Have you seen the floor plan maps lately? If you haven't, you'll want to take a look. They're far more "personalized" now because we've been able to plug in the teachers' names into the various rooms. With this piece of the puzzle, all you need now are the class assignments due out on August 6th (5:00 PM) to know where you'll be during the majority of the school day this year. Exciting! ...
Hold Your Breath!
We have exactly six weeks until the first day of school! Wow!! For those of you who have driven by the new school or watched it's progress on our STEM School Rising videos, you know how fast the contractors and architects are working. I'm astonished at the progress they're able to make each week with over a hundred workers on site each day. Even with these great efforts, however, time is running short, and we will be opening our doors ...
School Picture Day
We now have the first-ever Armstrong school picture day on the calendar. It will be on Thursday, October 24th and will be organized by Bell Photography. A big thank you to the panel of parents and staff who helped choose a photography package for our new school. Class pictures will be taken as a group rather than as a composite of individual portraits, so you don't want to miss being at school that day. It should be a lot of fun. ...
Will It Fit?
After Mr. Howe had a nightmare this weekend that the furniture being ordered didn't fit in the classrooms, Mrs. Stutz helped him make a mock up of the furniture using purple butcher paper and lay it out in one of the newly constructed classrooms. The good news is that the furniture will fit perfectly and lines up well with the outlets in the raised flooring. The bad news is that both Mr. Howe and Mrs. Stutz walked away with paint all over their ...
Guiding Documents
During four days of professional development, the teachers and staff of Neil Armstrong Academy began to create the mission, vision, and values (collective commitments) of Granite's new STEM elementary school. We discussed how similar these documents are to the founding documents of our Nation (the Constitution and the Bill of Rights) in that we hold each other accountable to live by them. Likewise, when we feel satisfied with what our guiding ...
Camp Kostopolus
The teachers of Neil Armstrong Academy spent the afternoon of their second day of training on the ropes course of Camp Kostopolus up Emigration Canyon. We had plenty of bumps and bruises but even more laughing and fun as we got to know each other better, trust each other more, and problem solve together. ...
Mascot Brainstorm
During the past few weeks, Armstrong patrons have bounced around their ideas concerning a mascot for the new school. Using wordle.net, I've displayed the results of that brainstorming here. Wordle displays a word cloud based on frequency. Mascots that were suggested the most often end up the biggest, and mascots that were suggested only seldomly end up very small. Using this feedback, we'll present 3 to 5 of the favorites for the ...
A Classroom at Neil Armstrong Academy
This is a rather long post. Sorry. However, it was a rather long thought process, so a short post would probably not do it justice. I think it's well worth your time. As we work our way through the mammoth task of furnishing Neil Armstrong Academy, I want to share a unique sitting arrangement we're looking to adopt at Armstrong this year. Many things at Armstrong will not be done in the traditional way. Our pedagogy is going to look and ...
Teacher Professional Development
Neil Armstrong teachers met for their first of four STEM professional development days yesterday. They began the day by outlining the mission and vision of the school, and then they spent a large part of the time involved in the very inquiry-based activities we expect our students to be doing. What an absolute blast! ...
A Mascot?
All right . . . Prepare to open the flood gates! Although we want to have the students make the final decision during the first weeks of school, we're currently in the market for mascot suggestions. Using the feedback we get here (and on the school Facebook page) from parents, teachers, or other community members, we'll narrow the options down to a few favorites and then have the student body vote on those options at the beginning of the year. ...
