News and Announcements

Middle School math students are getting some additional devices to make their math learning just a little bit easier. Thanks to two grants - one recently awarded from the Wilson H. Craig fund and one awarded earlier this year from the Thornapple Area Enrichment Fund - middle school, algebra students will be equipped with graphing calculators.

In August, when Rojean Sprague prepares her classroom for another year of school, she sets up a Christmas tree. It’s way too early for the holiday season - but this tree celebrates something else.

Thornapple Kellogg Middle School students will present “Aladdin Jr.” Nov. 17 and 18. Both shows start at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium. Tickets are not required, but donations to the musical program are appreciated.

Four Thornapple Kellogg Middle School band students walked around the Western Michigan University campus, ate lunch by the gardens, watched the University Bronco Marching Band and - oh yeah - performed a concert at WMU’s Miller Auditorium.

Students lined up facing each other, both sides eying the opponent’s flag hanging on the opposite side and strategizing ways to successfully grab the flag without being caught themselves. TK Middle School teachers turned this simple children’s game of Capture the Flag, into a live-action history lesson as the 8th-grade teams became the British and American forces in the Revolutionary War.

“I’ll give you five cows for some gold,” one student offered. Another provided three sheep and some beads. These kinds of trades were being made throughout the seventh-grade social studies classrooms taught by Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Cove as students studied the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia.

Three teachers were honored with the Shelley Erb “Above and Beyond Award” given annually by the Thornapple Kellogg Education Association. Erb is a retired first-grade teacher whose endless energy and enthusiasm for teaching is the inspiration for the award given annually to a teacher who goes above and beyond what’s expected.