Firefighter Al Teaches Fire Safety

Did you know that October is Fire Safety Month? Firefighter Al visited 2nd grade on Wednesday to teach us about Fire Safety. He reminded us how fires start and what to do if there is a fire in our home. We talked about practicing Fire Drills at home and how important it is to have a meeting place outside of our home. Firefighter Al will return to 2nd grade in February with all of his gear when we read "A Trip to The Firehouse."

The First Tee National School Program Comes to Macdonough School!

We are thrilled to announce that Macdonough School has been selected to participate in the First Tee National School Program! The program provides opportunities for children to learn the game of golf through instruction during physical education classes.

Macdonough School will receive thousands of dollars in free equipment and opportunities for our students to play golf at local courses!

Special thanks to Mrs. Ehnot, our new physical education teacher, for bringing this exciting program to Macdonough School!

Chaelyn's Book Clubs

THIRD GRADE CLUB
The 3rd Grade Recess Plus Clubs have started work on their “Sideways Stories from Macdonough School” character chapters. Even though the Sideways School has 30 stories and stories, and Macdonough School only has 3 stories, our book will have 16, one for each student in the two clubs.
When they arrived to book club in the computer lab, the students found a special file folder for their club. In this file folder, they found that they each had a MS Word File with a special name for their “Sideways Stories from Macdonough School” character.
These special names were created by turning the clubs’ students’ names backwards, just like Mrs. Gorf is Frog spelled backwards. For instance, the character for Miss Chaelyn is Miss Nyleahc Odrabmol.
We are using our creativity to make our imaginary characters come to life. For now, we are including physical characteristics, personality traits, and other important information about our characters. Once we have compiled enough information about our new characters, we will begin writing the chapter about the character for the final book.
Both clubs’ chapters will be put together and each child will get a copy of the final book at the end of the club, along with the 3-book Sideways Series.

FOURTH GRADE CLUB
In Session 4 of “Spiderwick Chronicles Literature for Lunch” Club, we completed our “Character Card Contest.” Teams were given an additional 5 minutes to cram as many facts about their character onto their cards. Team mates worked together to eliminate other team’s character facts. The teams left with the most facts on their card after the elimination round took with them tasty treats and some other special prizes. Consolation prizes of Dum Dums Lollipops were handed out to the other hard-working teams. Students now have the first two books of the series.

Macdonough School Marathon Team

Macdonough teachers and students ran the streets of Hartford on Saturday, October 10th at the ING Hartford Marathon.  Nearly twenty participants from Macdonough School were among the more than 7,000 athletes participating in the race. 

Macdonough students and teachers took part as a relay team with each person running legs ranging from one mile to six miles.  Added together, the participants from Macdonough School ran a total of more than eighty miles!

Special thanks to members of the Wesleyan University Women's Ice Hockey team for helping to escort our runners to and from the mile markers. 

Special recognition to Mr. Nelson and Miss Claffey for running the entire 13.1 mile course!

Macdonough School at the ING Run for Something Better Day

Macdonough School students took their running skills to Hartford's Bushnell Park participating in the 2009 edition of the ING Run for Something Better Day.

T-shirts, medals, smiles, and lots of fun!

World Record at Macdonough School

Children in first grade at Macdonough School are going to break a world record by participating in the Jumpstart Read for the Record program!

Jumpstart’s Read for the Record, is an international campaign to bring children together with valued grownups in their lives to read the same book, on the same day, in communities all over the world. On October 8, 2009,  youngsters from near and far will be attempting to break the world record as nearly 700,000 readers will share Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

On this historic day, one amazing book will be read aloud in classrooms, libraries and homes from Japan, Germany and Brazil to cities and rural communities across America and at Macdonough School!

New Dictionaries for our Third Graders!

Special thanks to the Middletown Rotary Club for providing each child in third grade with a brand new dictionary.

The gift was made possible through the Dr. Wilfredo Nieves Dictionary Project.

New Mural at Macdonough School!

A unique partnership with the Green Street Arts Center will result in the creation of a new mural at Macdonough School.

The mural will be located on a large wall by the staircase leading to the school's cafeteria.  Designed by artist Anna Gawel, the mural features the words to the school's song, "Knowledge is Power" and showcases flags from around the world.

We expect the mural to be completed by the holidays!

Macdonough School Celebrates Hartford Marathon Weekend

Macdonough School students and teachers will be participating in this weekend’s Hartford Marathon festival.

On Friday, our new physical education teacher, Mrs. Ehnot, will be bringing more than 50 students to Hartford to participate in the ING Run for Something Better Program. Macdonough students have been training at home and school to run 12 miles during the past month. They each will run their last 1.1 "Final Mile", cross over the official ING Hartford Marathon Finish Line in Hartford's Bushnell Park, receive a Finisher's Medal and then enter the "World of Fitness” area.

