Plains elementary offers Christmas break activities
Plains elementary students take part in the annual Christmas concert last week. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Plains elementary students take part in the annual Christmas concert last week. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Brittany Nichols leads elementary students in the annual Christmas concert last week. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
The tennis tank shootout. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Mr. Benson's shooting gallery. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
Students play Jenga at The Brain Bash. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
The elementary school Christmas Concert started off this year’s school holiday activities and took place on Monday evening in the Plains School gymnasium.
The concert involved K-6 grades, with both singers and musicians. The choirs sang all the favorite songs and musical numbers to the many proud parents and community members attending. Directors of the program were Brittany Nichols and Holly Blood.
As 2021 closes out and the Christmas break starts for the students of the Plains School district, a flurry of activity begins.
Tuesday afternoon, the physics class and their teacher Carl Benson put on a science demonstration for grades K-6. The first demonstration was to show the students how fast they could shoot a ping pong ball out of their homemade cannon.
The cannon was a simple PVC pipe large enough to insert a ping pong ball and then each end sealed with mylar sheets. Air was removed from the tube with a small air pump creating a vacuum inside of the tube. At that point, the mylar on the end was punctured and a rush of air entered the tube, propelling the ping pong ball out the other end at close to 600 mph, much to the delight of the children.
Benson will be retiring at the end of the school year after teaching for the last 38 years, with most of them at Plains.
Benson’s next activity was showing the students how hot air balloons worked by forcing hot air into biodegradable tissue paper. With the winter chill in the air, the balloons climbed to around 50 feet and landed a few hundred feet away, much to the excitement of the crowd.
The next series of events was called The Brain Bash 2021. This took place Wednesday morning, with each teacher setting up their classroom with different activities. In Mr. Mitchell room, the students played a game of giant Jenga. Benson’s has an air gun shooting gallery set up in the science room.
This is the 27th year that the Plains School district has sponsored the Brain Bash. This year Betty Taylor was the organizer. The student body is separated into small groups that earn points for best performance in each event. The overall winners are honored during the final assembly in the gym.
It was a fun time for both teachers and students.
