Back to School

Back to School time already?  Where did the summer go?

We hope our students enjoyed a summer full of amazing memories, continued learning, and relaxing fun!  North Valley Academy is working diligently to prepare for the upcoming year and welcome students back.

Back to School Night -  Thursday, August 29th from 4:00-7:00p.m.  

Come bring your school supplies, meet your teacher, and 

get ready for an incredible new year!

The NVA staff kept our feet to the fire all summer with loads of great professional development and new happenings!  Some of the highlights…

PBIS (positive behavior intervention systems) - showing now at N.V.A.

Featuring...Our new PBIS team:

Mr. Klamm, Mrs. Stephenson, Mrs. King, Mrs. Rogers, and Mrs. Klamm   

Our team spent many, many hours training and working this summer to bring 

PBIS to NVA - wait until you see what’s coming, you’re gonna LOVE IT!  

School-wide PBIS is a systems approach for establishing the social culture and behavioral supports needed for schools to be effective learning environments for all students.  Our goal is to create educated and patriotic leaders, promote academic achievement, and encourage students to be responsible citizens.  Our school culture should reflect a safe and engaging environment for growth.  Great Expectations provides our foundational model, PBIS paves the way!  To achieve this, we are implementing The NVA Way, focused, school-wide expectations, and positive recognition for students who exemplify The NVA Way!

Summer school - yay!

NVA was able to offer summer school to help bolster academics success rates for some of our students.  A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. King, Mrs. Bolish, and Mrs. Childs and Mrs. Smith for spending a month of their summer helping kids!

Professional development - getting our training on!

North Valley Academy elementary staff attended the SDE Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada again this summer - WOW - did we learn a lot!!  New staff also attended Great Expectations training in Texas.  But...we had some fun with our families too!  Check out these teacher highlights from the summer!

Mrs. Perreira’s summer  brought some changes as her family moved into a new house.

I am so thankful that we were able to go to the Las Vegas SDE conference again

this year (Thank you, Mr. Klamm for making it happen again)!  I have learned so

much this year as well as last year.  The most important aspect I take away from

 every session is to build a relationship with every student!  That is the first step

in helping students have a successful year.  This year I am excited to add more

STEM projects for my first graders to combine literacy with science!

Dr. Ferens’ summer involved working on his mobile home renovation and discovering the true meaning of the term "crawl space." 

It was a crash course in spelunking...would not make it, if my waistline was an inch or

two bigger!  My cat was okay living in Moscow, Idaho for 6 weeks and she even

tolerated travel fairly well.  

Except, he says, that his cat was attacked and received several puncture bites from a bully while visiting there.  We are so sorry, Dr. Ferens - we know BULLYING IS NEVER OKAY!  Dr. Ferens is excited about the possibility of taking students on field trips with our new Blue Bus. 

Mr. Williams went to both the SDE Conference and Great Expectations and loved them!  He is excited about building a zoo in the classroom, engaging children in a super fun activity.  There will be a new poetry section in his class and earwigs...EWW...for a Halloween science project! 
While visiting Great Expectations in Houston, Texas, he attended his first ever baseball game with Mr. Klamm, Mr. Sanders,  and Mr. Freeman - Take me Out to the Ballgame, unless it is in a high grass field in Texas with snakes in the area…

                                                                           YIKES 
Watch out Mr. Williams!
 Mr. Williams also bought a new book that he is super excited about - he’s going to learn to teach like his hair is on fire - watch out neighboring classrooms.
  


Mrs. Stephenson was sooooo sad not to be able to go to the SDE conference this year; but, Mr. Klamm brought back some great books about poetry and writing for her - she gets REALLY excited about new books!!  She has added tons of books to her classroom library, because who doesn’t need a lot of great books to read? 

I did get to participate in the team training for PBIS and my big take-away was 

finding your “WHY” both as an individual and an organization.  I love teaching at NVA!  Why, you ask?  Well, the students are totally awesome and I’m excited to make a positive difference in their lives, the AMAZING staff really cares about kids, and the administration is supportive and open to new ideas.  I love that NVA has an American Heritage focus and is dedicated to developing student character along with academics.  So, if your kids aren’t at NVA my only question is…..WHY?

Mrs. Anderson is working on something called Calendar Math - I have no idea what that is, but in about two weeks, your students will!!

New teachers!

Mr. Richard Freeman - High School History, geography, and government 

Mr. Freeman was born and raised in Jerome, Idaho.  After high school, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served at Camp Pendleton, California for four years.  He traveled around for a while, and in 2011 returned to school.  He studied at the College of Southern Idaho and University of Idaho, along with two years at Mississippi State University.  He is a Nineteenth Century U.S. historian with emphasis on The Civil War and Reconstruction.  Welcome to NVA, Mr. Freeman!

Mr. Jeffrey Sanders - 4th, 5th, & 6th grade social studies/science

Mr. Sanders is excited to be new to North Valley Academy this year!  Welcome to NVA, Mr. Sanders!

NVA Academic Fair

Come One, Come All

North Valley Academy’s 2019 Academic Fair

Thursday, May 16, 2019

4:00pm - 7:00pm

Our students have worked SO hard this year.  Please come help North Valley Academy celebrate our students’ accomplishments!

The 4th Grade Lemonade Stand will be open for business!

