Anderson students celebrate year of learning

Anderson Early Childhood Center students celebrated learning as they held their end-of-year parties. Students in Sylvia Schrivner’s kindergarten class had a pizza and ice cream party the day before graduation. A special treat was cookies made in the shape of their favorite storybook character, Eric Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar. They were almost – but not quite – too good to eat.

Students enjoy fun and games at annual field days

Anderson Early Childhood Center students played games, romped and jumped at their annual field days May 3, 4, 5. Rainy skies forced the celebration into the gymnasium, but the change of location didn’t slow down the fun.

P. E. teacher Catherine Hamilton led the students as they showed off their skills at running and in the tug of war, egg and spoon race, wheelbarrow race, sack race, playing leapfrog and the balloon pop contest. Parents and students watched and cheered, and everyone was a winner.

Each year, Anderson Art teacher Beth Ann Smith sponsors a Field Day T-shirt design contest. This year’s winner was a drawing of the egg and spoon race by Kindergartener Selena Leal in Tonya Madere’s class.
 

Arts at Anderson

Singing with the animals

On Tuesday, April 25, Anderson music teacher Ginger Cunningham directed the kindergarten students in their spring music concert, “The Animal Boogie,” which featured songs about animals and bugs.

Young artists at work


 
Beth Ann Smith, Anderson art teacher, proudly displayed two works of art that each of her Anderson students created in the school’s annual art exhibition during the week of April 24-28. Their works, drawings and pottery, showed what the students had been learning all year.


Students enjoy Anderson Book Fair

   

Anderson Librarian Julie Dahlhauser held a scholastic half-price book fair in April to celebrate reading and give students a chance to stock up on their favorite books for the summer. Parents and students enjoyed the fair, and purchased many books for their personal libraries. Anderson Principal Mary Deaton said the turnout was great, and that several community members made private donations to the school for students who couldn’t afford to buy books for themselves. Proceeds from this sale go to re-supply the school library with new books.

Anderson parent survey provides positive feedback

Anderson principal Mary Deaton reported that the school has offered all parents of Anderson students to have some input into the school’s performance through a parent survey. “We have had great positive feedback,” she said. Some of the comments Mrs. Deaton received were about curriculum and the school’s environment, and some parents said their children were “happy to be in school” and parents expressed appreciation about the “nurturing” their children receive.

Even though there was still time left to turn in the survey, Mrs. Deaton said so far she had received an 80 percent response. “We do have some issues that we need to address, such as the parking situation here, but we are working on many things to make our school better.”

Anderson has 311 kindergartners and 150 preschool children enrolled. Since it was one of the pilot preschool programs in the state, Anderson welcomes visitors and phone calls from other communities that are trying to develop their preschool programs. “Next year we are implementing ‘Letter People,’ a research-based language program that will make learning more interesting and fun for the students through visuals, songs, and other instructional material,” Mrs. Deaton said.

Mrs. Deaton is also participating with other Haywood County schools in a program to better serve the children by compiling a folder on each child that will go to the next class with him or her. “These folders contain all kinds of data about each child and their learning levels and will help the child’s next teacher meet that child’s learning needs.” She added that she and her staff are always looking at a variety of teaching strategies that will help students find success in the classroom.