SCHOOL NEWS

CHATHAM | HARWICH 

Chatham Elementary School

            The Stock Market Club at Chatham Elementary School has learned a lot about the challenges involved with trading stocks.  However, even with the nervous market, many of the Stock Market Game teams made money in their virtual portfolios this fall.  The Stock Market Game program is a 10-week simulation of trading stocks, ETFs, and Mutual Funds.  Four teams of fourth grade students were given a hypothetical $100,000 to buy and sell equities listed on the major stock exchanges.  The teams met once a week in the computer lab with Mrs. Penny Allen.

After writing to favorite authors, Alex Sequin received a handwritten letter from her favorite author, Jerry Spinelli.

            Fourth grade students recently visited the Museum of Science in Boston.  The group enjoyed a 3-D movie about rainforest insects and an electricity show which featured the largest Van de Graf Generator in the world.  Students were able to test their static electricity knowledge when they found their hair flying with charges created from a smaller generator.  Exhibits highlighting live animals, map models and rocks and minerals were visited by the students and complimented their units of study in social studies and science. 

            The preschool program theme for December is the five senses (taste, touch, smell, hear and see), and multi-cultural holidays and lights.  We will discuss the sights, tastes, smells, sounds and textures of the holiday season.  We will build gingerbread houses, taste hot chocolate, look at lights, smell peppermint, cinnamon and ginger, listen to music and bells, and feel soft fuzzy cloth and cotton.  For holidays and lights, we’ll be talking about how different people celebrate.  In our class, we’ll talk about
Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, La Posada, and Christmas.  Some of the activities the children will do are making potato latkes, learning the dreidel game, making gifts, and a classroom tree.  This week the students had fun playing with gingerbread play dough and exploring flour, salt, allspice, ginger and cinnamon in our sandbox.   Happy Holidays from the Chatham Preschool Program! 

Chatham Middle School

            Several teams of middle school students have been busy meeting with their coaches in preparation for the Project Invention event at Bridgewater State College in June.  There, the teams will introduce their inventions and will include power point presentations and skits to introduce their innovative ideas.  All teams follow an Engineering Design Process and work over a period of at least six months before and after school.

            Students in Mrs. Roy’s fifth grade class have written letters to their favorite authors such as J.K. Rowling, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), Jack Gantos, Rodman Philbrick and Kate DiCamillo.  This project is a follow up to reading the class novel “Dear Mr. Henshaw” by Beverly Cleary, which is written as series of letters to an author.  We’ve already heard back from favorite Jerry Spinelli in his own handwriting!  This is a great opportunity for students to use the letter writing format and to address envelopes correctly.    

Chatham High School

            Once again, a group of students, teachers, and parents visited New York City on the annual “The Catcher in the Rye” day trip.  Saturday, Dec. 1 was clear, cool, and chaotic!  We visited symbolic
museums and sites in the city that play an important role in the Salinger novel; we also looked for ducks in Central Park and rode the carousel of childhood innocence.  We were lucky to witness a strange
coincidence: a marriage proposal in the middle of the Rockefeller Center ice rink!  Amazingly, Holden asks Sally to marry him right after they skate there!  Our day was long (5 a.m. until midnight) but will never be forgotten.  Many thanks to our chaperones, Sharon Gleason, Leslie Travis, Joan Aucoin, Margie Mancini, and Lisa Forte-Doyle.

            Sandscript news.  Our creative writers are so busy these days.  They are finishing up a fabulous bulletin board of poetry and art; they’re making matchbox poetry books to give as stocking stuffers (a poem is a gift that says you care), and they are looking forward to helping some fifth and sixth grade students at CMS write holidays poems to give to their families.

            Our French level two students are surfing the net to France!  Their destination: current events in and around France.  They are concurrently working on Power Point presentations to use in class presentations to teach their findings to their classmates.  Their presentations are in French, primarily, with the exception of complex, technical topics they have not yet studied in the classroom setting.  Topics include: riots in Paris, the Baccalaureate, fashion boutiques, the Champs Elysees, demographics, study abroad and much more.  Vive la technologie!

            Our French level four students are studying “Le Petit Prince” by Saint-Exupery.  They are reading, discussing and writing on the book's events, characters and philosophy, all in French.  We strive in class to exercise higher order thinking skills as well as our ability to appreciate a work of literature from its first impression to the deeper messages within.

            Congratulations to CHS Sophomore Class President Sean Brady! Sean just won the Cape Cod District level of the Chatham-Nauset Lions’ Speech Contest, which was held recently at Cape Cod Community College. Sean will now move on to the Southern New England level of the contest by presenting his speech at the Radisson Inn in Providence, R.I. in January.  Good Luck Sean!

            French Holiday Customs and Traditions Celebrated At CHS.  Culinary and French two classes collaborated on a three-day project to learn about the holiday customs and traditions celebrated during the winter solstice.  Mrs. Travis’ students prepared power point presentations on the cultural importance of the Christmas holiday to the French people, while Dr. Aucoin’s culinary class researched typical recipes served during this time of year.  Together the two classes joined forces in the culinary foods lab to prepare recipes of their choice including: chicken cordon bleu, the buche de noel-Chocolate mocha cake formed as a Yule log, crème puffs, strawberry crepes, and chocolate truffles.  The best part of the unit was tasting all the flavors enjoyed in France this time of year.  Both teachers agreed this is tradition to be continued next year with other culinary and French students.  Globalization is a major goal of the CPS’s second year of strategic planning.

Harwich Education Association Wins Grant

            HARWICH --- The Harwich Education Association has received a Massachusetts Child Grant award for 2007-2008.

            Through a matching grant, the Massachusetts Child charitable corporation helps meet short-term crisis needs of students. The award allows the Harwich Education Association to address those needs locally.

            The corporation was established through a grant from the Massachusetts Teachers Association.  Members of the Harwich Education Association are grateful to the Massachusetts Child corporation for its support and the recognition of the commitment of the association to the success of all students in the Harwich public schools.

12/27/07