A26 • December 2016
Village Living
State Rep. David Faulkner visits Crestline Elementary School Meg Krawczyk, Morgan Cook, Rep. David Faulkner, Laurie King and Lee Alice Estes pose after discussing education at Crestline Elementary School. Photo courtesy of Mary Evans.
State Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, recently visited Crestline Elementary School to bring a donation and speak to the PTO Board. Faulkner represents Mountain Brook, Homewood and Hoover in the Alabama House of Representatives. Faulkner’s dedication to education in his district is evident. He was appointed to the Alabama Children’s Cabinet in 2016 to look
at all of the issues facing the children of Alabama and make recommendations to the executive and legislative branches. His favorite part of his job is when fourth-graders from his district visit the Capitol in Montgomery. Faulkner takes the children to the House Chambers and allows them to vote to extend summer. He said this bill always passes. – Submitted by Mary Evans.
BWF 5th-graders spend 4 days at Camp McDowell Fifth-grade students at Brookwood Forest Elementary made their annual trek to Camp McDowell during the week of Oct. 24 for a four-day trip. They were accompanied by fifthgrade teachers, faculty members and several parents. Students learned about local ecology and environmental sciences. After each meal, students weighed their uneaten food to determine the amount of food waste and were encouraged to decrease the amount each day.
Students also learned about compass skills, outdoor survival skills and geological identification skills. The night hike, walking on the suspended bridge and canoeing were highlights of the trip. Encounters with wild life and lessons regarding endangered species were part of the curriculum. The fifth-grade teachers at BWF are Jennifer Williams, Carla Dudley, Tiffany Marron and Jolie Welner. – Submitted by Kathleen Woodry.
Mountain Brook Elementary sixth-grade writers Jack Earnhardt and Angelena Manova hold copies of the new school paper, The Parchment. Photo courtesy of Katie Morrow.
Elementary students create school newspaper Mountain Brook Elementary is proud to announce the publishing of its new school newspaper, The Parchment. The monthly paper is produced by 10 sixthgrade students who are part of the newest branch of the student leadership group, the Lancer League. After submitting applications, the student writers were hand-selected by their faculty adviser, Elisabeth Rohlfs-Hill. “As the language arts teacher, I feel strongly about having a school newspaper to give students an opportunity to write for a wide audience about topics they find interesting,” Rohlfs-Hill said. “The sixth-grade staff writers generate all the copy for the paper. They work together as a team, brainstorming the articles for each edition, conducting interviews and writing, meeting publication deadlines and distributing hard copies of the
paper by hand to their peers and teachers. It affords a tremendous exercise in leadership and an introduction to the basics of journalism.” The first issue of The Parchment was distributed in September and in the words of sixth-grade staff writer Angelena Manova, “My friends had been asking and asking about when the first copy was going to come out. We were all so excited.” Some of the featured columns include new teacher spotlights, short fiction pieces, book reviews, sports updates, school events and original cartoons. In addition to staff articles, The Parchment holds a monthly writing contest that is open to the entire school, and the winning entries are printed. – Submitted by Katie Morrow.