The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
Iris Swanberg, Macy Williams, Sadie Smith and Aiden McNally lead the closing dance number, a high energy performance choreographed by the students and set to Billy Joel's "We didn't Start The Fire.
Markie Weymouth strides boldly into her future as she crosses the line put of Kindergarten to join Matilda Hessler and accepts her graduation certificate from K-4 teacher Andrea Tougas during Ovando's annual May Day Tea, May 17.
A look at the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires gave Aiden McNally a reason to wear a turban and strikes a pose during a dance performance to the strains of They MIght Be Giants "Istanbul."
In a nod to the Ninja Turtles that were named after Renaissance artists, Macy Williams and Sadie Smith take the stage as " The Mutants" for a lip-sync performance of "Renaissance Man."
An audience member records the performance.
Aiden McNally, Markie Weymouth and Matilda Hessler peek out of a cardboard castle.
It's not every day you hear a catchy tune about the Plague, but the students at Ovando School found one to dance to.
Every spring students at Ovando School cap off the year highlighting the topics they've been studying in history during a performance at the school's annual May Day Tea.
This year, with their studies spanning from Viking invasions through feudalism and the dark ages and into the Renaissance, supervising teacher Leigh Ann Valiton said the performance was a bit different
"Those were some pretty bleak periods of history," she said. "how do you deal with that with little kids?"
The answer was with a series of up-tempo dance numbers interpreting the different time periods. Valiton said she was lucky enough to find several modern, upbeat songs online that a history teacher had written new lyrics for, and recorded, as part of a history lesson.
Through the performance, the Ovando kids danced to reworked tunes like Blondie's "Call Me", which became "Charlemagne" and Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl," which was transformed into a unique song about the Black Plague.
Though their studies drew to close a with the Renaissance, the students chose to end their performance with a song about the 20th Century. Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire,' summed up the concept of the presentation, and the students choreographed a dance that was fast-paced and energetic enough that Valiton said they used it as a conditioning workout for track.
Robert Lee with the Missoula Writing Collaborative, who has been coming to Ovando every week for years to teach kids poetry, said he's been to every one since he started helping there and is blown away every time.
He's also impressed by the support the school gets from the Community.
"I tell people in Missoula, if you have young children, you should move to Ovando. They'll get a great education," he said. "I really feel that's true. I've been pretty impressed with these teachers and the kind of things they do. It's not just dry, memorized. If someone had come into my school doing that, maybe I would have written my first book before I was almost 50."
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