The World of Fitness area contains exhibits and activities which focus on promoting healthy choices for kids. Presenters include the Hartford Wolfpack, the Connecticut Science Museum, the Hartford YMCA, and more!

On Saturday, nearly two dozen teachers and students will be traveling to back to Bushnell Park to join in the running of the 2009 ING Hartford Marathon as part of the Jeff’s Running Partners program. This program encourages children in Connecticut schools and adults to complete either the 13.1 mile Hartford Half Marathon or the full 26.2 Hartford Marathon as part of a relay team.

Teachers who will be running include Mrs. Spaman, Mrs. Lenihan, Mrs. Raney, Miss Claffey, Mr. Nelson, Miss Weindruch, Mrs. Paul, Mrs. Brick, Miss Melzen, Mrs. Taylor, Miss Antonucci, and Mrs. Broomfield. Added together, the Macdonough teachers will be running a total of more than fifty miles

WCNX Radio and Macdonough School

Macdonough School was selected to kick off the new school year with WCNX Radio and their School Lunch broadcasts.  Five lucky fifth graders represented our school by putting their reading skills to work - on the air!

WCNX Radio broadcast our first School Lunch Menu on Monday, September 28th - and the broadcast segment is up on their website!

To make it convenient for everyone, they will be uploading the School Lunch Menu week to week onto their website. Just choose Macdonough School from the list and click the link!  This way everyone can access the broadcast segment anytime if they missed the actual live broadcast on Monday.

Here is the link :
http://www.cnxradio.com/20809_8085.asp

or simply log on to :
http://www.cnxradio.com/ and click : SCHOOL LUNCH MENU

ING Run for Something Better Program

Our new physical education teacher, Mrs. Ehnot, has brought with her a new program for fourth and fifth graders to Macdonough School.

The ING Run for Something Better Program is designed to encourage a healthy, active lifestyle in the fight against childhood obesity for elementary and middle school students.

This program encourages students to train together to complete a half marathon, covering 13.1 miles in 6 weeks. On Friday October 9, 2009, students who complete 12 miles through the school program will run their last 1.1 "Final Mile", cross over the official ING Hartford Marathon Finish Line in Hartford's Bushnell Park, receive a Finisher's Medal and then enter the "World of Fitness” area.  The World of Fitness area is where 1,200 students will participate in the activities and exhibits available to them.

Chaelyn's Book Clubs

Sideways Stories from Macdonough School

Session 3 of the “Sideways Stories from Macdonough School” Club focused on Mrs. Jewls, the teacher who replaced the mean Mrs. Gorf on the 30th story. After Mrs. Gorf was turned into an apple and eaten by Louis the yard teacher, Mrs. Jewls came to the Sideways School expecting a class full of “terribly cute” children. Only, she thought were so terribly cute that they couldn’t be children. She thought she was called to teach a class full of monkeys!
Together, we re-read Chapter 2 and created a character poster of Mrs. Jewls. We discussed her physical characteristics, personality traits, and other important information. We even compared and contrasted her to Mrs. Gorf. They were quite different from one another, but strangely had some things in common.
Then, in honor of Mrs. Jewls foolish assumption, we played one-on-one Barrel of Monkeys, a game from Milton Bradley that was created in 1965…but surprisingly had never been played by any of the children in our club!
We called the game, “Barrel of Mrs. Jewls’ Students.” The rest of our time was spent trying to show each other our monkey-chaining skills and giving names to our monkey chains based on the children that are in the story.

Spiderwick Chronicles Literature for Lunch

During the third session of the “Spiderwick Chronicles Literature for Lunch” Club, we set the scene for our first Spiderwick Challenge, the “Character Card Contest.” We first completed a Character Card for Helen Grace, mother to the Grace children. Together we compiled as many facts about this female character as possible.

Then, the children in each group paired off into teams and were armed with a pencil, their book, their notebook, and their wits. On four pieces of cardstock, were pictures of our four main characters in Book 1; Jared Grace, Simon Grace, Mallory Grace, and Thimbletack. Each team picked a card from an upside down position. Many teams cheered when they received a character they had been “wishing” to pick.

The challenge was for each team to write as many facts about their character as possible in the time allotted. They could list physical characteristics, personality traits, important information, and more. The teams worked diligently, using their books and notebooks of self-compiled information to write as many facts as possible. By the end of the session the cards were filled.

At our next meeting, we will proceed with the challenge. Teams will try to eliminate other team’s answers, much like in the Hasbro game of “Scattergories.” If a team can match a fact, the other team has to cross it out. The team left with the most facts on their card after the elimination round will be victorious.

A special prize is at stake. Stay tuned.