| This activity
ended in 1996. For information only.
|
Letter of Introduction
We are a group of 6th grade students from Hopkins, Minnesota. We each wrote a
different hello file about different topics. I hope this helps you get to
know us a little. We are enjoying reading your files. Kathy Gustafson
Hello File
Hello! My name is Philip Chanen. I live in Hopkins, MN with my dog, mom,
dad, and younger sister. I'm eleven years old and am in the sixth grade. I
go to Alice Smith School. Bye!!!
Houses in my neighborhood
Most of the houses in my neighborhood are between 50 and 90 years old. There
are a few exceptions such as the new one they built a year ago. My house is
about 70 years old. You should wear a respirator when you sand a house
because it is probably lead paint. Recently the house kiddy-corner from us
sanded their red house and painted it a grayish ivory with a hint of army
green. My mom thinks it's ugly. A lot of people cut their grass very short.
During the Christmas season a lot of people put up lights around their windows
and trees. One house five blocks away from me was written up in the paper for
it's lights. We think they blow a lot of circuits. They also put stuff like
stand-ups of Santa and his reindeer. At my friend's house we knocked over his
plastic Santa in his yard. That was neat!!! My neighbors are nosy. Living
in Hopkins is good. There is some vandalism in Hopkins like graffiti and
trashing Maetzold field. Two years ago someone started my yard on fire. I
like Hopkins. I will stay here.
Hello File
Houses in my Neighborhood
My name is Tom Rickeman. I live in Hopkins, MN. Some houses in my
neighborhood are new and some are old. Some houses are painted odd colors,
such as turquoise. One is painted brown with yellow shutters. That one is
probably the worst. Most houses are painted white or blue. Mine is white
with dark green shutters. There are a couple houses on cul-de-sacs. One of
the yards has a tree that's cut and painted like a rabbit on Easter. It is
almost dead now. There are a lot of kids in my neighborhood. Some of them
are weird and like to mow the lawn and do other yard work. Most people in my
neighborhood hang lights at Christmas. We have a block party every summer.
We play games(most of them are bad) and eat food(all of it is bad). The
dumbest part is the bike parade. People decorate their bikes with crepe paper
and paper plates. Overall living in Hopkins is good. The schools are okay,
plus as I mentioned before there are a lot of kids. There basketball team is
number two in the state. There is hardly any crime. On Halloween some people
smash pumpkins but that's about it for vandalism. No one throws eggs at
peoples houses or cars. Hopkins is a good town.
My Interview of Students and Staff at ALICE SMITH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Hello, my name is Kelly Moynihan. I am a reporter from the Hopkins Star, and
I happen to go to Alice Smith Elementary School. Lately, I've been asking
questions to students at Alice Smith. My project for our HELLO FILE is to
interview students and staff on what they think of students and staff at Alice
Smith.
The first person I turned to was the organizer of the Hopkins Star, Kathy
Gustafson. "I think the students here are very friendly. They always wave,
smile, or say hi to me in the hallway. All of them seem to always desire to
learn. And they're very talkative. Our staff here at Alice Smith is also
great. They're very interesting people and they work hard all of the time.
They are kind to kids, and they try they're best at all times. Even when
they're crabby," she finished with a laugh.
I thought that the principal would be a good person to interview on this
topic.
So I went to Kurt Nordness' office to see what he had to say. He said," They
all seem so enthusiastic! All of the students here are real athletes too. We
have a lot of sports programs in Hopkins in which many of them participate.
They are also very musical. Lots of the kids play in band, orchestra, or
sing in choir. I always get a lot of laughs when I' m around the kids, and
sometimes I learn a thing or two. We've got really smart kids here at Alice
Smith, and I'm really proud to be the principal of this school."
Next I decided to interview some 6th grade teachers. So I started with Mr.
Fredrickson. ( Mr. Fred) He thinks the kids here are," AWESOME! They are
always getting better. In the last four or five years I've been seeing major
improvement. And then our staff on the other hand, is ... a little shaky.
No I'm just kidding. I think our staff is EXCELLENT!"
My 6th grade teacher, the famous Ms. Marty Mason was the next person to
be interviewed. She replied," I think the kids are cool and creative. And
they all seem to have different and awesome interests. Our staff is really
AWESOME! They're very hard working, and really fun to be around. And we all
love playing jokes on each other."
