On Friday, May 12, Ms. Johnson’s 2nd grade class performed in Marvin’s Songfest, an annual event at the school. Marvin, a resident of Ladue Schools and a parent of Ladue Schools graduates, has visited Spoede for the past 18 years to teach students old classic songs.

Marvin teaches the kids oldies but goodies, according to Ms. Johnson. These include patriotic songs (Yankee Doodle, Star Spangled Banner,…), some show tunes songs (My Favorite Things, Do Re Mi, … ), and Disney songs (Whistle While You Work, Zippity Doo Dah, It’s a Small World,…). He also teaches them some real oldies (Sing a Song, Abba Dabba Honeymoon).

Her students practice once to twice a month with Marvin and then put on the songfest in May and invite the entire school, along with parents and friends.

About 20 years ago, Marvin began as Ms. Johnson’s OASIS tutor. Every time he came to pick up the student that he was tutoring, he would come into the room to sing songs to the rest of the students. The following year, he asked if he could just come in and sing with the kids. The rest is history.

Along with being a Ladue Schools community member, he also owned a pharmacy with his brother in Creve Coeur for years. He was known as the singing pharmacist. Marvin is 84 years old and just stopped working this year. He still performs, though, and is part of a group that puts shows every year to raise money for cancer research!

“Marvin is so wonderful and has given a lot of his time over the years to share his talents with us,” Ms. Johnson said. “He is such an interesting and giving man.”

Second graders at Spoede Elementary were treated with a visit from the BJC Book Brigade, a school outreach and youth development program that distributes books to children.

This year—the group’s second year of supporting literacy—the BJC Book Brigade gave away more than 26,000 books to second graders in the area. Top hospital administrators volunteer as guest readers before providing a take-home book for every student.

In the spring of 2016, BJC held its first Book Brigade, which provided more than 22,000 books to second graders to read before they began their summer vacation.

Picture courtesy of second grade teacher Lauren Stotlar.

“Through you and your colleagues, we are aware of the importance of children reading on grade level by third grade. As health care providers, we know the link between education and health outcomes,” June McAllister Fowler, Senior Vice President of Communications said in a news release. “Our BJC Book Brigade employee service project will keep its mission of placing a summer reading book in the hands of every second grader transitioning into third grade in public school districts where BJC has a hospital or significant presence.”

Ladue Fifth Grade Center students participated in the MCTM State Math Contest in Columbia on Saturday, May 6. Four students placed in the top 10 and were eligible to move on to the national competition in Houston, Texas, on June 24.

In the state competition, there were 188 young mathematicians from Missouri eager to participate in four different math test categories. The four FGC students took 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th places for the individual overall category. The Ladue FGC teams took first, fifth, and sixth places. In addition to our four top ten winners, two students won ribbons in individual categories.

5th grade:
Aditya Jain – 1st place
Kevin Tang – 2nd place
Aric Wang – 5th place
Rohan Suri – 6th place
Ari Willick
Abheek Dhawan
Sophia Xu
Sarah Liao
Matthew Awad

Spoede:
Jonathan Yao – 1st place, 4th grade

Johnathan Yao won 9th place overall for fourth grade at the national event, and the Ladue Fifth Grade Center team came in 6th place in the national sweepstakes category.

Photo 1 is of Jonathan Yao (fouth grader at Spoede) who won 9th place overall for fourth grade. The second phono is Jonathan Yao and Aric Wang

Thanks to some Ladue Schools educators, KSDK shared tips on how to get your students organized for school! Spoede teacher Jennifer Johnson and retired educator Jan Caimi discussed some classroom-proven tips to make things easier at home. Watch the video and see the tips via KSDK below!

1.  Set expectations. Make it clear what goes where and when things should be done. “Then you’re taking the guesswork out for the student,” said Johnson.
2. Make lists. Post them around the house so your child can keep the steps in mind. It can walk through anything from the morning routine to what goes inside their lunchbox. “They check off every time they’ve done something. And then the parent’s not yelling and the child feels like they have some control,” said Johnson. Caimi adds that it’s ok for consistently completing the list to end in some sort of reward.
3. Make sure your child knows why it’s important to be organized. “You can see teachers give them all the tiny little parts and so you can see teachers say things like ok that was your math paper so take it and put it in your purple math folder, and then the magical thing is when you need your math paper it’ll be there,” said Caimi.
4. Let them be their own boss. “Let them be responsible for everything they have to be responsible for. Don’t clean their backpack out for them, you teach them.” Johnson adds that it’s important to have the student talk to the teacher themselves if they’re struggling, rather than going through a parent.
5. Be flexible—different kids respond to different styles. “There could be a fight every day and then they start feeling bad about themselves, and you don’t want that to happen,” said Johnson. “So you just say “I want you to copy 1-4 instead of 1-8’ and then they find success, and you can kind of just build from there.”
6. Let them fail. A small assignment left at home could mean more to a student’s organization skills than their overall grade. “Make the mistake once, pretty much won’t make that mistake that mistake again, if there is a consequence.”
7. Have faith in your student. “If they get home about the homework and say ‘I don’t know to do this at all, ask them, ‘tell me what you do remember even if you don’t remember the whole thing,” said Caimi. “Most of the time if you get them talking they actually do remember more than they think they know.”
8. It’s never too late to start adding new tasks and routines—but if possible, start early. Caimi recommends by the time your child hits kindergarten.
9. Reach out. Don’t hesitate to talk to the teacher if you think a learning or attention disability might be an issue.

