By By ANDY HAMILTON / Niles Daily Star
NILES - Brandywine Elementary fifth and sixth graders got a chance to show-off some of their computer skills Monday night.
The students from Char Everett's computer class presented their projects to the members of the board of education using the equipment in the technology lab.
Some assignments asked students to use the virtual reality program to transform themselves into someone or something different on the computer. Other groups had to create a clay animation that told a story.
Fifth graders Loren Simmons, Brandon Simmons and Cody Brackett created a scene showing clay figures playing a game of volleyball. The students used cameras in the classroom to take the pictures and a program called Video Blender to combine the images to create the show.
Brandywine Elementary will hold a science fair and family night on Tuesday, March 7, from 6 to 7:15 p.m. More than 120 projects are expected and the night will also include a Dressed Egg Drop. For the Drop, anyone can construct a protective egg package before the fair. The package will be loaded with an egg Tuesday night and dropped from scaffolding assembled in the gymnasium. Points will be given for package size (the smaller the better), target score and an unbroken egg.
Visitors to Monday night's Brandywine Board of Education meeting also got a visit from the king.
Fifth-grader Matthew Ammerman entertained the crowd gathered in the elementary library with an Elvis tune. Ammerman even dressed the part with slicked-back black hair and a white bell-bottomed suit.
The board also announced the district will be hosting a Parent Grief Education Seminar on Monday, March 20, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the middle/high school media center.
The seminar is designed to help parents better understand how a child's grief is different than an adults, provide ideas in helping the child cope with the various losses they have and will experience throughout life and identify grief reactions and red-flag behaviors.