Now I suppose your bored of hearing teachers talk, and you want to hear from
the kids' point of view. Well here you go. I asked some 6th graders to give
one word to describe the students, and one for the teachers. The words from
the kids about the kids were: Cool, smart, awesome, radical, funny,
excellent, and fantastic. And words for the teachers were: OK, good, great,
interesting, fun, cool, and funny.
And now my job is done and I'll have to say good-bye. I hope you enjoyed my
interview of students and staff at Alice Smith. This is reporter Kelly
Moynihan signing off with a smile at Alice Smith Elementary School, where
kids and staff are very cool.
Hello File
My name is Nick Chalmers. I am in sixth grade at Alice Smith Elementary.
My teachers always say that I am way too sociable, But I think that is a good
thing considering I am working as a reporter right now.
Now I am going to tell you the great things about the one and only, Alice
Smith School. I think the most important thing about a school is the staff,
and Alice Smith has a great one. The reason that I like the staff so much is
that everybody knows that 99% of the kids in the world dislike school and the
teachers here try and most of the time succeed in making it fun for the
students. Another good thing about the staff is, that when the work is too
hard for kids, they will find a way to make it more their level, and when it
is to easy for kids, they make the work more their level as well.
Another good thing is that even though some kids hate the school lunch, it
is better than most other elementary schools. In a way I sort of feel sorry
for the cooks because they have to make lunch for over 640 kids and staff and
if they make one little mistake, kids automatically hate their lunch and never
want to eat it again. What the kids have to understand is that the cooks have
to make alot, and I mean alot of food for everybody and it is a very hard job
to do. Personally I would eat the school lunch just as fast as I would eat
home packed lunch. But again, only a few kids don't like it.
Another thing I pride our school in is the way they have so much equipment
for kids to use for school work and sometimes just for fun. You probably know
what I am talking about- THE COMPUTER LAB!! I personally think that putting
in the Macintosh computers was one of the best things that has happened at
Alice Smith for the seven years I have been here. Not only do we have cd-rom
and sweet graphics, we also have Internet. Alot of kids like the computers
just for the internet, but I like it mostly for the games! It is great fun
and it is a big help for homework. It helped me a ton when I was doing a
report on the Juvenile Justice System in 5th grade, and I plan to use it even
more now that I am getting lots of homework, especially projects! I think
all the kids that that are new at our school were very attracted to the lab
even on their first day.
Yet another great thing about Alice Smith is the library. We have tons and
tons of books on any and every subject that you could think of. We have
biographies and autobiographies from people that you would not believe. We
also have reference books, dictionaries, fiction,non fiction books and so on.
My favorite part of the library is that they have lots of fiction and non
fiction books on sports. I check more of those kind of books than any other.
The great thing about having the library is that if your class is in a reading
period and you do not have a book, you can just trot down to the library and
get a book to read. As I said before, the macs are a great source to
homework assignments and school work, but let's not forget about the books
being good sources too. Alot of kids would prefer the books over the Maws
anyway.
One of my favorite things about this school is that it has tons of extra
curricular activities. I am not just talking about sports, I am also talking
about band, orchestra, and choir. Out of all the years I have been at Alice
Smith I have not heard from one student that they are not having fun in the
extra curricular activities. But my favorite of all the extra curricular
activities is the basketball and football leagues. The good thing about these
leagues is that they are cooed so any body that wants to play is welcome too.
It is also very cheap and you can make it no matter how good or bad you are
because there are not any try-outs. The coach of these activities is our Gym
teacher Mr. Cosgriff. He is fair and makes it alot of fun. He is the type
that you learn to like as soon as you see him.
The last two things I am going to tell you about are what I think are the
most important things to our school. The first of the too is how are school
is so unique from other schools. There are many reasons why are school is so
unique and I am going to tell you about a few. The first is that we have so
much support from the PTO and from our neighborhood in general. We especially
get a big lift from the nearby churches. We have alot of fantastic fund
raisers that make lots of money for the school. But without the help of our
neighbors the fund raisers would not be possible. We give lots of thanks to
them and they continue to support our school. The other unique thing about
Alice Smith is the most important thing a all.......
THE STUDENTS!!!!!!!! We have what I would call one of the most friendly
student atmospheres I have ever been in. And I have been in two different
schools to prove it. All the new kids can tell you that even if you are new
you still get treated with respect. At the other two schools that I went to,
I never felt as much comfort as I did when I was one of the new kids here.
