December 2015

Many Maple Ridge faculty members, as well as as students, participated in wearing ugly Christmas sweaters to school on Friday, December 18th.

Maple Ridge choir students from all grade levels, participated in a Christmas choir performance on Thursday, December 17th.  The performance included a variety of nostalgic Christmas songs, as well as some songs that had never been heard by many.  The choir is directed by Maple Ridge fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Sanders.  

On Wednesday, December 16th, Mr. Andersen, husband of sixth grade teacher Mrs. Andersen, visited the sixth grade students at Maple Ridge.  Mr. Andersen read aloud the well-known The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

On Monday, December 14th, members of Mapleton Junior High School's band and orchestra performed a variety of Christmas songs for the students at Maple Ridge.  Much to the enjoyment and entertainment of the younger students, several teachers were brought up front to be "boomwhacked" by some of the performers.

Second grade students were honored and thrilled to have members of the Maple Mountain High School girls basketball team visit their classrooms.  The basketball players were able to interact with the students by working with them, or reading to them.

To motivate and educate students about coding, representatives from Inside Sales visited Maple Ridge on Tuesday, and worked with small groups of students to teach them some of the basics of coding.

4th, 5th, and 6th grade students enjoyed an afternoon with coders from Inside Sales.  Students were able to learn the basics of coding and even were able to write "Go, Maple Ridge!" in code.

Dave Elkington, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Inside Sales, visited Maple Ridge Elementary along with Tema Laussen and other representatives from the company.  They came to talk to the students about coding, and participating in the "Hour of Code" program.  The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics.

Last week, the first session of the robotics program ended.  To celebrate the occasion, parents were invited to come in and see what the students accomplished throughout the class.