Cheatham Receives Garden Grant

Cardinals bring skills camp to Rogers Ranch

Cheatham School is the recipient of the Blue Watermelon Project’s Steele Family Foundation Grant to support a “Chef In The Garden” program.

The Chef in the Garden program provides bi-monthly kits for participating schools to teach students about a specific vegetable, herb, or grain. Kits include aligned curriculum materials that encourage learning through doing. A local chef is also assigned to lead a lesson, demo, and tasting.

September’s kit featured chickpeas. Students learned about the chickpea before making their own flamin’ hot chickpea snack. Chef Tamara Stranger of The Lake House at Deer Creek provided the lesson and demo on this kit.

November’s kit contained collard greens and students learned about the rich history of the greens and soul food. Chef Pam Coleman of Ms. C’s Home-Style prepared a delicious dish with fresh greens for the students to try.

Both were planted in the school garden so that students can continue to observe them.

The Arizona Cardinals brought their mini-skills camp to Rogers Ranch School in November.

Cardinals volunteers, school resource officers, and former Cardinals player Allen DeGraffenreid all assisted in running Rogers Ranch students in Grades 7-8 through several stations designed around non-contact football skills.

It was a beautiful morning for students to get fresh air and exercise while cheering on their classmates.

Estrella Foothills’s robotics team participated in the FIRST LEGO League Robotics competition at Central High School in December.

The team, made up of students in Grades 4-8, has been practicing building a robot and coding it to navigate through a series of 22 missions for several weeks.

At the division competition, the team was tasked with improving cargo transport and competed in three different matches. EFGA’s team took 9th place overall and are looking forward to continuing the program next year.

Laveen School increases after-school academic and enrichment opportunities

Laveen School has increased their after-school program to accommodate both academics and enrichment opportunities.

Laveen’s Academies provide academic tutoring programs to individual students who would benefit from additional instruction to either accelerate or advance their learning. Academies are focused, intentional instructional sessions led by classroom teachers.

The Enrichment programs are exploratory opportunities for students to learn new skills and meet new friends with similar interests. Offerings are based on student interest and are led by teachers and coaches. Current programs include golf, basketball, softball, crochet, chess, anime, band, and M.E.S.A. (science) clubs.