Cherry Creek was very lucky to have over 70 volunteers (some of them parents of students) from US Synthetic donate time and materials on United Way's Day of Caring. A large crew repainted lines and maps on the playground, as well as added more large graphics with shapes and the alphabet. Along with that, volunteers spent an hour in each classroom teaching students about math and reading, including doing a project and activity with each class.

Captain Will Biesinger from the Utah Army National Guard's Special Forces and father of Emma, a 5th grader, came to visit the 6th graders at Cherry Creek Elementary on 9/11 for Patriot's Day.  He led Mrs. Sumsion's class in the Pledge of Allegiance (which was very neat!) and then shared his experience of how he was a school teacher and after the attacks on 9/11 felt inspired that he had something to offer the military and joined to help fight for freedom in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. After 6 years he became a captain.

Mrs. Golding's class learned about nouns this week and created a class "Noun Town: Where people, places, and things live!"

Local performer and speaker, Doug Osmond, visited Cherry Creek Elementary to promote the 3rd book in the Michael Vey series by author Richard Paul Evans. He encouraged reading and even played a gameshow with students asking trivia questions about popular books. Doug Osmond's formula for success was:

#1 Turn off the TV.  The average American watches 8 hours of TV a day. The average millionaire watches 8 hours of TV a WEEK.

#2 READ READ READ READ READ!

#3 Listen to and respect teachers, parents and others.

We had a local author, Kirstine Keel, in our classroom sharing her
experience with her first children's picture book, Marley the Motmot
In the Land of Trees. We enjoyed learning about the writing process
and meeting Marley and his friends!