Selling (by donation only) lemonade and 

homemade candies made by 5th grade students in a collaborative end of year project for Math and English

All proceeds will go toward the 4th, 5th, & 6th grade field trip fund

Amazing Senior Projects will be on Display in the cafeteria

High School Art Show in the library

6th Grade 

Divergent Faction Projects and Storybooks - ELA room

Bering Sea Creature & Food Web Projects - Science/S.S. room

Personal Budget Projects - Math room

5th Grade 

Kid in a Candy Store - Math room

Poetry Books - ELA room

5th Grade will also be performing Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Play performance will be in the gymnasium

4th Grade 

Lemonade Stand Projects - Math room

The Lemonade War Character Theme Projects and Poetry Books - ELA room

3rd Grade

Interview Video (30min) - will play at 4:30, 5:30, and 6:30

2nd Grade

 Handling Caterpillars

1st Grade

Benjamin Franklin Kites

MLK Informative Paragraphs

Life Cycles Published Books

Dinosaur Dig Station - come practice being a Paleontologist

We hope to see you here!  You won’t be disappointed!

April showers bring May flowers, but April also brings successes to North Valley Academy!

April showers bring May flowers, but April also brings successes to North Valley Academy!

NVA’s Advanced Strings participated in Festival 2019, performing in front of three judges for our main performance and one judge for our sight reading portion. They earned a superior rating which is the TOP rating at festival!  Congratulations to our students and to Mrs. Winton for an amazing year in strings!

    

We are so proud of our strings program! 

In other news, Mrs. Rogers’ Kindergarten class visited the local Fire Station to learn all about what Firemen do!  Maybe some future firemen and women in the making??

Thank you Firechief Covey for all you do for our school!

Indoor Activities Including The Magician's Nephew

Brrrr!  It’s cold in Idaho!  Cold weather outside, but a busy, busy February in North Valley Academy Classrooms!  Our staff has packed in so many great activities for students in such a short amount of time this month...Check it Out!

Kindergarten enjoyed a visit from Jaimie Crane, a Umatilla Native American.  Jaimie brought regalia to share with the class and did a slide show presentation. Some of her regalia included river otter skins, moccasins, beaded jewelry, and shawls.  The students loved hearing about her heritage and learning about Native American cultures.

Third Grade is learning about SPACE, decorating NVA hallways with fabulous projects!

Sixth Grade has been studying the novel, A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park.  The novel is a true story of a lost boy of Sudan blended with a fictional account of a young girl who has to walk for water every day to support her family.  These stories parallel and join at the end in an exciting way.  In an art collaboration project with high school, these students created watercolor paintings and silhouettes of the African landscape in the spirit of this novel.

And…..The Climatic Event of February…..The Idaho Shakespeare Festival. 

Mrs. Stephenson’s sixth grade class raised money to bring the Idaho Shakespeare Festival Youth Theater to North Valley Academy on February 11th.  The Idaho Youth Theater performed a playwright based on The Magician’s Nephew, a novel by C.S. Lewis.  All I can say is AMAZING!  The play was performed for all NVA students K-12.  The best part was the workshops the actors held with our fifth and sixth grade English classes.  The workshops were so fun!  The actors helped students learn how to warm up their voices and bodies for a performance, they taught them how to act out impromptu scenarios, and students learned how much fun theater can be!  Thank you to the many individuals who donated to bring this event to our school.  Special thanks to our main sponsors, Clover Creek Dental, Columbia Bank, Sparks Landscape, Cyndi Hoekstra, Mary Sibley, and Mrs. Stephenson.  If you would like to donate to this event for next year, please contact Mrs. Stephenson at North Valley Academy.  

Enjoy these photos from the all school performance:

From the Classroom Workshops:

  

   

NVA Gives A "Hoot"

Happy 2019 from North Valley Academy!

Two weeks into the new year and although students have been back to school since January 2nd, I am positively sure that many wish they were still enjoying winter break!

Upper Elementary English classes are in full swing with new units and my excitement is racing as we dig into some amazing stories of courage, survival, and standing up for what is right.

Sixth grade is beginning a unit on the novel A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park.  “Two young people...two stories.  One country: Sudan.”  This novel explores the theme of survival and courage - “The human spirit is capable of the impossible when faced with the unthinkable.”  Students will be collaborating in their Social Studies class on several aspects pertaining to this novel such as the civil war of Southern Sudan, water-borne illnesses and clean drinking water, and cultural differences among others.

Fifth grade began a study of the novel Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen - This book is a total “HOOT!”   Students will love Hiaasen’s sense of humor and purpose.  A fun, engaging story about young kids standing up for what is right; bullying and protecting a group of burrowing owls from destruction.  This novel teaches that “sometimes (in life) you’re going to be faced with situations where the line isn’t clear between what’s right and what’s wrong.  Your heart will tell you to do one thing and your brain will tell you to do something different.  In the end, all that’s left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment.”  Students will be collaborating in Science class on discussions raised in the novel, such as burrowing owls, owl habitats and the effects of industrial growth, endangered species, and ecology.

In a collaborative effort on this novel (Hoot), Mrs. Klamm’s sophomore art class spent a day with my fifth grade English class teaching us how to draw burrowing owls with chalk and oil pastels.  Please enjoy the photos below, we have some amazing, budding artists at NVA!

  

  

  

Also, please enjoy some of the owl drawings from our high school students who participated: