Fifth Grade Moving to M.E.D.
This year's fourth graders will remain on as fifth graders at M.E.D. At its January 31st meeting, the Board of Education voted to relocate the fifth grade to the Mary E. Dardess Elementary School, beginning with the 2012-2013 school year. The decision to relocate the fifth grade followed extensive research into both the middle school and elementary school models to determine which model would most benefit the fifth grade instructional program. At the January 10th BOE meeting, superintendent Cheryl Nuciforo outlined this process in a powerpoint presentation to the board. View powerpoint presentation…
Students Collect Mountain of Food for Area Pantries
Teachers in MED's Character Education Committee encouraged all MED students to show good citizenship and help our community. Throughout January, students were asked to bring in non-perishable food items for the Chatham and Ghent food pantries.The students responded by collecting 2,658 food items! At the school-wide character ed. assembly Feb. 3, MED announced that kindergarten and third grade had tied for the grade that had brought in the most food, earning both grades a popcorn movie party. The donated food was given to both pantries in early February.
Passport to Venice
From the “banks” of the Grand Canal of Venice, third graders wrote home about the sights and sounds around them. The students were not actually in Italy but on a class trip to the Spencertown Academy, where a large-scale model of the Grand Canal was laid out for them to explore, draw and write about. The trip was the culmination of the third grade's inter-disciplinary study of Venetian culture, part of the ArtsVoyage partnership with the Spencertown Academy. Read more...
Candy Houses
Just prior to holiday recess, thirds graders designed and constructed three-dimensional candy houses. Family members were also invited to stop in and help with the building. Using cardboard frames, students first stuccoed the outside of their houses with a sugar-based paste, then added architectural details using gumdrops, marshmallows, licorice and other assorted candies.
Author Discusses New Book at MED
Local author David Rubel visited MED on December 22 to talk about his recently published holiday-themed children’s book “The Carpenter’s Gift.” As part of the assembly, school staff took turns reading the story while the book’s illustrations were projected onto a screen for the students to see. Later, Mr. Rubel discussed how his experiences volunteering for Habitat for Humanity inspired his book, which tells the tale an impoverished, Depression-era family from upstate New York who travel to NYC to sell trees for the holidays and wind up with a new house. Read more...
A Math Lesson for the Holidays
A lesson in arithmetic added up to a large donation of food for local families in need. This December, fourth graders in Mrs. Rossi's and Ms. Collins' classes put their math and money skills to the test - by doing some holiday grocery shopping for the Ghent Food Pantry. Using nearly $200 the classes had collected, the students budgeted their trip, kept track of their spending, and with a little help from their chaperones, brought their goods to the checkout lane for purchase.
The two classes bought enough groceries to fill a large shopping cart to overflowing, which the Ghent Food Pantry collected at a later date. Read more...
Second Grade Artwork Featured at Downtown Gallery
Second grade students enjoyed playing the starring role as the featured artists at Artview Gallery, a professional display space located at 14 Main St. in Chatham. Under the direction of M.E.D. art teacher Susan Grybas, the young artists each created two self- portraits for their show- one life-like, the other abstract. The two self-images were than juxtaposed on a single piece of paper for display.The showing, titled "Portraits of an Artist," kicked off November 18 with an artist’s reception for the students, their families, and other fans of the arts. Artview Gallery donated their entire space for the installation, which included artwork from eighty-three M.E.D. second graders. Their show ran though December 3rd. View samples of student artwork...
PTA Celebrates Literacy with
"Readers' Theatre"
Second graders Nate Kidd and Katie Everett read from a favorite book in M.E.D.’s newly renovated library.The PTA sponsored a Readers' Theatre in the library to coincide with M.E.D.'s November book fair. During the evening event, students read poems, books, plays and jokes on the library's new amphitheater stage, which was specially decorated for the occasion.
