Families flooded into the Edinbrook Elementary School gymnasium on Jan. 18 for an evening of hands-on learning and fun at the Wisdom Begins with Wonder AVID family event. The lively event featured a variety of stations where scholars and their families could partake in building challenges, play dough making, sensory activities, and many different inquiry-based experiments relating to sound, electrical circuits, density and more.
Both school staff and members of the Edinbrook student council served as facilitators of the event, guiding students through open-ended activities and providing encouragement for them to explore and think critically.
Edinbrook is home to the district’s only elementary-level AVID program, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. This collaboration-based program prepares students of all ages to meet their post-secondary goals by focusing on creativity and inquiry. Academic support instructor, Kristin Pengra-Anderson, said AVID strategies are embedded throughout the academic day at Edinbrook, where students receive the same core curriculum as other district elementary schools, but tailored to AVID’s goals: reading and writing to learn, inquiry, collaboration, and organization.
And, in addition, the Wisdom Begins with Wonder event served to simply allow for another opportunity to connect as a school community. Edinbrook student Grace Kinne was busily checking out each station at the event, but she counted seeing all the teachers and people she knows as the best part of the night.
