160-plus elementary students from West Islip Union Free School District are complementing their summer recess with some noteworthy coursework.
Hosted by Paul J. Bellew Elementary School, West Islip’s “Summer Investigations” program runs Monday through Thursday, and is overseen by the aforementioned school’s principal, Rhonda Pratt.
Breaking in on Monday, July 7th, the inaugural theme was “Passports Around the World.” Students were encouraged to be eager and inquisitive while invited to explore a variety of continents, countries and cultures whose customs and histories were illuminated upon through interactive virtual tours.
At the library, Kindergarten, first and second-graders read “Same, Same But Different” about two pen pals from different countries that discover they still share a great deal in common.
In third and fourth grade classes, students used Google Earth to “travel” to destinations that left an impression on them during their lessons.
Over in the STEM lab, students received a “boarding pass” to learn about airplanes. They built paper airplanes and launched them with full force, as they said “c’est la vie” to the days of seeing their makeshift model aircrafts seeing themselves confiscated for the same reason.
There is a time and a place for everything. For the next generation coming out of West Islip, this was a time for learning about measurements and calculations, and applying each toward adopting a better comprehension of the skybound field of aerodynamics.