Awesome Animal Masks at Westfield, Awesome Educator at Excelsior: Linn-Mar News Roundup

As we reported earlier this week, Linn-Mar runners already had a banner week at the Drake Relays, but that's no the only place the Lions have excelled this week. Let's take a quick look around the Linn-Mar School District to what else has been going on.

All blurbs and links were taken from the Linn-Mar Community School District news page. Clicking on the links will take you to the full story.

First we head to Westfield Elementary School, where some wild animal masks were put proudly on display on a bunch of willing models.

Lions….and tigers and bears, oh my! (gallery at link)

Kids love to learn about animals, and recently Westfield’s kindergarten students have been learning all about creatures of all shapes and sizes in their Zoo Unit.

With the themed unit, the kids learned about all different types of animals and their environments as they created an entire zoo right in their classrooms. The young students had a great time while learning a variety of subjects in this hands-on unit.

Then we head to Novak Elementary, where a class of students met their pen, errr, trucker pal.

Novak’s 1st Graders are Trucking Along

The first graders at Novak Elementary had a special treat this Spring. They got to meet their classroom “Trucker Buddy” in person!

Trucker Buddy International is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to educating and mentoring schoolchildren through pen pal relationships between professional truck drivers and students worldwide. The program matches a teacher/classroom with a professional truck driver. (More information about this program can be found at the Trucker Buddy International website.)

We've seen some awesome kids so far, let's hear about an awesome teacher.

 Linn-Mar's Debra Barry named 2013 Linn County Educator of the Year

Debra Barry, a seventh grade social studies teacher at Excelsior Middle School, has been named the 2013 Linn County Educator of the Year.

Back to the high school ranks, where Linn-Mar's Orchestra did itself proud at a nearby invitational.

Linn-Mar's High School Orchestra Shines

The Linn-Mar High School Music Department announced that the Linn-Mar High School & Middle School Orchestras earned the highest rankings at the 2013 Jefferson Orchestra Invitational on April 20, 2013.

It was a great day for Linn-Mar’s orchestra program with the High School Symphony Orchestra placing 1st within their division receiving perfect scores from all the judges. This marks the seventh year in a row that this ensemble has placed 1st within the 4-A division.

Staying in the arts field, we close with two very talented artists who were honored for their work.

Two Linn-Mar Artists Honored by State (click link to see Kezhen great self portrait)

Congratulations to LMHS students Kezhen (Daniel) Zhou and Chloe Rosendale for being chosen for the 2013 Visual Arts All-State Team.

Since 1997, Art Educators of Iowa has been recognizing the state’s outstanding junior and senior art students. AEI requests members to nominate and submit their best students’ portfolios. Of the portfolios submitted this year, the top fifteen were named as the 2013 All-State Art Team.