News In Herndon
Herndon — A fourth grade team from The Nysmith School in Herndon achieved Highest Honors in the recent WordMasters Challenge—a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 150,000 students annually—scoring an impressive 185 points out of a possible 200 to place third in the nation.
Rishabh Kumaran (of Herndon) and Nicholas Toskey (South Riding) each earned a perfect score, making them two of only 22 fourth graders in the country to do so. Nysmith’s Ananya Kakayadi (Reston) also recorded an outstanding score competing in the event’s highly competitive Gold division.
The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably harder than grade level) and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of logical relationships. Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically. Although most vocabulary enrichment and analogy-solving programs are designed for high school students, WordMasters Challenge materials have been specifically created for students in Grades 3-8.
Father Daughter Dance Set for Feb. 4
A father daughter dance, the semi-formal dance for girls ages 3-12, will be held at the Herndon Community Center, 814 Ferndale Ave., Herndon on Saturday, Feb. 4, 6:30-9 p.m. Event attendees will enjoy a catered buffet of appetizers and sweets, dancing with a DJ, a photo booth with props and complimentary photo strips, and a keepsake gift for each daughter. Daughters may be accompanied by a father, uncle, grandfather, or male guardian. $50 per couple and $25 each additional daughter. Sign-up at the Herndon Community Center or visit https://herndonwebtrac.com.
Contact: Herndon Parks and Recreation Department, 703-787-7300 or visit
herndon-va.gov/recreation.
Herndon Over-40 Softball League Needs One More Team
The Herndon Masters Over-40 Softball League will be starting its 27th year this season and is looking to add one more team. Players must be at last 40 years of age to be eligible. All games are doubleheaders - played on Sundays at Bready Park in Herndon between 11 - 6 p.m. The season runs from late April to early October and usually guarantees 26-30 games.
Interested teams can contact the commissioner via email at skeduman@aol.com. Individuals may also reply. If no full teams apply and enough individuals do, it may be possible to create a new team from them. Existing teams might be looking to add more players as well and those names will be made available to them.