Desert Harbor Elementary

Sandshark freeze this moment to hold forever 💜🦈💚
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Yesterday we had several Desert Harbor alumni take one last walk through our campus before they graduate from high school. They accomplished so many things in their high school careers and we are proud they are Sandsharks at heart! Congratulations to the Graduating Class of 2024!

8th grade 🤝 promotion
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Congratulations to the promoting class of 2024! We are proud to be sending off such an amazing group of Sandsharks into the waters of high school and know they are going to thrive!

S.H.A.R.K. of the Month assemblies are the best way to spend the final Friday of the year! Yesterday we celebrated students who spent 4th Quarter working extra hard on being safe, helpful, accountable, respectful, and kind! We also gave out 2 bicycles to students who have had perfect attendance! We can’t wait to recognize even more S.H.A.R.K.s next year! 🦈

Tonight we inducted 20 new members into our National Junior Honor Society chapter. Students who show great scholarship, citizenship, service, leadership, and character were recognized for all their hard work this year. We are proud to have such high aspiring students in our community! 📚✨🦈

We closed out our spring concert series tonight with our band concert. They sounded great and there were even a few students who played a solo for the audience! Way to go Sandsharks! 🎷🎶🎺
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We are so proud of all of our students who get up on stage to play or sing in all of our performing arts programs! Till next year, keep on practicing!

Next up in our end of the year concert series was our strings students! They sounded amazing and it was a great way to celebrate Mrs. Cook as she heads off to retirement! 🎻

We kicked off our end of the year concert series with our choir concert tonight. Mrs. Thomas did a great job preparing her students all year to sing and perform their hearts out! 🎤

Last night we celebrated the 2023-2024 school year with our 29th Annual Beach Party! Thank you to our amazing PTSO and wonderful staff members for making this event possible. We love our community and we were so happy to see everyone who came out to support our school! 🦈🏖️

Centennial Peer Counselors came to visit with our 8th graders today. They went through stations about Centennial clubs, social situations, talked about what they are looking forward to in high school and played Centennial jeopardy! Go Coyotes! 🐾

Our Student Council is hosting a fundraiser tomorrow at the Sonic on 83rd and Union Hills from 5:00 to 8:00 pm! Come see your principal, Mrs. Berhow in a tater tot eating contest at 5:30 and your Librarian, Mrs. Pedersen in a slushy competition at 6:30. 🦈💵👆

Our 29th Annual Beach Party is coming up this Friday, May, 3rd! Join us in celebrating this special event by participating in spirit week leading up to the Beach Party itself! ☀️🏖️

Our Student Council had a blast at our district's Student Council Plus Days! Thank you Mrs. Pedersen and Ms. Vasquez for taking them! Thank you to our PTSO for purchasing the awesome canopy to be used at many events to come!

Special teams, special plays, special players ☝️⚾️
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Our Final Four classes from the Attendance March Madness got to spend the afternoon playing a game of wiffle ball with our friends, the San Diego Padres! We are so thankful for this partnership with the Padres organization and look forward to seeing the players again soon!

Today in 6th grade students got to dissect owl pellets to investigate food chains as a part of their Relationships Within Ecosystems unit in science! 🦉

Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge! The art of dodgeball 🏆
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Thank you to everyone who came out to the first Mother/ Son dodgeball night last night! We are so grateful our PTSO puts on these amazing events for our families to enjoy and make memories!

Building memories with Lego 🧱
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Lego group 2 had their final build today and had a great time creating their Lego volcanoes! Thank you Mrs. Tekulve for what you’ve done to get this club started and creating all these amazing builds!

Un-eclipse-able moments 🌒

Pride of Peoria at Desert Harbor 🍎🦈💜
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Mrs. Fisher was surprised today with the Prize Patrol to be recognized as one of the Pride of Peoria Award recipients for 2024. The Pride of Peoria is an award given to the top 1% of employees in the Peoria Unified School District. To be considered for the award you need to be nominated and receive letters of recommendation that then a selection of judges goes through to select the winners.
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Mrs. Fisher is beyond worthy of this recognition. She is one of our phenomenal 2nd grade teachers. In her class Mrs. Fisher works diligently to ensure her students are ready to take on the world, through foundational skills that will carry them through the rest of their school career and into life. As she does this she makes sure her students love learning by organizing memorable activities that students reflect on and reminisce about as they get older.
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Mrs. Fisher also does many things around campus to make Desert Harbor a better place. She is on the leadership team, one of the Beach Party coordinators, and even helped start Lego club this year.
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We are lucky to have Mrs. Fisher on our campus and are so excited to recognize and celebrate her with this award!

The beginning of the end 🌋
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Lego Club Group 1 had their last meeting today where they built volcanoes out of Legos and set them off! Thank you Mrs. Fisher for what you’ve done with your Lego group this year!

Thank you to the Padres for helping Mrs. Takacs' Class run our student store today! We had several pitchers, currently rehabbing injuries, join us today. We are excited about this partnership! In fact, our March Attendance Madness Final Four teams will be playing wiffle ball with several players! Thank you, Padres!

Adelyn Gonzalez got 4th place when representing Desert Harbor in the 7th/8th grade division today at the District's Patriotic Speech Contest! We are proud of her!

The annual Peoria Arts and Cultural Festival was a success this past weekend! Check out some of the highlights below. We even spotted a few alumni performing. It is always a beautiful day celebrating all of our talented staff and students!

A few of our 8th graders attended Youth Government Day at Peoria City Hall yesterday! 🏛️

It was fun welcoming our incoming Kindergarten students as they were so excited to "Leap into Kindergarten" Tuesday night! They went on a Scavenger Hunt across campus meeting our dynamic staff and collecting goodies along the way! We are excited for these Sandshark pups to join our family!

This upcoming Saturday, March 2nd, is the Annual Peoria Arts and Cultural Festival! Desert Harbor will have students’ artwork on display and student performances throughout the morning! The performance schedule is:
- 6th/7th/8th grade Strings: 9:00 am @ The Pine Room in Peoria City Hall
- 6th grade Choir: 10:15 am @ Monroe Choir Stage
- 5th grade Band: 11:45 am & Centennial Plaza West Stage

Last night Milton Hershey, Anne Frank, Jackie Robinson and so many other historical figures visited Desert Harbor at 2nd grade’s annual Tea at the White House! Each student picked a historical figure to research and dress up as. They gave a great performance and then met with visitors who got to ask them questions about who they were and what made them famous. 📜

The patriotism was flowing as our students eloquently presented their speeches during our Desert Harbor Patriotic Speech Contest yesterday! Adam Morrise won the 5th/6th grade division and will represent us at the district speech contest on March 7th. Adelyn Gonzalez won the 7th/8th grade division and will also represent DH at the district competition. We are proud of ALL of our contestants! Thank you to our judges Tianna Chandler and DH Alumni Candace Clark and Laurie Little.

Chasing dreams, grabbing championships 🏆
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This week our girls volleyball team played in the North West Valley Championships Tournament against schools from Deer Valley Unified District and Dysart Schools. They fought hard and came out champions for the second time in the last week! Thank you to Coach Hale and Coach Hampton for your commitment to our girls!

Copper Conference District Champions has a nice ring to it 🏐🏆🦈