We had our November ENCORE today to close out our short week. 3rd grade presented on respect. Students wrote their own scenarios and read them aloud. Our audience had to decide if they were respectful or disrespectful in the scenario. We also celebrated our November Super Cougars!
FES wishes all of our families and staff a very Happy Thanksgiving!
FES earned a Cougar Way Reward today. The Cougar Code said, "Bird Hunt." We didn't let the adverse weather conditions spoil our hunt! These tough hunters battled the wind to find 12 hidden turkeys on the playground with a 15 minute time limit. The 1st grade class, along with Ms. Njus, was the only class to find all 12 birds! They will receive an extra recess next week with Mrs. Hammond.
FES had its November Cougar Way Assembly. Mrs. Hammond talked about how we show respect to our coaches and teammates when we play sports. Aaron Fred, Jasmine Wayne, Remington Buchholtz, Krew Steege, and Aubrey Morse were recognized for mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They gathered in front of the Math Wizard's castle where he quizzed them on math facts in order for them to prove that they were worthy to level-up to the Math Wizard status. He was impressed with their math skills, so he presented them with the most treasured and rare, Math Wizard brag tag. Students in 1st-4th grades were recognized for earning brag tags for addition, subtraction, and multiplication. The Math Wizard encouraged these students to keep working hard. The Lucky American winner was Addi Schmitt.
Mrs. O'Brien and Mr. Price's class had reading buddies last Friday. They created Thanksgiving placemats for the community dinner.
Congratulations to our Operation EDITH participants who had their names drawn for a ride to school on a fire truck and our poster winners. Many thanks to the SVFD Firefighters who got up early to get the kids to school!
A few more pages from the Durant students. They were all so good!
Students in Mrs. Sadler's Cougar Time group created a spin off of the Q is for Duck book to teach about Durant. They presented their alphabet book today. Do you know why L is for School? Check out some of the pages of our book!
Our students have been sharpening their minds with chess! Playing chess encourages critical thinking, strategy, and patience, all while strengthening problem-solving skills and focus. Each move challenges students to think ahead, anticipate outcomes, and make thoughtful decisions—skills that extend far beyond the chessboard! ♟️
Our students are gearing up for an exciting STEM challenge! They have been using Makey Makey boards, which are invention kits that let students turn everyday objects—like fruit, Play-Doh, or drawings—into touchpads that control a computer.
This hands-on activity is an awesome math extension that encourages creativity, problem-solving, and innovation as students apply their STEM skills in fun, interactive ways.
A huge thank-you to Jackie from Upham Memorial Library for letting us borrow the boards and to Jenna from ISU Extension and Outreach for running this amazing program with our students!
This hands-on activity is an awesome math extension that encourages creativity, problem-solving, and innovation as students apply their STEM skills in fun, interactive ways.
A huge thank-you to Jackie from Upham Memorial Library for letting us borrow the boards and to Jenna from ISU Extension and Outreach for running this amazing program with our students!
Sergeant 1st Class Justin Smith of the U.S. Army speaking to Mr. Meyer's third grade class about Veterans Day at Durant today. Thank you for your service and visiting us!
Durant Elementary students were greeted by some very special veterans as they came to school today. Thank you to all of the veterans who came this morning. Dillon Larson also spoke to the students about the reason behind Veterans Day, shared the contents of an MRE, and answered student questions. Many thanks to all of our veterans on this special day.
FES earned a Cougar Way Reward today. The code said, "Eat a turkey." Some students who don't like turkey were worried. They were relieved to find out that we were making a turkey out of an OREO cookie, candy corn, pretzel sticks, and white chocolate chips. Once the turkey was made, students enjoyed eating it!
FES staff was encouraged to be a USA symbol/figure for Halloween this year. Besides Betsy Ross showing off her flag, President Trump awarded the medals to our Star Cougars today! We also had the Bald Eagles, the Statue of Liberty, the American Flag, an Air Force Veteran, Patriotic Citizens, and a Boxer. Earlier this month, the FES Paras wore their "Para Dream Team" shirts, which tells their purpose of encouraging, empowering, motivating, educating, nurturing, and inspiring students in order to meet all their needs. Thank you, FES Staff, for always going above and beyond to make the days memorable for our students!
We love when our FES students strike a pose on the stage! The trick is getting it captured on camera before they run off!
FES Costume Parade is a great tradition that we all look forward to each year!
Due to Iowa's new math law (House File 784, the Math Counts Act), FES is implementing whole-class and small-group math interventions to give our students extra math support. One of our main goals as a building is to increase basic fact practice. We are going to recognize and celebrate students who master basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts at our monthly assemblies. As students master each skill, they will receive a brag tag to put on their necklace. Once they have mastered all 4 skills, they will receive the Math Wizard brag tag and will get a special reward. At today's assembly, some 3rd grade students did a "Doubles Facts" rap to show how learning math facts can be fun and to hopefully inspire more students to get pumped up about math. Students who have mastered addition, subtraction, and multiplication so far this year were given their necklaces and brag tags. Missing from the last photo is Jasmine Wayne.
What a day at FES! A morning Cougar Way Assembly and an afternoon Costume Parade! This month's character pillar was Respect. At the assembly, we discussed how we show respect by standing and removing our hats when "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played before a game. Betsy Ross showed her original flag. We recognized Star Cougars and celebrated October birthdays. Piper Gruenberg was the Lucky American and received a glow bracelet to wear trick-or-treating.
FES Kindergarteners visited Preschool today to retell the story, Room on the Broom, a story they have been practicing this week.
More from Durant ENCORE. Red den won for the Month of October. RED ROCKS!!! Mr. Krueger, Mr. Gates and Mrs. O'Brien were our teacher winners for the month.
