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Parkview school wins iPads

Students at Parkview Elementary School put their talents together to win big in Piggly Wiggly’s Healthy Food Choice Challenge.

New London Piggly Wiggly owner Pete Butch, and Mr. Pig himself, visited the school last Thursday to deliver the Grand Prize, 10 brand new iPads.

Over a hundred other schools competed in the challenge.

Entrants were asked to get creative and show Mr. Pig the ways in which they make healthy food choices. Submissions ranged from photos, videos and songs to drawings, posters and poems.

Parkview students, with the help of School counselor Shandee Kempf-Cohen, came up with the idea of creating a video for the contest. They used one of the school’s existing iPads to create their winning video.

Kempf-Cohen said students have used the iPad this year to create videos on positive character choices to show at their monthly character assemblies. “The kids love to see themselves on the videos they help create,” she explained.

For the contest, they rewrote the song lyrics from the movie Frozen’s “Let it Go” to come up with a new song called “Watch me grow” which focused on healthy food choices. The song set to video clips, features information about healthy food choices from the United States Department of Agriculture regarding recommended servings per day and other foods vital to a healthy diet.

Kempf-Cohen said, “The students were very excited to participate in the creation of the video. We are very thankful Piggly Wiggly provided this opportunity for our students. Not only did it develop confidence in many of our students, it also gave them an opportunity to focus on the importance of healthy food choices, which we know is important to their development.”

“Not all students were able to directly participate in creating the video, but each and every student at Parkview Elementary School will have the opportunity to work on the new iPads throughout the school year,” said Kempf-Cohen.

The children were ecstatic to receive the new iPads during a special assembly held in the school gym.

District Technology Coordinator, Michelle Green said, Students in Kindergarten through fourth grade will use the iPads in a variety of ways to customize their learning.

“Kindergarten students can be found using apps such as ABC Tracing to learn correct letter formation and Counting with the Very Hungry Caterpillar to master math skills,” said Green. “Third and fourth grade students often use Thinking Block apps to hone their math expertise and several reading and literacy apps such as Word Ring and Grammaropolis.”

Green also reports that New London elementary schools subscribe to an online eBook database called Big Universe. Students use it to read independently from books that are at their exact reading level in a digital format.

“We subscribe to a similar web program for math called Reflex Math. Reflex has an app for iPads that is one of our most used apps in school,” said Green.

“The iPads are not just used for learning but also for creation of new materials and explanation of student learning,” reports Green. “Mrs. Deb Calabria’s second grade class recently created green screen movies about extreme weather using the app Veescope. Veescope allows students to record themselves speaking while displaying their artwork behind them. This is the same technology that meteorologists use to give the weather forecast on the local news every day.”

For more information on “Mr. Pig’s Healthy Food Choice Challenge” or to see the winning entries please go to www.shopthepig.com/mr-pig-challenge-winners/.

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