News and Notes: 4.9

Tis the Season for Giving

For those of you who follow WLPS on Facebook, you may have seen my interview with National Honor Society President and WLHS senior, Mackenzie Kelley, last Friday.  Mackenzie highlighted the many ways our middle school and high school students get involved with giving this time of year, which is really, really cool.  If you haven’t seen the interview yet, you can check it out HERE.  The giving carried into this week when the WLHS band performed at the Northfield Township tree lighting event Tuesday evening (photos from the event are HERE.)

I was already in the Christmas spirit so knowing our elementary staff and students would be preparing for North Pole Night  (6:00 – 8:00 tonight), I paid the students at WLES a visit and walked right into a Builders Club meeting, led by sponsor Ms. Aimee Taylor.  Spread out across the gym floor were a group of students working so hard that none of them even laughed at my Santa impression.  What were they working on?  Christmas cards for the residents of the Regency of Whitmore Lake!  And, they were getting ready to practice caroling, which they will also do when they visit to deliver the cards.  The members of Builders Club were taking their job seriously.  It was touching knowing how much joy they will soon spread by this simple act of giving.  Kudos to the Builders Club and Ms. Taylor. Head to our Facebook page for some pictures of them in action.

If you want to experience a little of the Christmas magic this school, its staff and students, and PTO are able to spread, you should pay WLES a visit tonight during their North Pole Night.  This annual tradition is a great fundraiser, as well as a time to bring the community together, all to the benefit of the kids we serve.  I guarantee you will walk away thinking, “What a great night to be a Trojan.”

Tis the Season for Field Trips

Our Trojans have been hitting the road to pursue many outside-the-classroom learning activities over the past week or so. These field trips are a great opportunity to expose our students to new things and reinforce what they’ve been learning in the classroom in a new way.

Last Friday Ms. Coleman and Ms. Lemons took 127 WLHS students on a cultural field trip. First, they headed to MJR Digital Cinemas to see the movie, Coco. Taking place in Mexico in October during the Day of the Dead celebration, the Disney animated movie follows the story of a young boy named Miguel Rivera. While it is aimed at younger children, Ms. Coleman said it accurately captured many of the beliefs and practices of the Day of the Dead, which WLHS Spanish classes celebrate every year. Students then headed to Salsarita’s for some Mexican food.

Yesterday both our WLHS Choir and our Honors English and AP Literature students took learning to the streets.

Our choir partnered with the Providence Park Hospital Choir to perform at the hospital’s annual holiday luncheon and tree lighting. Our choir teacher, Ms. Fixler, has been leading the Providence Park Hospital Choir for seven years. She always looks forward to the annual event to bring the two smaller choirs together to experience a larger group sound and expose each member to singers who are in different stages of life and learning. Additionally, it’s a great community service opportunity, and the kids have a chance to bond while eating lunch out afterward.

Our upper-level English students, whose classroom focus is on literary analysis, went to Wayne State University to enjoy a production of A Christmas Carol, a classic novella by Charles Dickens.

And then just today our 2nd graders from both Ms. Schneider and Ms. Sloan’s clasess enjoyed a Children’s Concert put on by the Symphony Orchestra and Dance Program at Eastern Michigan University. Designed for students in grades 1-8, students enjoyed the ballet Coppelia by Delibes choreographed by Prof. Sherry Wilkinson.

Students loved the chance to get dressed up and see music brought to life by instruments, many of which they had never seen before.

A big thank you to our staff members for pursuing outside learning opportunities to engage their students in a new way, the chaperones who came along to help out and the students who represent WLPS so well demonstrating their #TrojanPride.

Open Your Doors

For those who had the pleasure of meeting the group of teachers from China who visited our district last year or have learned about our Mandarin program at WLES, you know WLPS has had a lot of new and exciting experiences come our way. And they are going to keep on coming.

January 27-February 3 we will be welcoming a group of 10-15 middle and high school students from China for a weeklong exchange experience at Whitmore Lake Public Schools! But we need your help. We are in need of members of our community to open their doors to these students.

Those who open their doors can host more than one student and are responsible for providing transportation to and from school (can use WLPS busses if in-district) and providing breakfast and dinner. In exchange for their generosity, hosts will receive an $100 stipend per student. Hosts do not have to live in the WLPS district.

This is a great opportunity for us to teach these students from China about the United States, what life is like for a typical high school student in Michigan and more.

If this program goes well, there is a possibility we will dive even further into the exchange program and open our doors to long-term foreign exchange students from China.

This weeklong program will take place during Snowcoming week, so these students will have the chance be fully imerged in what makes our school and community great. We look forward to welcoming them to the WLPS family.

If you are interested in hosting, fill out the interest form HERE by December 20 and our program coordinator, Candy Huddleston, will get in touch with you. Should you have any questions, you can reach her at candice.huddleston@wlps.net. You can also find more details on the flyer attached: wl_host_families_flyer.

Middle School Drama

Last weekend our Whitmore Lake Middle School Drama Club, directed by Patti Kobeck, put on a phenomenal production of The Humor Games, written by Dean O’Carroll. Audiences left laughing and impressed with the comedic talent of our 5th-8th graders. More than 100 people attended each of the three shows, which featured 50 of our students!

Well done, Trojans!