For last Wednesday’s National Day of Character, all students and staff at Spoede Elementary created a heart on one of their fields! Check it out below! #SpoedeRocks

Congratulations to Spoede Elementary School, which has officially been named the #1 school in Missouri for logging the most minutes in the 2017 Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge! Thanks to our inspiring teachers and parents, we have some excellent young readers in our schools, and they’re powered up to read throughout this school year!

Spoede Elementary students read a total of 191,466 minutes this summer!

The Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge is designed to help kids turn the “summer slide”—the learning loss which can occur over the summer months—into a “summer leap” by discovering the power and joy of reading for fun. The program offered kids the chance to log their reading minutes to earn digital prizes as they completed weekly reading challenges, gaining access to 18 reading activities, including games, quizzes and videos based on popular children’s books. Parents and families also had access to free summer reading resources, including booklists across all age groups in both English and Spanish.

The school will be listed in the 2018 Scholastic Book of World Records and will receive a special personalized plaque to commemorate the students’ summer reading achievements.

Nearly 4,000 schools, libraries and community partners participated in this year’s Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge. Students from the U.S. and around the world read a whopping total of 138,399,392 minutes! That’s the fifth year in a row kids logged more than 100 million minutes.

Last week, Spoede Elementary held its annual S.T.E.A.M Carnival (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math) over two days! The event helps kids get excited about the science and technology topics they will explore throughout the year.All of the 1st and 2nd graders attend one day, and 3rd and 4th grade students attend the next day. Students are placed in groups of five or six and rotate through eight stations, which are run by parents, teachers, community members, high school teachers, and high school students. The stations provide opportunities to explore scientific topics the learn about in the curriculum throughout the year, but in fun and engaging ways. This year, the students had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; they got to touch a real human brain!

Booths This Year:

• Lava Lamps (mixtures and solutions)
• Blueberry DNA
• Virtual Reality
• Microscope Investigations
• Rocks and Minerals
• Human Body
• Rockets
• Hot Air Balloon
• Electricity
• Sound
• Leaf Identification
• Nutrition

Check out the gallery of photos below, and click here to view more!

Nine fourth grade robotics teams from all four elementary schools in the district competed in the regional FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League Competition on Nov. 12 and 13 at Brittany Woods Middle School. One team from Reed, one team from Spoede and one team from Old Bonhomme will be moving on to the Eastern Missouri Championship Event at St. Louis Community College on Jan. 13, 2018.

Congratulations to Reed team “Water Bots”, Spoede team “Nasty & Necessary #7” and Old Bonhomme team “Boom-Shaka-Lake-Ahs” for this accomplishment. Other teams were awarded, as well. The “Brain Waves” team won the Project Award for their innovative ideas and presentation skills. The “Tidal Waves” and the “Nasty and Necessary #7” teams won the Core Values award for their team-work and gracious professionalism, and the “Water Bots” and the “Boom-Shaka-Lake-Ahs” each won the Champion’s Award, which means they did great work in all three categories. Both Spoede teams were awarded Monsanto Fund grants to participate in the event.

The project was led by teachers Karen Engelkenjohn, Tammy MacLean, Kathie Dolan and Lindsay Lombardo. Congratulations goes out to all the teams, parent helpers and teacher coaches for their hard work. Best of luck to all the teams moving on to the Eastern Missouri Championship in January!

Five Ladue teams advanced to the FIRST Lego League Eastern Missouri Championship Tournament at St. Louis Community College in Florissant Valley on Saturday, Jan. 13th. Forty teams from around Missouri advanced to participate in the tournament. Old Bonhomme, Spoede, and Reed each had a fourth grade team led by teachers Tammy MacLean, Kathie Dolan, Carol Kliesen and Karen Engelkenjohn. One FGC team led by parent coach Sherry Wolk and one LMS/FGC team led by coaches Gaurav Suri and Sonali Jain also qualified to participate. Of the five Ladue teams, three teams won awards at the tournament Saturday.

