T-R PHOTO BY ADAM SODDERS — Fourth-grader Angelamaria Voigt poses with one of her recent artistic creations – a clay penguin with a unicorn’s horn.

Hoglan Elementary School fourth grader Angelamaria Voigt enjoys a lot of school activities, but her favorite is creating art.

One recent example of her skill is a clay figure of a penguin with a unicorn’s horn. That piece is part of a theme of Angelamaria’s art.

“I like to draw and paint any animal,” she said.

Along with art, Angelamaria made it clear she is a fan of getting up and moving around. Another favorite class of her’s is physical education.

“We get to climb the rock wall, and we get to do stations,” she said of a recent P.E. class. “In stations, we get to do jumprope, we get to do basketball … last time when we did P.E. we climbed this net.”

Of her core classes, Angelamaria said she is particularly drawn to science.

All three of the activities she mentioned as favorites make perfect sense to one of Angelamaria’s teachers, Stacy O’Hare.

“She loves anything hands-on,” O’Hare said.

That nature remains the same when Angelamaria is home. She loves playing a series of sports with her older brother.

“Me and my brother play Nerf war, we play soccer, we play football, we play tag, we play Legos,” she said.

O’Hare said Angelamaria is a great student to work with.

“I think the biggest thing is that Angelamaria is such a hard worker,” she said. “She has such a passion for learning, and she has fun doing it.”

For her part, Angelamaria described herself as a kind and safe person, an assessment O’Hare agreed with. In fact, she said Angelamaria is the rare student who asks for more homework and more activities to complete after finishing classwork.

“She does a great job of following the rules, you don’t ever have to say anything to her twice. She’s a great kid,” O’Hare said. “She makes my job easy.”

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Contact Adam Sodders at

641-753-6611 or

asodders@timesrepublican.com