Roosevelt Elementary celebrates 100 years
Teacher Cynthia Malmquist’s fourth-graders at Roosevelt Elementary School are more than just students this year.
Principal Rona Williams asked the class to be investigators, seeking information about former President Theodore Roosevelt’s various visits to Washington state.
“We study the history of Washington in the fourth grade anyway, so it tied right in,” said Malmquist.
The lessons are part of a schoolwide effort to learn more about the 26th president of the United States, and the history of the school named after him.
Roosevelt school is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The original school was built in 1906.
“It’s really neat because it’s relevant; our kids are learning to research a topic or subject that has a personal connection to their lives,” Williams said.
On Friday, the Roosevelt school community will host an open house to celebrate the 100-year mark. Friday is also Teddy Roosevelt’s birthday.
The gym will be filled with displays of historical pictures and research by students. The choir will perform music from every decade, and cake will be served. A Teddy Roosevelt impersonator, played by a local judge, will entertain attendees. School officials expect 300 people will attend.
“The kids are learning about how great things have happened out of this school over the last 100 years,” Williams said. “It’s been really neat.”
The original Roosevelt School, a four-room building, was torn down and rebuilt in 1980 as one of 13 prototype schools often referred to as the “rainbow schools,” for the large rainbows painted on the side.
The 100th anniversary was a perfect time for students to learn more about where the current school came from and what it was like before.
“We asked some students the question; ‘What was school like 100 years ago?’ ” Williams said.
The hallways are lined with projects and pictures, including those about the school’s namesake, and then-and-now diagrams.
One student looked at the difference between school discipline in the 1900s and now.
If you fell asleep in class in 1906, you would be whipped on the ear. Now, you’d just miss recess, the student wrote.
Another display on a classroom wall shows a 100-year-old mold experiment, noting that mold was found in the old school building.
Outside Malmquist’s class students posted a map and photos showing the places Roosevelt visited in Washington, including the Masonic Temple in downtown Spokane and Lewis and Clark High School.
Creta Harper, 9, researched information about Roosevelt’s home across the state in Lakewood, Wash., called Thornwood Castle.
“I had to read through a whole document to find out the information; we learned he actually lived there,” Harper said. “It’s been real fun to learn stuff.”