Superintendent's Corner
Bernard F. Bragen, Jr. (January 1, 2017)
Hazlet Community Overwhelmingly Supports Referendum!
SCHOOL HAPPENINGS
Middle Road School’s Multi Grade Class Moments
Project based learning is the standard in Mrs. Grabowski’s Multi Grade Class at Middle Road School. Third and fourth grade students have been busy with different research projects including lighthouses, Genius Hour and the presidency. The Presidential Election was the perfect kickoff for in depth research of a president.
Students chose a president, researched and created a digital presentation to be shared during their “Presidential Wax Museum”. To incorporate the arts, in collaboration with Mrs. Zimbaldi, our art teacher, they sculpted and painted masks of their president. Students dressed as a president or first lady, used their newfound knowledge to communicate effectively and educate all of the Middle Road students about our presidents.
Following our patriotic theme, the Multi Grade class participated in “Operation Cookie Drop” to provide our deployed soldiers with holiday cookies. With generous donations from parents, the students prepared Chocolate Chip, M&M, Oatmeal Raisin, and Sugar Cookies in our classroom. Following lessons that included a story called The Soldier’s Night Before Christmas, and math lessons on fractions and measurement, skills learned were used to double recipes and measure needed ingredients to bake the cookies in our school kitchen. Using their art skills, bakery bags were decorated for the soldiers’ wives and children to pack homemade cookies for our troops. They were thrilled to participate in this community service project, and hopefully, the cookies delivered to McGuire Air Force Base gave our troops some holiday cheer.
On Maker Mondays, our Multi Grade students are engaged in engineering challenges. Using the engineering design process, with each challenge, they research and make notes in their engineering notebook. They plan, design and collaborate with their team to create a prototype to test. Recently, students studied structures and were asked to create a Pasta Bridge to hold weight. Beam bridges, suspension and truss were vocabulary words heard in discussions about bridge design. Ultimately, the strongest bridge held almost 1,000 grams!
As 2017 begins, the class is looking forward to many more authentic learning experiences as they grow as 21st Century learners.
Cove Road School Events in January
January 3rd was the first school day in 2017 and also the official kickoff for Healthy U. Many after school clubs will continue meeting regularly at Cove Road. These after school clubs give students the opportunity to get more involved. The Odyssey of the Mind club is working hard on their long-term problem of creating a humorous story about a robot that learns behaviors by observing people instead of being programmed.
In the classroom, Miss Wolkom is working on an engineering project about bridges. Students are researching popular bridges around the world and then creating their own in groups. Each group is limited to 200 Popsicle sticks and one bottle of glue. Students will be drawing, creating, testing, and making final redesign improvements before being scored. They will be scored on teamwork, aesthetics, structure requirements, and the ability to bear weight.
Students in all classes are also preparing for the Geography Bee and International Day. The Geography Bee finals will take place on January 20th and International Day on the 24th. There will also be Parent/Teacher conferences from January 23rd-25th.
Seeing Is Believing at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Seeing is believing for many things in life: it’s only then that we can truly understand. And no matter how much we teach about the Holocaust, there is no experience like going to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. to drive home the atrocities and the hatred that created it – created by ordinary citizens like ourselves. And we believe that only by remembering the past, and understanding it, can we make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
This is why Ms. Stacy Schiller, social studies teacher at Raritan High School, makes a point of taking her Genocide Studies students to the museum each year after an intense fall of studying the genocide in depth. A dual-enrollment course with Kean University, she is generous enough to include Ms. Skop’s students from her Effective Communication and AP English Language and Composition to join in the life-altering experience. Including over 80 students, they headed down to Washington, D.C. on December 9th to visit the museum, experience a first-hand lecture from a Holocaust survivor (Steven Fenves), as well as view the Washington monument, the World War II memorial, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial.
Reflections from the students include:
“This made a huge difference to me considering how we should all treat each other, as equal individuals. The whole point of this trip was to inform and educate us on the past but prevent any trauma of this horror to occur in the near or far future. We have to make sure that people of our generations could pass off a safe enough world to our children and grandchildren.” By Maxwell Ballas
“It really opened my eyes seeing what was occurring in today’s time. I had no idea that genocides were continuing to occur after the Holocaust. I feel so ashamed to be living during a time of a genocide after what Steven Fenves [a Holocaust survivor] had said about Holocaust survivors feeling like no matter how many times they tell their gruesome stories, they are not getting through to the younger generations how horrible genocides truly are.” By Christine Shea
“The Holocaust was such a tragedy to mankind and it is important to reflect and digest the horrific occurrences in order to not allow anything like this to ever happen again. Human rights are important. I thought about many things after visiting the Holocaust museum, it is critical that one must live every day treating others with respect and dignity, it is critical that we speak up for those who have no voice and it is critical that we acknowledge the fact that we are all human beings; we are all equal.” By Kaitlynn Grogan
Hazlet Township Public Schools
Email: bbragen@hazlet.org
Website: www.hazlet.org
Location: 421 Middle Road, Hazlet, NJ, United States
Phone: 732-264-8401 . 1101
Twitter: @hazletsupt