Published October 4, 2022

The Schools of the Week spotlight is on Chapman's Retreat Elementary and Legacy Middle this week. Take a look at the photo galleries below to see some of the fun going on in each school building, and see quotes from teachers and students about what makes their school great.

Chapman's Retreat Elementary

"I like the specials classes. My favorite is gym class because I get to run around, and it's a lot of fun. I also have a lot of friends here." - said CRES student Weston Ettinger

"Chapman's Retreat is an amazing community to be involved in each and every day. The students are excited to learn new concepts, and the staff is so encouraging and supportive of each other. I love working at Chapman's Retreat!" - CRES fifth grade teacher Meredith Chunn

Legacy Middle

"I honestly like the small size and how the teachers genuinely care about every student. I like the environment here. It's not like other schools." - LMS student Lucia Vernon

"What makes Legacy stand out are the relationships made between teachers and students. Our staff are not only experts in our content area but truly focus on building meaningful relationships with our students and families!" - LMS social studies teacher Shelby Carter

Chapman's Retreat Elementary students and their families traveled around the world in a single evening during the school's Science, Technology, Reading, English, Arts and Math (STREAM) Night September 29.

Each activity of the night represented a different country. In England, students used Magna-Tiles to build bridges, and in Egypt, students created chariots to race down a ramp. Other countries had different activities, which included building roller coasters, creating a printing press and more.

"CRES has been doing some form of STREAM Night since 2012," said CRES math coach Julie Smeltz. "Students always love creative engineering projects, so this year's roller coaster and catapult building were the favorites. We also got to be the test school for some of the new WCS STEM bus activities, so our families got to try their hand at flying drones, which many of our students said was more difficult than they thought. But it was super fun!"

Legacy Middle theater students are learning how to play with light.

In LMS teacher Kaleb Stone's class, students were learning how to create gobos, which are stenciled circular discs used in lighting fixtures to create images or patterns. By using the gobos and different colored lights, students were able to tell a story.

"We've been learning about lighting," LMS student Sam Woodford. "The gobos can be put on top of lights to create different effects or styles for whatever scene is onstage. Lighting can portray different emotions just by using different colors. I think this is my favorite thing I've learned in theater so far."