Auditions started this week for the Wilton Education Foundation’s “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?”

The auditions of for more than 120 Cider Mill Elementaryschool fifth-graders were  based on a 35-question test combining language arts, math, science, social studies, world language, music and art.

The Education Foundation has been working with the administration at Cider Mill to bring the game show back for a second year. Last year’s event was sold-out, packing the Clune Center with 850 students, parents, friends and alumni. This year’s show is scheduled for Friday, March 2, at 7 p.m.

Cider Mill teachers will correct the screening tests, and 20 students will be selected to take part in the show. The teachers are also compiling a bank of questions for the show.

Advance tickets are $10 for students, $15 for adults.  Tickets may also be purchased at the door: $15 for students, $20 for adults.

Additional information (including information about reserved tickets) is available through the WEF website.

“Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?”

is WEF’s important fundraising event of the year. The event will be held on Friday, March 2, 2012 at the Clune Center of Wilton.

March 2, 2012
The Clune Center of Wilton
395 Danbury Road
Wilton, CT 06897

Last year was a HUGE success!!!! Clune Center was sold out for the first time to a non-profit organization which equates to 850 seats!!! $15,000 was raised for the Wilton Public Schools. We would love to surpass last year’s numbers!!!!!!

There is a program for the evening’s event and there are opportunities to advertise throughout the program. You have the option of advertising your business or you may take out a personal friends and family advertisement to support your son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandchild, friend, cousin or neighbor in the schools.

If you would like to advertise in the program, there is an option of a ½ page – $50.00 donation or full page – $100.00 donation. Please submit any artwork in 100 % hi-resolution JPG or hi-resolution PDF. Please email your artwork to Carrie Preisano at apreisano@hotmail.com Please fill out the attached form for the business advertisement and family and friends support advertisement. Deadline for ad submits is 2/6/12.

We will be publicizing this event in our local papers, Facebook page and website. We also will be providing a town wide thank you letter after the event with a list of donors.

Wilton Education Foundation Federal Tax ID: 22-3252632. Please check with your accountant as to tax deductibility.

Many thanks, in advance, for your consideration and support. Please visit our website at www.wiltoneducationfoundation.org.

Respectfully,
Maxine Berg
Development Chair

Please contact Kara Bingaman at karabingaman@gmail.com with the name(s) of anyone you would like to honor, their respective school and the amount that you wish to give. Please send a check to Kara addressed to 47 Indian Hill Road. Once she receives the check, she will print the certificate and deliver it to the school.

Thank you for supporting your schools through the Wilton Education Foundation! Happy Holidays!

All three — Ellie Mendola, Megan Daversa and Cara Lamason — are students at Wilton High School, and they gathered recently at Ellie’s house to talk about how and why they joined the musical group that has been so enthusiastically embraced by the town.

“We just thought it was a great way to give back to the children in our community, and it’s a very fun event. We’ve always enjoyed going into the classrooms –I’m sure I can speak for our readers—the kids and adults get a charge out of,” said Nancy Dohnier, the General Manager of the Village Market. The Village Market is Read Aloud Day’s sole sponsor, donating $1,000 annually to the event.

Community members and leaders dropped by Miller-Driscoll Elementaryin the morning and Cider Mill Elementary to participate inCommunity Read Aloud Day.

Heidi Von Hoffmann, a member of theWilton Education Foundation, said a business owner, family member or community leader reads a book to each class. “The books are selected by the school librarians,” Von Hoffmann said. The foundation organizes the annual event.

Knock, Knock, Knock!! Someone’s outside the door…. But who??
Meet Max – a duck for all seasons. Max visits a special family and drives them crazy while he’s there. But, when he leaves in search of his own family, will they miss him when he’s gone?

1st Grade – Toot & Puddle – Charming Opal – Holly Hobbie

It’s summertime, and Toot and Puddle’s little cousin, Opal, is visiting Woodcock Pocket when she discovers that she has a loose tooth. Opal places it under her pillow and worries the Tooth Fairy won’t be able to find her. Puddle puts on a special costume so that Opal won’t be disappointed. But will the Tooth Fairy show up after all?

2nd Grade – Horace and Morris Join the Chorus – James Howe

Best friends Horace and Morris, and Dolores do everything together, so when they try out for the chorus and Dolores (who sings notes no one has ever heard before) doesn’t get in, she feels hurt and angry and – not like Dolores at all – sorry for herself. But mostly she feels lonely, with her friends too busy rehearsing to have time to share adventures with her. So Dolores does what she does best and takes matters into her own hands. But can she prove to Moustro Provolone that there’s a place for every kind of voice in the chorus??
 

3rd Grade – I Will Never Not Ever Eat A Tomato – Lauren Child

Charlie has this little sister, Lola. Sometimes Charlie has to give Lola her dinner. This is difficult because she is a very fussy eater. Can Charlie use creative thinking to get his sister to eat her food?

