Junior Digital Ambassadors

Students in Mr. Bielewicz's Kindergarten and Mrs. Melucci's fourth grade classes integrated a multi-disciplinary lesson incorporating technology through the use of Google Chromebooks to study the five senses. Fourth grade buddies guided their Kindergarten friends through ABC YA! "Five Senses",  a student directed Google Slide Show, and  read three stories about the five senses from the Heritage Science Lab. In addition they sang The Five Senses Song, colored images of what they heard, smelled, saw, tasted, and touched. They also created sentences to describe the attributes of the five senses. The fourth grade students celebrated the success with their buddies as they accomplished  great things with the five senses in a techno-savvy way!

Heritage Students Celebrate 100 Days of School!

Coming to school for 100 days is a really big deal. This week students throughout the school celebrated 100 days of learning in fun-filled and engaging ways! In Mrs. McCabe's kindergarten class, students became 100 times smarter by creating a picture with 100 centimeters of yarn, by sorting, weighing and balancing bags of 100 items, by making groups of ten with their thumb prints, by counting out pieces of ten different kinds of food to create 100 pieces of trail mix (which they ate and enjoyed), and by collaboratively creating a structure from 100 Dixie cups!

Wordsmith Champions

Heritage students won first place today at the Westmoreland County Language Arts Thinking Games hosted by Greater Latrobe. The winning wordsmiths included fifth graders, Julianne, Katelynn, and Skye, and fourth grader, Riley!  Congratulations to this all girl team on their amazing word skills!

Cooking in the Classroom

Miss Wetzler's new cooking program, the result of a recent impact grant through the Westmoreland Intermediate Unit Foundation, has already taught the children so much.  It provides great opportunities for her students to talk about health and nutrition, allowing them to build healthy habits early in life.  The curriculum Miss Wetzler's class currently uses focuses on recipes from around the world and allows the students to learn about traditions and other cultures.  Most importantly, cooking in the classroom helps her students become problem solvers and teaches them how to work as a team to accomplish a goal.

WTAE Visits Heritage

Meteorologist Ray Petelin from WTAE paid a visit to Heritage Elementary today for an educational science and weather experience. Sponsored and organized by the PTO, Heritage students explored extreme weather conditions through live experiments conducted by the Carnegie Science Center. Students were guided through simulations of pressure and electricity. Heritage was also proud to present WTAE with a generous donation check of $300 for Project Bundle Up. A snapshot of this assembly was featured on the 5:30 WTAE news. If you missed it, you can catch it on WTAE's website.

2nd grade travels the world

The second graders at Heritage Elementary School have been traveling around the world with passports in hand! Students have been learning about traditions and customs celebrated around the globe during the holiday season.  Students focused on language, culture, food and greetings from the United States, Israel, Africa, Sweden, Germany, Mexico, Russia, England and Australia.

Quiz Bowl

Heritage fourth graders pulled out a third place win at this year's Westmoreland County Quiz Bowl. The event was hosted by Mrs. Lynn at FR's Middle School on November 30th.  24 teams participated from FR, Greater Latrobe, Norwin, Southmoreland, Derry and Mount Pleasant. Members of the third place team included Roman C., Riley B., Anna P., Abby M. and Nick M.  They earned certificates for their team points.  Deven R. was a member of Sloan's first place team and earned a piece of the trophy as well as a certificate. Participants could also earn Quiz Bowl pins as top individual point earners. Second grader Alex B. tied for first place with 150 individual points.  Riley B. placed fifth with 110 points. Roman C. and Anna P. also scored in the top ten with 80 points.

Second grader Alex B. tied for first place with 150 individual points.

Members of the third place team included Roman C., Riley B., Anna P., Abby M. and Nick M.  They earned certificates for their team points. 

Invention Convention

Second through fifth grade students from Franklin Regional Elementary Schools applied problem-solving strategies to develop a practical invention for the December 8th Invention Convention. The county competition, hosted by Yough School District, required the students to create a model or drawing of an invention and prepare a marketing strategy describing the invention. Students were judged within their grade levels and four Heritage students received ribbons and certificates for their efforts. All inventions submitted will move on to the state level.
Congratulations to all winners and all the participants in this year’s Invention Convention!

In fourth grade, Anna P. combined efforts with a friend from Sloan (Sophia I.) and they placed first with their Cardiac Alert invention.

This invention... Fourth grader Riley B. took second place for her Toothy Toothbrush Holder - a fun and efficient way to help children put toothpaste on the toothbrush without getting it all over the counter. 

Third grader, Christopher W., earned an Honorable Mention for his Helping Hand - an aid to help kid pouring a drink from a heavy or full container. 

In second grade, Tanisha N. received a second place ribbon for her Tube Tip  - a mess-free and decorative toothpaste tube tip.  

Additional students participating in the event included Katelynn H., Julianne L., Nick M., Aadi A., Anika J. and Harper L.

TURKEY CUP CHALLENGE-Heritage is a three-peat winner!

Thank you for your participation in this very important & FUN fundraising event to help provide Holiday food for thousands of families in need throughout Westmoreland County.

Heritage Elementary families donated $11,210.62 and earned the 1st place trophy for a third year in a row as the school to donate the most money in the entire county. On December 7th, representatives from the Westmoreland County Food Bank visited Miss Weaver's 3rd grade class (class that raised the most money) to present our school the 1st place trophy. In return, we presented the Westmoreland County Food Bank a check for $11,210.62. Make sure to check out the trophy in our display case when you enter the front doors of our school. 

The total amount raised amongst all of the Westmoreland County schools for this year's Turkey Cup Challenge was $29,072.49. 

For every $1 donated, the Westmoreland County food bank is be able to purchase $10 worth of food, that's over $290,000 worth of food!

Pittsburgh Post Gazette writes about our writing

Click this link to read the article that was printed on November 25th.
We are very proud of the students and staff for their consistent commitment to growth here at Heritage Elementary.