LEARNING Comes to
Life at Wax Museum
Youngest Jaguars Celebrate the
McClellan PTA Organizes Super
WEST JEFFERSON HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT NEWS— MIDDLE, INTERMEDIATE & ELEMENTARY
est Jefferson Hills
WEST JEFFERSON HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT NEWS
Where has the school year gone?! In early February, students at Gill Hall Elementary and McClellan Elementary marked the 100th day of school with a full day of 100-themed lessons and activities. At McClellan Elementary, the kindergarten classes put on a fashion show after working hard to put 100 items on a t-shirt.
Fourth Graders Get Unique Business Experience at BizTown
For at least a day, Jefferson Hills Intermediate School fourth graders traded the classroom for the business world when they traveled to Junior Achievement’ s BizTown. Located in Bridgeville, BizTown combines classroom lessons with hands-on experiences in an interactive, simulated community. The space, filled with 21 storefronts representing industries throughout western Pennsylvania, becomes a hub of commerce and entrepreneurship during the nearly five hour experience.
At BizTown, students are assigned various roles as they own or operate a business and apply financial principles in scenarios that mirror those faced by professionals in the real-world. Some of those businesses included Clearview Federal Credit Union, Giant Eagle, 100.7 Star, and Sheetz.
Leading up to the BizTown experience, students participated in twelve 45-minute, in-class sessions. The entire program is built around three pillars. BizTown develops workforce readiness by having students apply and interview for jobs, work and patronize storefronts, and learn the importance of teamwork. It teaches financial literacy as students earn a paycheck, pay taxes, and collaborate to pay off their business’ s start-up loan. And it builds entrepreneurship by giving students the chance to see what it is like to start and run a business.
Over the course of three days, every WJH fourth grader made the trip to BizTown. The experience was made possible thanks to funding from the Jefferson Hills Intermediate School PTA.
Students at McClellan Elementary leveled up in January and raised more than $ 5,800 in a Mario Kart themed Penny Wars, sponsored by the school’ s PTA. Each team, consisting of a kindergarten class, a first grade class, and a second grade class, was a character from Mario Kart and gained positive points by putting pennies and dollar bills in their bucket. Teams could also sabotage the efforts of other teams by dropping silver coins in another team’ s bucket, giving them negative points.
Students could track the daily progress during the two week event. And while there were back-to-back FID days during the penny wars, more than $ 800 was raised on a virtual donation!
In the end, more than 39,000 pennies, 5,000 nickels, 6,500 dimes, and 5,200 quarters were donated. The winner was Team Yoshi, the classrooms of Mrs. Morton, Mrs. Fazekas, and Mrs. Jakubowski.
LEARNING Comes to
Life at Wax Museum
Second graders at McClellan Elementary have been studying ancient Greek civilizations. As a culminating project, the students hosted a wax museum on Thursday, February 13. Each student chose a Greek god or goddess to study then dressed up like that god or goddess and shared facts they discovered when a museum visitor pressed the button at their display.
44 WEST JEFFERSON HILLS