Saturday, April 13, 2013

HMS Destination Imagination Teams Win at the State DI Meet in Orono!

Congratulations to all three HMS Destination Imagination Teams, and their coaches! These DI teams scored HIGHEST IN THEIR DIVISIONS at the recent state competition in Orono!

All three teams won first place in the state. The 6th grade team, Mysterious Duos, won the prestigious da Vinci Award for exceptional creativity and originality!

Congratulations to these talented students and their dedicated coaches! 

1st Place-Real to Reel Challenge
5th Grade team "DIY" Destination Imagination Yarmouth:

Team Members: 
Ella Buchanan
Brenton Burgess
Finn McDonough
Angus Muir
Ellie Ralph
Caeden Rogers

Team Managers: Shawna Chigro-Rogers, Meg McDonough

1st Place-In Disguise Challenge

6th Grade Team Hyper-Vipers:



Team members:
Emma Walsh
Hannah Zimmerman
Isabelle King
Lulu Rasor
Pie Rasor
Vicky Williams
Team Managers:  Mitch Rasor, Karen Walsh
 

1st Place-Wind Visible Challenge
da Vinci Honor Award for Outstanding Creativity
6th Grade Team Mysterious Duos:

Team members:
Blythe Guecia
Ceanne Lyon
Gabby Colby-George
Mackenzie Peloquin
Mairen O’Neill
Sophia Noack
Team Manager:  Alyssa Lyon


T-Shirts for Uganda

 Harrison Middle School students, staff, and community members are continuing to support St. Bakhita Nursery and Primary School, located in the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement in Uganda. Our efforts this spring focused on collecting T-Shirts for the more than 500 children of the Sudanese refugees. Paula Vicenzi is the driving force behind this project, and the most recent T-Shirt collection. She directed and implemented the collection of over 600 T-Shirts for these children!

Charlie Roscoe, of Yarmouth, is the founder of Schools for Refugees (http://schoolsforrefugees.org/). He'll deliver the shirts during his upcoming trip to Uganda. Thank you to all of the students, parents, staff, and community members who donated bags of shirts for these children; your support means so much to these students, and to all involved with this work!

                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                       




Thursday, April 11, 2013

Reading: A Homerun


The Portland Sea Dogs, Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, will honor over 1,200 students throughout Maine who have successfully completed Slugger's 2013 Reading Challenge. 
In the fall, Slugger the Sea Dog issued a reading challenge to Maine students to read five books above and beyond any required school reading.  Any student who successfully completed the challenge would receive a ticket to a Sea Dogs game where they would be honored in a pre-game ceremony.
Over 50 schools throughout Maine participated with 1,213 students completing the challenge.  Students will be honored at the following Sea Dogs games; Sunday, April 7th vs. Trenton, Tuesday, April 9th vs. Reading, and Wednesday, April 24th vs. Binghamton.
The Sea Dogs have also made a financial contribution to the three schools with the highest rate of students who successfully completed the challenge.  Frank H. Harrison Middle School in Yarmouth had the highest completion rate at 96.8% and received a $1000.00 donation from the Sea Dogs. 
Karyn Smith, HMS Language Arts Lead Teacher, organized this for HMS; she collected and collated all the data - that's over 2000 books.

HMS Career Fair

HMS students enjoyed and benefited from the annual Career Fair festivities on Wednesday, April 10th. Dr. Chris Kaufman, noted psychologist, and Psychological Service Provider for Maine schools, delivered a fascinating key note address to our students and staff. Students attended four different sessions with professionals who presented on careers from advertising to wind farming!

Our heartfelt thanks to Nini Emmons, Laura Mike, Ira Warshaw, Mark McDonough, Bob Morse, Mike Asenault, Holly Allen, Kathy Gardner, Liz Reinsborough, Paula Roberts, and Brad Ciechomski for the time, effort, and energy they put into creating this powerful experience for our students!

Our gratitude to all of the presenters who made these careers come alive for our children!


Lt. Perry and Officer Rappa
Sam Potter and Anna Baker at the Animal Rescue session
Referee Reg Grant






Tuesday, April 9, 2013

State Geography Bee

Congratulations to Ravi Patel, 8th grade student, who represented HMS at the 2013 Maine Geographic Bee on Friday, April 5th.  Ravi placed 5th in a field of 100 contestants from various schools throughout the state of Maine. 


The event was held at the University of Maine in Farmington and was sponsored by the National Geographic Society, Google Earth, and Plum Creek.

Ravi's performance was outstanding; he was coached by Mrs. Newick, a 7th grade social studies teacher.