4th Grade – The Princess and the Pizza – Mary Jane and Herm Auch

Princess Paulina is down on her luck. When she sees that Prince Drupert is in search of a bride, she is among the first in line. Paulina passes all of mean Queen Zelda’s tests, but for her final one she must prepare a feast worthy of royal approval …. or else be beheaded!! A hilarious take on traditional fairy tales.
 

5th Grade – Library Lion – Michelle Knudsen

Miss Merriweather, the head librarian, is very particular about rules in the library, but when a lion comes in one day, no one is sure what to do. There aren’t any rules about lions in the library. It turns out though, that the lion is very well suited for the library. But when something terrible happens, the lion helps in the only way he knows how. Could there ever be a good reason to break the rules? Even in the library??
 

When technology projects were slashed from the school budget two years ago, the PTA and the Wilton Educational Foundation stepped forward and tried to help keep momentum moving towards bringing 21st Century technology to all of the district’s classrooms.

That benchmark is embodied in the SMART Board, which is more than a digitized blackboard or animated white board. More than a single tool, the SMART Board is an entire toolbox full of resources that draw students into subject material in ways that have left teachers feeling hamstrung and students feeling cheated without it.

To make the point, Matt Hepfer, Wilton School District’s director of technology, gave the Board of Education a comprehensive overview of where technology stands. Appropriately enough, he did it on a SMART Board at the board’s monthly meeting.

The presentation included videotaped testimonials from teachers throughout the school system.

One kindergarten teacher at Miller Driscoll said last year that she worried at first that she is not tech savvy enough when she learned teachers were getting SMART Boards; now she depends on it. Another teacher said she “loved how you can bring the world into the classroom,” referring to the ability to surf the Web.

Instead of just showing a still photo of a famous building, the class may visit the site via Webcam and take a virtual tour. “Children are so excited to see different places in the world, where they are on the map, what the building looks like, people walking around it,” said one teacher.

“I really don’t know what I would do without it,” said another teacher.

Lessons can not only be saved and picked up where they left off,  but also recorded and played back for students who are home sick, have special learning needs, or want to review the lesson again. Teachers may make movie clips and save them on their student-accessible Web sites.

“It makes school accessible to everybody,” Mr. Hepfer said. “You think about the students who need a little bit more time, they can relive their lessons. The students who need to see something — you’ve got the visual. The students who need to touch something — they can come up and touch the screen.”

A SMART Board by itself runs about $1,300. Add in cabling, a stand or wall mounting, projector, and the full set up can run about $3,000 fully installed.

The only school that is close to having a SMART Board in every room is Miller-Driscoll, with 41 out of 47 rooms equipped with SMART Boards, or 87% of their goal. Cider Mill is at 50% of its goal; Middlebrook is 26% and the high school is at 39%, with 33 SMART Boards currently and a goal of 72 for the future.

Mr. Hepfer said the district needs 133 more SMART Boards to reach its goal and the lump sum cost to get there would be between $375,000 and $400,000. But, he adds, if they were to go shopping for an order that big, they would be able to negotiate a much better price.

Using SMART Boards was initially a pilot program, as many teachers expressed an interest in trying them out. Typically, at the middle and high school level, SMART Boards have been used in math, social studies, and science classes; but, Mr. Hepfer pointed out, SMART Boards have proven to be good tools for art classes as well, where students may visit great museums, call up works of artists and even practice drawing techniques.

“When you are a social studies teacher, you can take your whole class on a virtual tour of the Alamo,” he said.

A seventh grade math teacher said she used the SMART Board to play numbers games with students that reinforced the day’s lessons.

Mr. Hepfer said SMART Boards are no longer a pilot. “This is what teachers are using,” he said. “When I talk to parents they get frustrated if in third grade they have a teacher who is using this and the kids are really engaged in the lesson, and they go on to the fourth grade and the teacher doesn’t have it. The kids really feel that and the parents tell me that.

“The technology is being used,” he added. “It’s not wasted money. You can see how powerful it is. And it really has changed the way people teach.”

Mr. Hepfer said the smarttech.com Web site shows all of the technologies that interconnect with SMART Boards.

Former Wilton High School runner Jeff Ragazzini was a repeat winner in this year’s Get Smart for Education 5K sponsored by the Wilton Education Foundation. Ragazzini ran the 5K course in 16:04. He also donated the $100 winning prize back to the Wilton Education Foundation, just as he did last year. All proceeds from the race are donated to the Wilton Schools as part of the Wilton Education Foundation’s annual fund raising. A total of 199 runners finished the race.

During Real World, Wilton High school sophomores and juniors listened to professional parents and business leaders share their personal stories about various careers. The Wilton High School guidance department gleaned input from our students so panelist selections would mirror their interests. This year’s panels included 22 professions such as architecture, engineering, healthcare, psychology, social services, media, public relations and tourism.
Between “Real World” at the Wilton High School and Career Awareness Day at Middlebrook School the Wilton Education Foundation exposed more than 1600 students to a spectrum of careers they may never have known about or considered for their futures.