Gabe Hock is a veteran teacher who has been a major asset to the English Department here at Mars High School ever since being hired in 2004. Beside a wide range of English courses, she also offers a popular course in Journalism. 

​You can imagine her surprise when she was suddenly called by high school principal Lyndsey Rosswog in May of this year to teach a technology course.  Desperate to keep the Broadcast Media course available to students after the departure of Jake Petras, Mrs. Rosswog had to think outside of the box.  Jake Petras was a relatively new, energetic, and resourceful Technology instructor who was hired for better pay by another school district, and who was not replaced by MASD.  Only two of the four technology teachers in the high school remained (Rob Case also departed at the end of the 2019-2020 school year).

Gabe’s initial thoughts?  “No! I am not super tech savvy.  I can do Schoology,  I can do all of the stuff I am supposed to do but when you walk into that broadcast room there is all of that technology in there.”   Ultimately, she agreed, and thanks to some students who were willing to share their expertise, she has managed to get the morning announcements done every day. Even that, however, has been a major challenge due to YouTube copyright protections, shared folder restrictions, and other unexpected barriers.

Eight! That's how many volunteers 2nd grade teacher Angela Wagner previously needed in order to host the "Place Value Party" at the end of chapters one and two.  Through this party, Wagner found a fun and creative way to celebrate the end of place value before moving into addition in chapter 3.  Normally, eight lucky parents have come into the classroom to assist her with running the stations, but teaching in this year of a pandemic has complicated community involvement.  

An easy solution would have been to cancel the party and just move onto chapter 3.  However, that's not what dedicated teachers do at Mars.  Wagner came up with a solution:

"Since I couldn’t have volunteers this year, I held the Place Value Party over two days," said Wagner.

Using her personal time and money, Wagner stayed after school to decorate the room with streamers, table covers, and more for the party.  Her motivation was the looks of surprise she hoped for on the faces of her students when they showed up the next day.

On the first day, the students made party hats.  Each child received a random 3-digit number. They wrote the number in expanded, standard, and word form.  Next, they wrote the number that is 100 more and 100 less on each side of their hat.  After that, each student found a hidden place value task card from inside their desk. Once found, they completed their task.  At the end of the first day of the party, they reviewed that day's activities by going over everyone’s card as a class.

On day two students continued the party by making a place value cake!  They used "hundred flats", "ten sticks", and "ones cubes" to build their cakes.  Next, they answered various place value questions about their 3-digit number.

"The kids enjoyed the craft!" exclaimed Mrs. Wagner.

Making use of time from a cancelled art class that day, Wagner told the kids they could finish decorating their cakes during their art time.  She followed this craft with question cards that had place value blocks on them. She held them up and the students figured out what number the model represented.  Then they colored it on their hundreds chart. In the end, the colored numbers answered a riddle question.

To finish and make it a truly successful party, Wagner took it one step further.  She sent each child home with a treat bag she put together earlier through materials she bought with her personal funds.