Also, if you are interested in making new students feel welcome, every year on
the first day, the student council members get together and try to make the
kids feel welcome by inviting them down to Ms. Gustafson's(our challenge
teacher) room. Almost all of the kids are intelligent and if you need help
they will help you. Not only can you make friends at our school, you can also
make friends with kids from other schools and other states when we do pen-pal
letters.
I think that our school is one of the greatest schools are for the reasons
I just listed and many other reasons that I did not list in the file. Right
now I am proud to be an official member of the one and only ALICE
SMITH!!!!!!!!!!
Hello File
Hi, my name is Leah Mathison. I am 11 years old and I am attending Alice
Smith Elementary School in Hopkins, Minnesota. My project for my HELLO FILE
is to tell you about the Minneapolis-St. Paul Twin Cities areas. I am very
interested in photography. I am working as a reporter for the Hopkins Star.
In Minneapolis there are all types of places to go and things to see. The
place people from all around the country come to see is Mall Of America. In
that there is an amusement park with a full size roller-coaster, log shoot,
and a mystery mine ride, LOTS of stores!!
Another place in the Twin Cities are the lakes. In South Minneapolis there
is Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet. Then there's Lake Minnetonka.
Minneapolis and St. Paul are separated by the Mississippi River. It runs
from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico. It is a very beautiful river.
The Metrodome, which is located in Minneapolis, is where our state baseball
team, the Minnesota Twins, and football team, the Minnesota Vikings, play.
Our basketball team, the Minnesota Timberwolves, play is at the Target center
also in Minneapolis.
Our state university, the U of M, is located in St. Paul. The students
attending the U of M shop in Dinkytown. It has a lot of little shops.
I hope if you ever have the chance to come to Minneapolis-St. Paul, come!!
It is a great place!!
Signing Off,
Leah Mathison
Hello File
Hello my name is David Lang I'm in sixth grade at Alice Smith Elementary.
I am supposed to tell you about the wonderful new addition that was recently
added on to our school. Part of the new addition is the huge new library
which contains 16 power macintoshes and each one contains access to the inter
net. And there as much information anyone would ever need and there are so
many books.
Another part of the new wing is the music room along with the room we got
new instruments to and it has been fun playing the instruments. Its also
fun just being in the room because it is so big.
We also have a new band room which provides a lot of extra room. It is nice
because our old room is so small and this room is big. We even got a new
storage room in the back.
We have a courtyard and we call it the outdoor classroom. In the outdoor
classroom we have many flowers and plants and the scenery is beautiful. Two
years ago a student named Yakov Torlocovic died of cancer and we have a bench
and tree in his memory. In the summer the flowers attract many insects
including butterflies and bees ect. an the site of all those insects looks
beautiful. In the outdoor classroom there are plants from all over Minnesota.
And in the fall there are so many colors to see.
Thats just about all of the new addition so if your ever in the area I
encourage you to come and visit.
HI,my is Angel ,
I'm new to Alice Smith but I've learned
a lot . Enjoy your reading .
I think that there should be more businesses in Hopkins because, when
you want to go some were with your parents they don't want to go. Then they
tell you , "You can't go because we have to go way out in a different city
just to go there." On top of that some of the places in Hopkins aren't worth
going to.Now I don't think we have as many people living in Hopkins because of
business reduction.
HELLO FILE
Hello my name is John Woodrich and I am in the sixth grade at Alice Smith
Elementary School in Hopkins, Minnesota. We live in the United States and my
favorite sports are football, baseball, hockey, and bowling and I play all of
those sports to. I hate basketball and soccer.
Alice Smith has a lot of nice staff like our gym teacher Mr. Cosgriff. We
call him Mr. C. We play basketball, hockey, soccer and much more.
We also have some new additions like our outdoor class room with pumpkins,
plants, and a tree in memory of Jakov Torlocovic who died of cancer last year.
We have good art projects like block prints,wire sculpchers, and for science
we have new and more equipment.
We have more books and a huge library with sixteen new power macs and all
sixteen have Netscape or the inter net.
We have many sports teams like the Hopkins Royals or the Kodiaks. We have
the Minnesota Gophers, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Minnesota Twins.
We got a new band room with brand new instruments, and we also got a new
music room with new and better instruments.
This is our alphabet in the United States of America a b c d e f g h i j k l
m n o p q r s t u v w x y z.
The state of Minnesota is called the North star state and our nations
favorite sport is soccer even though I don't like it.
"Bye."
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