Learning Rewards
Juan de Oñate Elementary kids take trip without leaving home

Skye Cummins rides a saddle bronc demonstration at Juan de Onate Elementary on Friday. School administrators rewarded students with an event for their hard work in taking the New Mexico Standards Based Assessment test last week. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — For Preston Benally, it was a chance to learn where Ireland was located.

Benally, and his fellow second-graders at Juan de Oñate Elementary School, spent part of last week learning about foreign countries while third- to fifth-graders got hands-on lessons in other cultures.

It was part of an effort, said school officials, to reward students for their hard work in taking the New Mexico Standards Based Assessment test last week. It was also a chance to show that learning could be fun.

Each class from the second grade up did something special for the week.

Students in one third-grade class dressed up to honor their heroes, such as Martin Luther King and a Dr. Seuss character — that student dressed up as the Cat in the Hat.

Another class did a cooking exercise and yet another did murals.

But for the three second-grade teachers at the school, they honored countries with Michelle Romero’s class focusing on Ireland, Erin Farver’s class taking a look at the Philippines and Shauna Benally’s class spending time on Canada.

Farver had spent more than a year in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer and was able to share with the class a lot of he culture and history she picked up while there.

Benally, who is Preston Benally’s mother, spent a lot of time talking about the Canada’s different ethnic backgrounds — including Native Americans — who make up the country’s population. She showed them Canadian food, including a kind of jerky that is popular in the class.

As for Ireland, Romero’s class was visited by local historian Martin Link, who is Welsh and who talked about the Blarney Stone and other aspects of Irish culture.

She said she also was able to secure some Irish kilts and each of her students had a chance to put them on and have their picture taken to show their parents.