Arcadia Students Practice Math At Mall

Fourth-grader Jerad Maag’s eyes lit up when he spotted a 50-percent-off sign at the Pac Sun store at NorthTown Mall.

But he wasn’t excited about potential savings - he was excited about the percent sign.

“Stores use percentages to show how much off you get,” Maag said, answering one of the questions in his Math Trail packet.

Armed with clipboards and pencils, Arcadia Elementary School students descended on the mall last week for a kind of math scavenger hunt.

“It’s an opportunity to see mathematics in the real world,” explained fourth/fifth-grade teacher Patti Griggs. “It’s a chance to see that math is all around.”

Griggs and third/fourth-grade teacher Barbara Palanio started Math Trail last year with a similar adventure through Riverfront Park. The weather didn’t cooperate for that site this year, but the mall proved to be just as exciting for finding math examples.

Working in groups, often led by Deer Park high schoolers, students were challenged to find examples of things like palindromes (how about $99.99 for an AT&T phone with unlimited paging?), prime numbers (a $29 necklace charm at Zales) and fractions ( off the entire store at Payless).

They were asked to examine the side of the mall elevator and count the number of its rectangles and triangles.

They also had to estimate how long one round-trip on an escalator would take, then actually time it to see if they were correct.

One of the more difficult challenges was to come up with a way to estimate the number of gum balls in the big gum ball machine.

“How could you figure out how many are in there?” prompted one high school helper.

“Well, you could buy them all,” replied third-grader Sidney Coyle.

Others did lots of multiplying and erasing. The task was not made any easier by the fact that the gum ball total was ever-changing as students fed quarters into the machine and gum balls into their mouths.

“This is fun,” said third-grader Taylor Otteson, who pointed out the acute angle formed by the “V” in the Vista Optical sign. “You get to feel what it’s like to do math in real life.”

Princesses visit Regal Elementary

Five of the North Side’s Lilac Princesses made a special visit to Regal Elementary School last week as celebrity judges.

After studying Spokane history, third-graders spent a week creating their own Lilac Parade floats out of things like shoeboxes, tissue paper, cotton balls, construction paper, crepe paper and wilty lilacs.

Many carried a Barbie or two, all with a hand raised in a perfect parade wave.

Floats were designed around several categories, including “imagine the future,” “plant theme,” “best use of color,” “downtown Spokane” and “school spirit.”

“They’re all cute and really creative,” said Mead princess Sara Hornor as she placed a purple construction-paper award on the float with the best multicultural theme from Room 121. On its side was printed the motto: “There are many shades of purple… but they are still all purple!”

Megan Babcock’s float, bedecked with real lilacs, fake flowers, lots of purple tissue paper and a Barbie clad in a bright violet frock, won for “most purple.”

“I’m really excited,” the 9-year-old said. “But my mom always said I was a winner.”

After the judging, students got a chance to ask questions of the princesses, and one girl got a special serenade. Codie Ax turned 9 last Friday, and her tutor, Gonzaga Prep princess Rachel Aleya, arranged the song.

“It was pretty cool,” Ax said.

Classmate Michael Compogno, 10, was also impressed by the royalty.

“It was a great opportunity to see them,” he said. “They’ve been doing really hard work, and they’ve done a great job keeping their grades up.

Balboa to get new ball-wall

Balboa Elementary School officials held a special groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday for their new ball-wall courts.

The courts, which will be formed by two 8-foot perpendicular walls, are made possible by Balboa’s parent-teacher group and fund-raisers. Together they collected about $13,000 for the new courts. Architect Bill Rash of Northwest Architects donated his time to draw up the plans.

Students crowded around the future ball-wall site, and cheered with excitement as officials moved the first scoops of dirt. Students currently have only one wall - which has offices on the other side of it - for ball-wall use.

“It’ll be much funner than the other one,” predicted sixth-grader Jason Mayeau.

NWC collects change for charity

Elementary students at Northwest Christian Schools raised just over $1,460 for the ministries of Spokane’s Union Gospel Mission.

Each class worked as a team to collect coins and bills. Coins counted as positive points, while dollar bills counted as negative points.

“Students were anxious to put dollar bills in the opponents’ classroom container,” said elementary principal Dave Jennings, “thus helping to benefit not only the Gospel Mission but also their own team.”

Students presented their gift to the director of the mission Wednesday.