By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

With the third quarter rapidly approaching its conclusion in the Carbon County School District, educators and students begin their final push to prepare for end-of-year testing. Elementary provides an interesting challenge with balancing this push while making learning fun for students. At Creekview Elementary, this is no different. Fifth-grade teacher Shadaya Perry joined the KOAL Newsroom to discuss what’s happening at Creekview and the academic focus for fifth-grade students.

“We survived the holidays. It’s challenging trying to get them through during this time. It’s like a long stretch. It’s that weird time between Christmas to spring break,” explained Perry to open our conversation,” but the kids are working hard. They are giving us 100 percent. They’re reaching goals. Every week, we have almost a new percentage to add to our little chart of our school’s reading goal. So it’s really, really fun to see the kids making progress.”

Speaking from the fifth-grade perspective, Perry discussed what they are seeing academically,” we’re doing a lot of preparation for the end of the year state testing. It’s called the RISE test. And I mean, it’s quite the challenge for these kiddos. And just having them going in with a positive attitude is amazing to watch. And I think you just focus on the little growth they do to build that mindset of I can do this. I can do hard things. It’s really fun to see them. And then you just make it as fun as possible for them, because it’s like a core memory. They’re going to put that into their little brains and remember it.”

A major part of the fifth-grade experience is preparing for the transition to middle school. Perry spoke about what they are doing at Creekview to help prepare students for the jump: “I personally remind them quite frequently, we’re preparing you for junior high. We’re giving them a lot more responsibility as far as keeping up on your grades, making sure that you’re getting in those missing assignments. 

Perry continued,” We did something a little bit different where the middle school counselors come to our school, they register the kids for classes, they talk to them, and then later we schedule a tour with them. So they’re able to go to the junior high, meet some teachers, and get an idea of where they’re going because I know that the biggest thing is they’re always afraid they’re going to get lost.” 

Recently, the school celebrated ‘College and Career week’, allowing students to explore what they want to do in the future. “Our counselor comes in and she visits the classrooms talking about career choices they can make and being able to go to a trade school or college or to even go into the workforce or the military. She comes in, talks to the kids, and then we have them dress up. One of the days was your favorite college or we did a ‘wear blue day’ because there were future Dinos or dress up what you want to be when you grow up and just get them thinking about their future.”

The school also hosted its annual science fair, an event that encouraged students to explore the scientific process”: We get a lot of our volunteers from Intermountain Electronics. And then we also have volunteers from our Sterling Scholars. They come in and judge these kids for the science fair and give them the criteria. And then we pick prizes and winners for first, second and third for each class.”

The teacher ended our conversation saying,” We just appreciate people coming in, volunteering, and supporting these kiddos. You know, we’re changing lives, and we’re encouraging kids and helping them grow up and learn and just to be overall good people.”

To stay up to date with what’s happening at Creekview Elementary, visit the school’s website or Facebook page.

*Photo Courtesy of Creekview Elementary