On January 20th & 21st, Ranchview will be performing “Annie Jr.” Take a look at the students and the characters they’ll be playing in the video above.
Be sure to check out the show, you won’t want to miss it!
January 20th and 21st, 8:00pm
$8 General Admission, $6 Discounted Tickets (Student, Military, Senior Citizens)
At the Ranchview High School Auditorium
Reservations can be made from the 7th-20th by calling Lisa Gryzmcowski at (972)968-5026
Osmo is an award-winning game system that will change the way your child interacts with the iPad by opening it up to hands-on play. You put your iPad in the Osmo Base with the red reflector over the camera and now it can see what’s in front of it. It’s a great way for students to utilize iPads in an educational manner. Davis Elementary has begun using Osmo and the students seem to enjoy it! For more information, visit www.playosmo.com.
On Saturday, January 14, the City of Carrollton held its annual MLK parade to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr. This will be the 20th year, the city has held the parade. The parade is sponsored by Christ Community Connection, Inc. and cosponsored by the City of Carrollton and the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District. Our Blalack students proudly participated in the parade for equality, freedom, justice and spiritual growth for all!
Carrollton Elementary students collected canned good for three weeks in December. They collected 6 food bank boxes collectively. These boxes were given to North Texas Food Bank. Way to go Carrollton Elementary!
Please join us in congratulating our two All-State Dancers, Zach August and Marcela Vazquez, on their outstanding work at the TDEA Convention this past week! There were 222 All-State Dancers from across the state of Texas, and Zach was the only male dancer represented. Both took numerous master classes and performed in an amazing performance featuring all of the 222 dancers. They both represented our district with the utmost of excellence and professionalism!
Congratulations to the students who participated this year in Reflections, the National PTA Art Program. The theme for 2016-17 was ‘What is your story?’ Students from Kinder through 12 grade may participate in 6 different categories: Dance Choreography, Film Production, Literature, Music Composition, Photography and Visual Arts.
Students compete in their school and the top 20% advance to the CFB Council PTA judging. In the picture above are the Overall Award of Excellence recipients with an entry that advanced to State level of judging. Good luck to you!
The following link has the gallery of entries in Visual Arts and Photography that advanced to state judging.
https://goo.gl/MJKUVg
Click here to see a full list of students that received an award!
January 20th and 21st, 8:00pm
$8 General Admission, $6 Discounted Tickets (Student, Military, Senior Citizens)
At the Ranchview High School Auditorium
Reservations can be made from the 7th-20th by calling Lisa Gryzmcowski at (972)968-5026
On Jan. 10, the Dallas Fitness Stars, a division of the Dallas Stars Hockey team, visited CFB to train district Physical Education teachers in Floorball. Floorball is a popular sport in Canada and Europe – it mirrors many of the same rules (but not all) as Hockey, but without requiring an ice rink or skates. The sport requires similar handling of the stick as hockey and is often used as an off-season training method. It promotes hand-eye coordination as well as strategy.
P.E. instructors were shown the best way to teach Floorball to their students and how to show students how to avoid common errors when new to the game.
During the inaugural 2013 – 2014 school year, Carrollton-Farmers Branch was the first district to receive the Dallas Fitness Stars school grant designed to help students become less sedentary. All twenty-six (26) elementary schools in CFB ISD received a complete set of Floorball equipment, inclusive of nets, sticks, balls, and bags, lesson plans, training guides, and informational wall charts for all students. The Stars Foundation also provided incentives for every elementary student in the district upon completion of the five steps that are part of the grant parameters. Every elementary student across the district had to complete five challenges in the areas of strength, cardiovascular endurance, agility, cross training and nutrition (healthy food choices) during the school year. As the students accomplished each challenge, they received a Star for their own personal fitness bracelet, provided by the Foundation.
Carrollton-Farmers Branch has continued this partnership with the Dallas Fitness Stars annually. At a recent Elementary Physical Education Staff Development, CFB hosted Ron Corker, head of the Farmers Branch Stars Center, to “train the trainers” (our physical education teachers). At this meeting, our physical education teachers were given the latest updates to the grant and received all the student incentives for the 2016 – 2017 school year. The Fitness Stars once again reiterated that the focus of the Dallas Stars Hockey Club is to teach children the importance of healthy eating and keep them active through fun and unique physical activities. By continuing to join with the Dallas Stars Fitness program in the fight against childhood obesity, the goal is to make a healthy lifestyle both enjoyable and easy to maintain for all ages. Students will again participate in 5 Fitness Stars challenges, collecting a Star as they complete physical fitness or healthy eating initiatives. Those Challenges for Kindergarten – 5th Grade are:
All students will receive a bracelet upon the completion of their first Fitness Stars challenge with one Stars pendant. As they complete each challenge level, they will receive another pendant until they finally reach five total.
The Fitness Stars program has proven to be a very positive one within the realm of elementary physical education in CFB since 2013. Thank you, Stars!
To view more photos from this visit by the Dallas Fitness Stars, click here.
LBJ Express engineers visited Charles M. Blalack Middle School’s science club for MakerSpace Technology Day and spoke to middle school students about their experiences with math, science ano every day for the LBJ Express highway project. Science club students enjoyed playing with the new technology and collaborating with their visitors.
Blalack Middle School is one of the six public middle schools that received new technology from the LBJ Express STEM education grant to kick off the new MakerSpace program. The $40,000 STEM education grant was awarded to Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District in August and after much planning is being used to implement MakerSpace programs for each middle school within the district.
“The goal of the grant is to expose each sixth- , seventh- and eighth-grader to technology at least twice a year and encourage creativity, problem solving, innovation and discovery,” said Dr. Kathryn Schaeffer, Executive Director for Advanced Academic Services and World Languages. Dr. Schaeffer is the grant visionary and author of the program title, Middle School Matters. She and the administration hope to see the MakerSpace program grow.
“We hope that with this grant MakerSpace will eventually become a part of the classroom experience. We want to expand time on campuses where MakerSpace can be open before school, during lunch time and after school so kids who are really driven to work in these areas can do so and teachers can go a bit further with their students through programming and planning in their own time. However, we know that math and science for every child is important so we want to touch every child because we don’t know exactly when the lightbulb will go off for a particular child or when an experiment will blow their mind.”
The LBJ Express STEM education grant has helped foster this type of new learning for the next generation.
“We want children to know that failure is a part of what we do every day. It builds a growth mindset and resilience for future thinkers and problem solvers. By working with real materials, you either fail or succeed or end up somewhere in the middle, but try after try you learn and begin to succeed,” stated Dr. Schaeffer.
Some of the new technology featured in the MakerSpace program includes educational tools like Makey Makey, Little Bits, Google Cardboard, Sphero Robotic Ball, Sprout and 3-D HP printers. The LBJ Express engineers and middle school students spent an entire afternoon in a very creative environment where they were encouraged to interact, experiment, build, create and learn. The LBJ Express team hopes to continue being involved in the classroom with their engineers and professional staff.
Courtney Okolo paid a visit to her former high school, Newman Smith. She brought home the gold medal in the 400 Relay in the Rio 2016 Olympics. Smith high school held an assembly, where she proudly showed her gold medal & celebrated her achievement. She thanked the Newman Smith staff that helped her achieve this amazing award. Take a look at what she had to say in the video above.