Learning is in full tilt at Neosho Middle School.
In Dianna Anderson’s classroom, the group watched breathlessly while Madison Siguenza crawled across the classroom floor, a pingpong ball “egg” balanced in the spoon she held in her teeth. After her three trips she still had 12 seconds left on the clock and the group cheered.
In Anderson’s “Minute to Win It” class, named after the television show, there is a little bit of everything for students to create games. Feathers and fly swatters, tennis balls and dice are all part of the equation. Students play games they’ve seen on the show, games they’ve made up themselves and Anderson works math and word games into the curriculum.
“It’s kind of fun when it’s a game,” Anderson said of the summer school class.
Raegan Kibler walked beside Siguenza during the game, ready to replace her ping pong ball “egg” if it should drop. Kibler’s favorite game is the egg crawl. She helped pick the class.
“I thought it was going to be fun and it is,”she said.
Summer classes started Tuesday. The middle school has about 480 students enrolled for summer school and about 365 are attending each day. Some students will take reading or math classes that they need, some will have a “fun” class during one session or the other, while other students will have two creative learning classes.
During the three-hour morning session, students split their time between Kevin Rorick and Richard Enslow’s classrooms. Rorick’s group made playdough and Enslow’s built Styrofoam boats.
Lucas Brattin, Davon Willis and Theo Morrison were busily building their boat that they christened “the Mayflower.”
The class learned about experiments and independent and dependent variables. They chose the engine design and speed as their variables for the experiment.
While students on one side of the room tested their creations in a wading pool, Willis described the rubber band-powered operation of the boat. Morrison, his fingers twined in rubber bands, had a simple explanation.
“The more power you give it the faster it will go,” he said.
