hover, going straight up and back down.

“It was really hard, because even if you are not touching the move-around stick, it will still kind of float backward a little bit,” Autumn said. “So you have to balance it to make sure it goes straight up.”

The kids said they had to learn to land softly as well, to keep the drone from flipping upside down. One thing that goes along with flying the drones, they said, is learning how to fix them. Athena said when hers broke, she took it home and soldered it back together with the help of her father. Idaho Hill has a soldering iron now, Lewis said, so they will be able to fix them up at school.

Idaho Hill has been working toward becoming a STEaM school for the past two years, and Lewis said the drones were purchased through a sponsorship grant. Athena and her group said they will be passing the drones on to the next group and will be working on robotics this quarter.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.