Hmmmm … blood moon, eclipse, 6-plus inches of rain in one week?! I believe Mother Nature has been busy and we can always say, “It could have been snow!”
Mrs. McQuarrie’s science students have been learning about minerals, their properties, how they form, and how to identify them as geologists would identify a sample. This is always a high-interest topic for students as they actually get their hands dirty.
This time, Mrs. McQuarrie upped the stakes of interest by bringing in actual mining rough from Maine’s Mt. Mica to look through and allowed the students to keep anything interesting they found. She obtained the mining rough over the summer from Western Maine Mineral Adventures in Bryant Pond. Mrs. McQuarrie explained that miners dynamite the surrounding rock when they believe they have found a pocket of valuable minerals.
The students looked through the resulting leftover material, and found small pieces of tourmaline, the Maine state mineral, which can come in green, pink, purple, black, blue and watermelon, which is pink with green. Students also found smoky quartz, optical quartz, citrine, schorl, mica and many other important minerals. Each of the students found at least a little tourmaline, with some of them finding sizable pieces.
Mrs. McQuarrie is following up this activity by having students choose three of the minerals they found and have them test for properties such as hardness, streak, luster, and density. After a bit of research on how the minerals are formed, students will share their discoveries with the class.
Family Reading Night will be held on Thursday, Oct. 15,, from 6:30-7:30 p.m. with guest reader Suzette Belyea. Children will do a craft and have a light snack, also. Children in Pre-K to grade 4 are welcome to attend with an adult. What a great way to spend an hour with your young reader.
Can you believe we are already halfway through our first trimester? That is a change for our school this year, as the board adopted the change from quarters to trimesters, meaning there will only be three reporting periods instead of four. Progress reports will be sent out Oct. 8.
The middle school language arts teachers would like to remind parents that all students are required to do AR (accelerated reader) as part of their reading requirement. AR is worth 10 percent of their language arts grade, so please be sure to remind your student to read at least 20 minutes each evening.
Mrs. Suzette Belyea and Mr. Bronson Stinnett are combining disciplines for a social studies/ELA citizenship awareness project for our students by organizing a Make a Difference Day. The actual Make a Difference Day is Saturday, Oct. 24, but Mill Pond will be holding ours on Friday, Oct. 23, to accommodate travel and encourage greater attendance.
Mrs. Belyea and Mr. Stinnett are hoping to have our Mill Pond students do activities to benefit the towns represented by our district. Some ideas being discussed are raking leaves, cleaning up cemeteries and removing old flowers, and general cleanup of local areas. If you know of any specific needs in your town, would you please pass that information along?
We all like that our students can make a difference and feel it’s important to teach that life isn’t all about what the world can do for them, but that they can also give back to the world they live in. Responsible, caring citizens of the future begin with small steps that make a difference.
