Education

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be in Denver to help celebrate the ceremonial opening of the new Ralph Carr Colorado Judicial Center in early May. And 100 eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders from Colorado have a chance to build a winning case for wanting to meet her.

The Colorado Judicial Department is asking students to explain why they want to meet one of the top jurists in the country. Kids have until Friday to submit their essays to win a chance to meet with Sotomayor for two hours on the morning of May 2.

Third-graders at Bergen Valley Elementary School learned a valuable lesson about the meaning of homelessness.

The children recently heard from a speaker from the St. Francis Center, a day shelter for homeless people in Denver. The students wore pajamas to school to symbolize people who don’t have beds of their own, and they collected socks that the center distributes to homeless people, estimating that they donated more than 2,000 pairs.

Balls, scarves and rings flew through the air last week as Wilmot Elementary School students learned the art of juggling.

Chris Morgan, Wilmot’s physical education student teacher last semester, returned for two weeks as an artist-in-residence to teach the children the hand-eye coordination needed to keep one, two and three objects in the air.

A new club at King-Murphy Elementary School collected hundreds of dollars at a bake sale last week, but its real goal was to show kindness and empathy for children with cancer.

The four fifth-graders who are members of the TCCC — Taking Care of Cancer Club — donated the proceeds from their two-day bake sale to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., and to the Children’s Hospital Colorado cancer unit.