HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) - Whether with trivia, jokes or just that day’s lunch menu, a group of Hawthorne Elementary fifth-graders has been connecting with that school’s entire student body.
Those students are members of the Hawthorne announcement club. They meet after school every Tuesday in the school library to write, shoot and edit the two-minute video announcements for upcoming days.
Each video includes an announcer sitting behind a desk giving the announcements in a fashion similar to a TV news anchor. The announcements are considered the Panther News Network.
The announcements are filmed in front of a green screen using laptop cameras and appear with creative, but professional backgrounds.
“The kids love it, and the thing I like about it is it’s 21st century technology,” fifth-grade teacher Kim Remmers said. “They are putting into practice what they are learning in school. They’re doing something real-world and putting it out there for people to see. That’s really where we should be going with our education.”
Remmers and a few other teachers started planning announcement club last year, a couple weeks before the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, shut everything down.
She came to fifth grade after teaching fourth grade last year.
“I knew of two or three kids I could easily call over the summer and say ‘Would you want to do this?’ she said. “That’s how we got started.”
An application went out to all fifth-graders.
Participating staff and club members soon will start training fourth-graders for next year.
“We have gotten rave reviews,” Remmers said.
Teachers love it because they can play the announcements, through the classroom’s projector, as their classes’ daily schedule allows.
In addition to the lunch menu and a factoid or two, the announcer also lists off students of day with information about that student as well as a photo.
Remmers said the students of the day, as well as their classes, enjoy it.
“Kids are so visual,” she said. “This has been more engaging than just listening to the announcements over the loudspeaker.”
Appearing onscreen has helped club members loosen up a little bit more as well.
“You kind of want to hide yourself at first, but once you get used to it,” said Bradley Gama, who was writing scripts for upcoming announcements recently with Anakin Jarzynka and Elliott Peterson.
Technology paraeducator Lupe Torres helps students edit videos.
“They got it down really fast after a while,” he said. “It really surprised me because it’s not easy stuff.”
Club members rotate through each of the three jobs.
Torres was working on editing with Maddy Bauer and Liberty Kimminau.
Kimminau said reading the announcements on screen is her favorite part because she gets to express herself.
“When I first did it I was kind of nervous,” she said. “As I got more used to it everyone started congratulating me on how good I did on my videos. I got more comfortable with it as I went on.”
Cousins Addie and Aubrey Krueger were among students shooting the announcements. With the help of kindergarten teacher Julie Parker, the Krueger girls were coaching each other to be more animated.
At one point Aubrey read the joke, “What do pebbles do when they listen to music? They rock out,” rocking some serious air guitar while she said the punchline.
Club members have enjoyed the role they play within the school.
“I like doing announcement club because we get to do the announcements for the whole school,” Abbie said. “So we’re helping the school learn different things they need to know for different days.”
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