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 Jacqueline Hough | The Daily Herald Gerardo Carreno showed Conway Middle School Principal Barbara Jarrett-Drummond how to make homemade ice cream in a bag during the Conway Middle School “Lock-in and Learn Extravaganza.” |
“This was just a vision I had to make sure our kids are ready for the End of Grade tests in the spring,” she said. “We didn’t want them to wait until the spring. We are making learning fun but engaged.”
Research shows, she said, the more engaged students are the more they learn. “Everything the teachers are doing is geared toward the curriculum,” she said.
Jarrett-Drummond was pleased with the turnout considering it was a Friday evening. “We have good parents here at Conway Middle. Our parents are academically driven and they want their children to be successful,” she said.
Students had a chance for some recreational activities which involved scary stories, a basketball shootout, create a healthy snack and dance aerobics.
“We have a prize hub (the office) where we will do door prizes,” Jarrett-Drummond said.
She added the community was supportive in providing the various prizes and free pizza and drinks. “This is because of community support,” Jarrett-Drummond said.
The Parent Teacher Association was also involved in helping with the event. “Our PTA supports us 100 percent. We have the best PTA in Northampton County,” she said.
Different providers for afterschool tutoring set up tables to share information with parents. “Parents get to decide which provider will work with their children,” she said.
Media Coordinator Kitty Manning did the session called “Jeepers Creepers,” where she told students spooky stories such as “The Hitchhiker” and “The Babysitter.” She had the lights off and held a flashlight under her chin for ambience.
“This is what I do best,” Manning said. “The first group I had scared themselves.” Her goal was for students to discover the art of telling stories. “I try to do stories they can relate to such as babysitting and having their hand hang off the bed,” Manning said.
In science teacher Nancy Daughtry’s room, she was teaching students how to make homemade lava lamps. The process was simple. Students filled a two liter bottle about 3/4 full of water. Filled the rest with oil and then a few drops of food coloring. To make lava bubbles, Daughtry added Alka-Seltzer tablets.
“This teaches students about mass volume and density,” she said. “They all think the oil is more dense, but it’s the water.”
And parents weren’t left out, Northampton County Schools Parent Involvement Coordinator Tonsa Walton-Gary had a session which talked about ABCs parental involvement.
One thing stressed was attendance — make sure your child attends school daily. Walton-Gary then showed parents the attendance portion of the North Carolina State Compulsory Law along with the eight lawful reasons for school absences.
At the letter “R,” she talked about reading to children and allowing them to read to parents daily. Walton-Gary gave a statistic which said the out-of-school reading habits of students show even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year.
“Y” was an important letter because it stresses you, she said. “You are your child’s first and most important teacher,” she said. “Take the responsibility seriously.”
Charles Daughtry thought Walton-Gary’s session was very informative for parents.
“Ms. Tonsa was very eye-opening,” he said. “As a parent, different skills are needed to teach children.” One thing he does as a parent is to be involved in his eighth grade son’s life.
He felt the event was great for students because it encourages them to learn. Daughtry was on vacation, but said he took time to come for his son.
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