More than 500 portraits created by 168 third grade students at Hammock Pointe Elementary School are now on display at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, as part of a unique partnership between the school and the museum.
The school’s third graders worked with the museum on ekphrasis, a technique where the writer vividly describes or provides commentary on works of art. As part of their curriculum with the museum, students created portraits and wrote narratives and poetry about their work.
The “Express Yourself” exhibit will be on display at the museum through June 14. Artwork is arranged by class, and grouped by themes – everything from self-portraits to superheroes and “minions” to Minecraft characters.
Hammock Pointe’s third grade teachers praised the project and its use as a tool to strengthen students’ writing skills – as well as their appreciation of art.
“The use of adjectives to describe their portraits will promote better, more descriptive essays as they work to improve their writing,” said David Fetter, one of the Hammock Pointe teachers whose students participated in the project. “My class was very excited to do the portraits and can’t wait to see them on display at the museum.”
The partnership between the school and the museum was made possible with support from the Robert M. Sandelman Foundation.
The Boca Raton Museum of Art is located in Mizner Park at 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton. Learn more about the museum’s hours and admission information at www.bocamuseum.org.
From the Palm Beach County School District
Category: Schools
Guns Drawn on False Alarm in Logger's Run
We heard from many readers this morning about an incident in the Logger’s Run community. People saw 10 or more PBSO cars, deputies with rifles and guns drawn, and a helicopter flying overhead.
Police operation happening now inside the Timberwalk Association, Loggers Run. Lots of police cars, chopper and police with guns drawn behind trees.
What is going on at Ponderosa & Winikoff? Riot police – 10 cars w automatic weapons drawn!
We contacted PBSO and received an official response:
Deputies were dispatched to a call of shots fired. When they arrived, we checked the area and all we found was some pounding noise coming from a house nearby. This was not a false 911 call per se, whoever called it in perceived they heard a shooting. It’s considered unfounded.
The incident apparently began sometime before 8 am and heated up as kids were being dropped off at Logger’s Run Middle School. The location of the incident was in the Timberwalk townhomes south of Palmetto Park Road near the southern intersection of Ponderosa and Judge Winikoff:
Other readers reported that the middle school went into lockdown and kids were scared:
My daughter was locked in the cafeteria and was scared out of her mind. She stated in her text to me that many of the kids were very nervous and huddling with their friends.
The initial report sounded very serious:
•••WEST BOCA••• BARRICADED SUSPECT — Ponderosa Dr @ Judge Winikoff Rd (Loggers Run) — Multiple PBSO units are at the scene of a male suspect possibly barricaded inside a house, wanted for questioning, reported fired shots up in the air and ran
After further investigation there was a follow-up report:
UPDATE: PBSO made entry, suspect not in the house, appears to have fled on foot unknown direction, Further investigation revealed there was no shooting or shot, the subject was just banging on a car with a hammer, units are clearing the scene now, no danger or threat any longer
Another source – a neighbor – tells us that this was a possible domestic dispute where a man was banging on a car with a hammer and a woman got angry about it and called 911 falsely indicating shots had been fired. The banging on the car part of the story appears to be accurate though the details of who the caller was and why they made the call are disputed by PBSO and another of our sources.
Spanish River and West Boca Academic All-Stars
The Palm Beach County school district’s “All-Star Academic Challenge team” competed in the Commissioner’s Academic Challenge at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort from April 9 to April 11. Overall the team placed 7th out of the 12 “large county” districts that competed.
West Boca students who participated included Miles Fertel of Spanish River High (top right in the photo) and Noah Graff of West Boca High (next to Fertel). Both are seniors. Others on the team were Matt Liang and Karen Sem of Suncoast High, and Marc Rodriguez and Andrew Sack of Atlantic High. The team was coached by Dr. Mary Murray, a mathematics teacher at Suncoast High School.
Noah Graff was previously featured in West Boca News as a National Merit Finalist.
Battle of Bands at Olympic Heights: Wednesday
Olympic Heights High School will host a “Battle of the Bands” on Wednesday, April 22nd, at 7 pm. The event will include swing bands from four county schools including Olympic Heights, Palm Beach Central High, Park Vista High, and Don Estridge Middle School.
The four bands facing off were the top finishers in competitions leading up to the finals. The event is sponsored by the Swing & Jazz Preservation Society, an organization devoted to supporting Palm Beach County public schools with swing and jazz bands.
Please note that we did not have photos of the swing bands so for this story we used other photos of the school bands.
Olympic Heights and Loggers Run Winners
Students of the Olympic Heights SECME team competed at the District Olympiad that was held at Santaluces High School on Saturday, March 28th. Meanwhile two Logger’s Run Middle School students won awards at the 2015 State of Florida Science and Engineering Fair.
SECME stands for “Science, Engineering, Communication, Mathematics and Enrichment”, though originally it was “Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering.” The Olympic Heights SECME team was the defending champion, and needed to place in almost every one of the 8 categories in order to retain their title. The team worked hard on the design and building of their projects, and they are very energized by their decisive victory at the event.
The OH SECME team is mostly comprised of students from the Engineering Academy with the majority from the class of 2015. This was a great way for the current seniors to finish their high school career, and now the team next year has a lot to live up to!
The following are the results of the competition:
Essay – 1st Place (Sarah Curtis), The winning essay will go to Nationals in summer 2015.
Banner – 1st Place (Jennifer Coelho and George Tripp with help from rest of the SECME team)
Poster – 1st Place (George Tripp)
Brain Bowl – 3rd Place (Daniel Baum, Garrett Goode, Jennifer Coelho, and Samantha Jairam)
Generator – 3rd place (Daniel Baum, Vincent Santano, and David Gebka)
Bridge – 3rd Place (Vincent Santano, Emily Lyn, and Garrett Goode)
Mouse Trap Car – 2nd AND 3rd Place (David Gebka, Ryan Dingman, Vincent Santano, Jennifer Coelho, Sarah Fine, Shayna York)
From Logger’s Run, Anam Ahmed’s project, “GMO: Yes or No?” earned her a 2nd place award at the state Science and Engineering Fair. Tesla Radulovic’s “The Goldbach Conjecture” won a 5th place award. That’s some pretty serious math per Wikipedia.
Last month we reported on the success of the Waters Edge SECME team as well.
And for all the whiners at Eagles Landing who are complaining, yes, we did cover you, on the West Boca News Facebook page.
