News and Announcements

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.

Many people think of a perfect day as relaxing on some tropical beach or reaching new heights on some grand adventure. Shaun Davis said those kinds of things are great, but if he had to describe his perfect day it would be spending time with his wife, Pamela, and his family having a barbecue in his own backyard and enjoying the sounds of his grandchildren laughing.

Is the ground hotter covered with grass, cement or some other ground covering? What type of surface also gathers the most light? How do they all compare and how does it all affect ecosystems? All questions seventh grade students had to try and answer using handheld temperature and light sensor probes.