April 5, 2016

It's beginning to look a lot like April. Very few activities during the day, more and more activities at night.

Head's Up

Today is National Go for Broke day. I believe this is meant metaphorically; but what the heck, if you've got a great idea, go for it. 

April is Autism Awareness Month. Check out the Autism Involves Me website for information on how you can get involved. 

Today and tomorrow the Be Pro, Be Proud mobile workshop will be at Bentonville High School. This travelling exhibition introduces kids to career opportunities in professional skilled trades. 

Thursday, April 7, is Arkansas Gives Day. Child Care Aware is now participating in Arkansas Gives. Building Bridges is participating and asking for help raising money for resources to support their parenting classes.Go to ArkansasGives.org to make a gift to Child Care Aware of Northwest Arkansas between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on April 7th.  You'll be able to search for us in the list of participating nonprofits and indicate that you want your gift to support us.

Next Saturday, April 9th, is the Take Steps for Crohn's and Colitis 2016 walk. This takes place at Village on the Creeks and raises awareness and funds for research into these diseases. Info here.

April 11 - 15, 2016 is National Assistant Principals week. Let's all make a point to say "thank you" to these individuals who do so much to support children in Bentonville Schools. 

And don't forget Diversabilties Awareness Festival and Best Buddies Friendship Walk on Saturday, April 23rd at Lawrence Plaza. It's also the first Farmers' Market of the year.

@bentonvillecommunity

Washington Junior High Odyssey of the Mind team finished 2nd in their division and 2nd in solving their problem "Furs, Fins, Feathers and Friends" this past Saturday. This result nets them an invite to the World Finals in May. 

Washington and Fulbright Junior High School Vex Robotics teams are gearing up for their World Competition in Kentucky in a couple of weeks. 

Northwest Medical System is looking for suggestions to name their new surgical robot. The promotional video below gives an overview of this new high tech machine to help orthopedic surgeons with joint replacements. If you're interested in having kids help name this machine, take a look at the video. But be aware it does have footage of ACTUAL SURGICAL PROCEDURES. My suggestion for the contest would be to have junior high age kids suggest names. Kids interested in medical professions might find this interesting. Obviously, you're catching on that I don't have a really great idea on how to do this, but I know that Northwest is really interested in supporting our schools and the medical professions strand of our Ignite Professional Studies Center. (quid pro quo)

Keep sending in those story ideas to pstolt@bentonvillek12.org and khelm@bentonvillek12,org. 

Grants & PD

If you have kids doing projects that might be marketable, you may want to check out Wings of Love Inc. They are a program that specifically seeks to fund young entrepreneurs under 21 to support their development as business leaders and agents of social change. 

Here's one for all my media specialist and literacy teacher friends. The National Storytelling Network is providing $5,000 awards for model storytelling projects. 

Video of the Week

Want to drop something like a bad habit? Found this interesting, hope you will as well.

Have a great week.