WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2019
Serving Polk County’s St. Croix Valley since 1897
VOL. 122 NO. 14 www.osceolasun.com $1.00
SPORTS: Fall season ends for Osceola, St. Croix Falls. PAGE 10
‘Kindness rocks!’ OES students paint special rocks for community businesses BY MATT ANDERSON EDITOR@OSCEOLASUN.COM
Osceola Elementary students took a literal spin on their theme of “Kindness Rocks” by painting special rocks and giving them to local Osceola businesses in October. “We do monthly celebrations for good behavior and we were brainstorming ideas to tie into our theme,” says Osceola Elementary School principal Lindsay Thomas. “So we came up with our kindness rocks as part of the celebration. In September we painted
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Osceola students decorated rocks for 22 local businesses for their “kindness rocks” theme. Their goal is to spread kindness in the community with this project.
small rocks for a rock garden in our school. Each student brought in a rock from home, decorated it and then we made a rock garden out front.”
The next project were class rocks donated by J & S General Contracting where each class worked with their SEE KINDNESS, PAGE 20
MATT ANDERSON | THE SUN
A ‘roar’ of a time at MainStreet Treats A group of dinosaurs braved the cold on Halloween to join the fun during Main Street Treats. Pictured are Jessica, Andrew, Griffin, and Henrik Soderquist and friend Elianne.
Alliance encourages kids to ‘Think Outside’ Ice Age Trail Alliance’s program gets kids thinking about nature CONTRIBUTED
Twenty-seven lucky fourth-graders from two Luck classrooms got to spend an October day in the woods recently as participants in the Ice Age Trail Alliance’s new Think Outside program. The program is designed to foster hands-on nature experience, tie together fourth-grade curriculum with field experience, introduce students to glacial features, and provide healthy outdoor exercise for bodies and minds. The one-day outing was
preceded by an Alliance presentation to the classrooms of Paula Anderson and Tim Smyth. It primed students for the outdoors, with topics including the effects of advancing and receding glaciers on Wisconsin’s landscape, how the Ice Age National Scenic Trail allows Wisconsinites to get more familiar with the last Ice Age, and why one of only 11 national scenic trails is located in Wisconsin. The program also provides a guide to geologic features, lesson plans and a recommended location to hike through glacial features. The Luck students hiked for about 3-1/2 miles through Straight Lake State Park, led by naturalist Barb Delaney. “The students loved hik-
ing on the esker,” Anderson said. “Many mentioned that it was so cool to actually see an esker in real life and not just in a picture.” The students took a field trip to Interstate Park two weeks before their hike and learned about the trail at its western terminus. That followed classroom study of how glaciers shaped most of the state’s landscape. “It was really neat to see the students make the connections” among the classroom study, field trip and their hike,” Anderson said. The Think Outside program’s goal is to expose 10,000 fourth graders in Wisconsin to the trail. The program SEE OUTSIDE, PAGE 19
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Barb Delaney leading the hike for Luck fourth graders in the Ice Age Trail Alliances ‘Think Outside’ program.
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