Verner Elementary hosts record attendance for open house
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Verner Elementary School made history for 2022.
The Verona school’s March 24 open house was its best-attended ever, with students and members of their families having the opportunity to see all of the projects the kids have been working throughout the year.
What helped make this year’s event so popular was the inclusion of an art show, for which students in each grade hung various projects that they created throughout the hallways, plus a book fair featuring Scholastic Inc. publications that was put together by the parents and run by members of the Verner PTO.
The book fair was a huge hit, and the children were especially looking forward to the event due to some prep work by librarian Lynn Madden.
“I get the kids excited ahead of time by showing them Scholastic trailers,” she said regarding short videos about the books. “Then they get to shop for what they saw at school or here at the book fair.”
PTO members obtain book wish lists from the teaching staff, set up the fair and then tear it down at the conclusion. They then take the proceeds from the fair and roll them forward to help sponsor other book fairs in future years, so that the fair becomes its own self-sustaining entity.
“This is the first in-person fair in two years, so we’re all very happy to be here,” Hayley Dawson, PTO president, said.
The joy at actually being present inside the Riverview School District building was a running theme of the evening among parents and staff members. Because of the covid pandemic, access has been more limited than usual during the past two years.
And with guidelines regarding face coverings now relaxed, the event seemed like a return to normalcy to everyone involved.
“Last year, we had restrictions and had specific times we had to come in,” Tanisha Weaver, whose son Treimere is a third-grader at the school, said. “This year, it’s open and free and so much better.”
Special education instructor Kristen O’Block agreed.
“Seeing everyone in person has been really nice,” she said. “The normalcy is very refreshing, and incorporating the book fair and the art show is new and really drew people in for a nice crowd. We haven’t had all the parents in like this for two years.”
The art show was a major part of the evening, and the school was filled with numerous projects displayed prominently for everyone to see.
One of the more notable projects was a totem pole that each third-grader put together. The students selected four people to put on the poles that would allow them to tell the story of their own lives so far.
“This is a very creative group, and the students really enjoyed putting this project together,” third-grade teacher Alexis Manifest said.
Another art display was taken on by the sixth-graders, who anonymously wrote one kind word about each of their classmates. Afterward, each student received a list of the classmates’ nice words. They picked out several words to put on the petals of some flower artwork, and then decorated the rest of the flower to represent their likes and personality.
Fifth-graders read the novel “Walk Two Moons” by Sharon Creech and then put together a travel brochure based on geographic spots in the novel.
“The idea was for the students, if you were visiting these location from the book, what would you want to know,” fifth-grade teacher Shannon Kahn said.
The students also worked on a rock cycle project led by teacher Ashlee Consentino, sing different colors of Starburst candy to illustrate the differences among igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. The candy pieces stood for igneous rocks, which were then cut into smaller pieces to show they had been weathered by erosion.
Next, the students used the heat of their hands to compact the pieces so that the layers formed sedimentary rocks, and finally, they used wax paper and the weight of classroom chairs for extra heat and pressure to show how the rocks became metamorphic. The students also put together a short musical on the rock cycle.
“I’m just really glad we’re able to have this and show off all of our work this year. It’s just been so nice to see everyone’s smiling faces,” Consentino said.
Fourth-graders showed off self-portraits they created after reading an article in a science magazine about skin tones. The project was designed to show off everyone’s uniqueness. They also created a Martin Luther King portrait, which was on display at the open house, for MLK Day in January.
“I really like open house because the kids have been working hard on all of these projects, and we get to show off what they’ve done all year to their parents,” fourth-grade teacher Erica George said. “We’re really proud of their work.”
Gabrielle Evans, whose daughter Coraline attends kindergarten at Verner, summed up the night:
“What a great opportunity to come into the school, meet all the teachers, and really get a good look at the great things our kids are doing.”