Old Bonhomme

Old Bonhomme’s team, the Boom-Shaka-Lake-Ahs, led by teacher Tammy MacLean and parent coach Jennifer Jim, won the Research Award for their extensive research and collaboration to devise a home water recycling system that would clean and filter rainwater and greywater. They designed a prototype for a system that would make homeowners more responsible for their water-use and save them money over time in water costs. The team consists of Clara Carpenter, Henry Goellner, Trip Hoffman, Ella Lin, Arden Poger, Owen Prange, Max Sigel, Miles Grossman, Justin Jim and David Lin. They won 1st Place at the Qualifying event and advanced to the Championship Event. At the Championship Event they won the Research Award.

Fifth Grade Center

The FGC team, H2O To Go, led by parent coach Sherry Wolk, created a company named H2O To Go, a water transport solutions company which designed H2O Pullers for girls in rural Africa to use to pull larger amounts of water faster. Their hope is that Pullers will reduce the number of trips needed to fetch water, enable the girls to go back to school and reduce the injuries they suffer from carrying water on their heads. The team also designed Water Pods, large reusable plastic cubes that can be placed in areas that have experienced hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, contaminated water sources or flooding. The Pods are equipped with two filters, are refilled as needed, provide water for all of the families’ needs and do not create the recycling problem that cans and plastic bottles create. H2O To Go also designed a truck to carry the large pods to the areas in crisis and a water truck equipped with filters that travel to areas in need to refill pods or for individuals to refill their own containers. The team is comprised of Natalie Wolk, Maya Zigo, Isabella Huang, Lauren Clay and Emma Bangert. At the Qualifying Event they won the Core Values Award and a ticket to advance to Championship Tournament. At the Championship Event they won the Presentation Award.

Ladue Middle School/Fifth Grade Center

The LMS/FGC team, The Ate Sharks, led by parent coaches Gaurav Suri and Sonali Jain created an idea for a Greywater Planter. They developed a system to use the washing machine’s excess water to be reused to water plants. The water is transported to a drum through a hose. And another pipe, filled with vinegar, connects with the washing machine hose. The vinegar along with the greywater flows into the drum and neutralizes the alkalinity due to the detergent. If it gets too full, there is an overflow system that would get the excess water out. The water flows to a planter box through hoses where it will go through a soaker hose into a mulch filled trench to give water to the plants. The team is comprised of seven students from LMS and one student from the FGC. LMS students, Abheek Dhawan, Aditya Jain, Alison Nieder, Aric Wang, Claudia Kramer, Rohan Suri, Zachary Barrett and Arti Jain from the FGC. At the Qualifying Event they won the Champion’s Award and Robot Performance Award. At the Championship Event they won the Core Values – Teamwork Award.

Spoede

Congratulations to Spoede team, led by Kathie Dolan. Nasty and Necessary #7. At the Qualifying Event they won the Core Values Award. Their project was to encourage farmers to use a low cost and green process of precision agriculture to monitor the nitrogen levels in their soil to decrease nitrogen runoff. Their team was Nick Pearlstone, Dorian Bunic, Celina Zhou, Anthony Zhao, Sarah Meade, Iris Wang, Sahasra Mandalapu, Christopher Huang, and Riyan Khan.

Reed

Congratulations to Reed team, led by teacher Karen Engelkenjohn and parent coach Marc Tourville. The Water Bots. At the Qualifying Event they won the Division Championship Award. Their project was to convert all the toilets at Reed to the water efficient dual flush toilets. The Water Bots are Lilly Tourville, Lexi Schoenecker, Carrie Clennan, Charlotte Kaye, Parker Meek, Bennett Hershey, Sofia Hall, Noah Gindelberger and Madison Stockwell.

Congratulations to all the teams that researched, collaborated, designed and prepared for the FLL (FIRST Lego League) tournaments this year! Hats of to their coaches as well!

Any MasterChef Junior fans? A Spoede Elementary student has become a TV star! Fourth grader Juelz Bugg made the top 24 chefs for Season 6! The season premiere of the show aired on Friday, March 2, at 8 p.m. on FOX, during which the top 40 chefs, ages 8 to 12, competed in their first elimination round for the top 24 slots.

In the two-hour premiere, the girls were asked to create a perfect medium-rare filet mignon, while the boys attempted a flawless chicken breast.

After the judging finished, the top 12 in each category were given an apron and the chance to compete for the MasterChef Junior title. Congratulations on earning one of those coveted aprons, Juelz!

The show airs on Friday nights at 8 p.m. on FOX.