Menu

KC_Admin

About KC_Admin

Posts by KC_Admin:

Alumna Spotlight: Misha Tsukerman

,

Misha Tsukerman, one of Mrs. Marcum’s former kindergarten students, has made national news. Mrs. Marcum lovingly called Misha “Mishasaurus” because of his profound love of dinosaurs. Misha started a campaign to get California an official state dinosaur. Gov. Brown recently signed AB1540 into law, designating Augustynolophus morisi as our state dinosaur.

California already has a state flower (the poppy), a state reptile (the desert tortoise), and a state fossil (the saber-toothed cat). Now because of Misha, we have a state dinosaur. Way to go, Mishasaurus! Here’s a link to the story: http://www.scpr.org/news/2017/09/23/75943/california-has-an-official-state-dinosaur/

Ice Cream Social

,

The Kids Connection Parent Teacher Connection (PTC) sponsored an ice cream social on Sunday, October 1st to welcome everyone back to school.  The KC community came together and enjoyed ice cream and good times during the last few days of warm summer weather. Thank you to everyone who attended and for our PTC members for their hard work!

Spotlight: Tessa Sundar & Liana Jennings (3rd Grade) – Taekwondo Black Belts

,

Tessa & Liana with their 1st degree Taekwondo black belts at the Black Belt Ceremony (3/17)
Tessa & Liana with their 1st degree Taekwondo black belts at the Black Belt Ceremony (3/17)

Tessa Sundar and Liana Jennings are best friends and classmates in the 3rd grade at Kids Connection.  In January of 2017 these friends underwent a very rigorous 24-hour overnight test that involved sparring, Judo, cardio & conditioning, team building exercises, and an overnight stay at the Gold Medal Martial Arts Studio.  They were awakened at 3:30am to demonstrate their traditional and weapons forms in front of family and friends.  Both girls bested their challenges and demonstrations and were awarded their 1st degree black belts in Taekwondo!  Liana was the youngest that year to obtain her black belt at age seven with Tessa obtaining hers at the equally impressive age of eight!

Liana in Mighty Monkeys @ 3yo with her “mean” look.

Liana started Taekwondo when she was three years old in the Mighty Monkeys program that is geared towards toddlers to prepare them for the standard belt levels.  She successfully earned her Mighty Monkeys black belt and was able to start at the standard yellow belt level at age four.  In 2014, Liana invited Tessa to a Bring Your Friend event at the studio.  Tessa enjoyed the kicking and board breaking during the event and thus started her Taekwondo journey.

Both students work hard and practice their forms and techniques during Taekwondo classes and also on their own.  

Tessa and Liana both credit Kids Connection with helping them to excel at Taekwondo.

Tessa Sundar

Tessa Sundar

“Kids Connection has helped me to stay focused and pay attention to detail in my schoolwork.  This has helped me improve on my forms by breaking them down into small steps and working on the details in each step.”

Liana Jennings

Liana Jennings

“Kids Connection challenges me and that makes me want to challenge myself in other activities.  By challenging myself, I accomplish more than I ever thought I could.  KC taught me how to clear my mind and focus on what I’m doing!  I want to get my 2nd degree black belt, and I’ll be proud that I worked hard to get it.”

We are very proud of Tessa and Liana and wish them luck on obtaining their 2nd degree black belts in January 2018!

Tessa & Liana
Tessa & Liana

Kids Connection Connects

,

In conjunction with our Educating the Heart Program, KC students are involved in Hurricane Victim Relief.  Each class is collecting monetary donations that will be sent to “Hand In Hand: A Benefit for Hurricane Relief” to help those affected by the recent hurricanes.  Our goal is to have 100% participation among our students.

The fundraiser starts on Friday, September 15, 2017 and will conclude one week later on Friday, September 22, 2017.

Alumni Spotlight: Kempton McCarty

, ,

Kempton McCarty (KC graduating class of 2013) attends Castilleja School in Palo Alto. In 2016 she created a website that was chosen by Castilleja to represent their school in the Individual Jr. Website Division at the County level for National History Day. At county, her project was then awarded top honors and went on to compete at the California State Competition in Sacramento. She competed against a pool of nearly 40 other students in her division and made it to the semifinals round of the top eight in the state of California! Her website was also awarded a very prestigious award, The Elizabeth Avery Award for Social Justice!

Kempton continued her work on a group project with four schoolmates, designing an iPhone app called “Ripple” for the Technovation Challenge.  It was coded using Swift, a new coding language created by Apple for developing iOS apps.  Kempton was co-lead of the Technovation Club this year and the primary source for the business plan development.  In May 2017, Castilleja’s Technovation Challenge Team, CastiGators, competed in the semifinals against eight other teams at Apple headquarters in Cupertino to win the South Bay Regional Pitch Event for the “Ripple” app.  The CastiGators now advance to the finals round for a chance to attend the World Pitch Event in August 2017!  “Ripple” provides under-resourced young women around the world with a virtual platform to crowdfund their educational goals in order to be a positive impact on the world around them.

This summer, Kempton was invited to attend an iOS Bootcamp at Stanford. Over the course of the week she developed/coded four iOS applications using Swift, while gaining more coding experience from Stanford Doctoral School graduates.

Kempton’s Mom, Kim, said that “Kempton always says she found her passion for coding and writing at Kids Connection. I know just how instrumental KC was in all her future successes. She has impeccable character, strives for academic excellence, and is a creative, fun loving young lady!”

We are so proud of all that she is accomplishing and the future leader she is becoming. We are so honored to have been part of her journey and we look forward to Kempton’s many accomplishments in the future. Congratulations Kempton!

Kempton McCarty

Kempton McCarty

Kids Connection Ranks Top 1% in National ITBS Tests

,

We received our Iowa Tests of Basics Skills (ITBS) scores for 2017 and once again our students have come through with flying colors. All grades tested (3rd, 4th and 5th) scored in the top 1% nationwide!  This is such an amazing accomplishment to continue to be the best of the best, year after year.  We are so proud of the hard work of our students!  Congratulations to all of you!

The ITBS are standardized tests for grade school students that measure their achievement in reading, language, math, science, social studies, and sources of information (navigating through reference materials). Although it was developed in Iowa, thousands of schools nationwide participate and are ranked according to their cumulative results.  Read more about Kids Connection participation in the ITBS.