LJHS dishes up an open house, with ice cream

[September 24, 2011]  Lincoln Junior High School had its annual open house Thursday night, so parents could meet teachers in the classrooms, and also hosted an ice cream social in the cafeteria so visitors could mingle and enjoy a treat.

"We thought we'd try an ice cream social for the community," LJHS Principal Kent Froebe said. "We've never tried anything like this, so we'll see how it goes over."

It went over very well. At the end of the evening, Froebe said they had used 12 gallons of ice cream, not to mention the bags of gummy bears, miniature marshmallows and M&M's offered as toppings. Everyone had a bowl of ice cream in their hand and a cookie or two from volunteers who were handing them out all evening.

But the real reason for the open house was to invite parents to meet their child's teacher and sign up for parent-teacher conferences scheduled for October. There were parents, grandparents and siblings in the halls until well after 8 p.m.

The junior high, like other schools in District 27, has purchased Promethean boards for classroom instruction. The electronic boards can project worksheets, transfer a computer or textbook page to the screen, and allow the teacher to "write" on the screen to fill in blanks and make comments, using the board as an interactive, versatile tool.

In Mr. Jones' eighth-grade classroom, his students have individual responders that allow them to give answers to the math problems he writes on the Promethean board. He can check the responses to determine who may not understand. It is faster than taking home a pile of papers to grade and return the next day.

In explaining the school's situation with the Promethean boards, the principal said: "We initially received eight last school year, and now we have three new ones. We would like to install additional boards in as many rooms as possible by the end of this school year."

[By MARLA BLAIR]