Another full week across the divisions. Wings were drawn, Hamlet was reworked, and there were flames in the chemistry classroom! Not to mention that a few eighth graders were pretty creepy!
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Eight Upper School students put on a remarkable performance last weekend! We caught up with Director Maya Dwyer, who had this to say about the play: "
Hamlet: A Reworking
was a huge experiment! We worked together as a group to collectively reinvent the story by condensing and rearranging the script, adding movement and music, and releasing the original gender assignments of the characters. Some students chose to play their characters as their own gender identity and some students chose a gender identity that was different from their own. This resulted in a beautiful reimagining of the piece through a lens that skewed towards motherhood and relationships between women as a central theme -- which I never could have predicted. It was a delight to work together to creatively adapt and problem solve, and the students really rose to the challenges and uncertainties that come with devising something that's a bit unexpected and explorative."
Kudos to our performers: Maya Heimes, Rhys Denno, Drey'Von Simmons, Agnes Coleman, Grace Montas, Emma Winkler, Elizabeth Ouimette-Garza, and Kiru Morrissette-Ugoji.
See photos below!
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Students from Syracuse’s Henninger High School traveled to our campus on Monday to spend the day with their MPH counterparts -- a number of Upper School students who are involved in the Community Wide Dialogue (CWD) program that began early in the fall. The program is facilitated by Interfaith Works, with Ms. LaPointe and Mr. Mangram serving as its primary program advisors for MPH. The morning began in the theater with a large-group ice-breaker game (“The Wild Wind Blows…”) that resembled a modified version of musical chairs but in reality served to illuminate the commonalities among us all. Read more about Community Wide Dialogue
here.
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Mr. Vural’s chemistry class was among the many classes on Monday that welcomed our CWD guests from Henninger High School. In the video you can see one of our MPH students volunteering to demonstrate for our guests an exciting lab the class had completed the previous week.
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Eighth-Grade Photographers
Often in photography we only see the final image and to the viewer it can seem as easy as the quick push of a button. But there is so much more that happens behind the scenes! The 8
th
- grade students collaborated to create their first photo shoots last week! They focused primarily on pre-production, what happens before the shoot takes place. Students worked together to generate ideas based on random words: creepy, scientific, and colorful. They organized models, planned set-up and shoot times, created the set, gathered props and costumes, and determined the lighting, and then they did all the post-production editing. Working with everything from dry ice to confetti to build their scene, students were responsible for every aspect of the shoot.
See the photo gallery on the right.
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Library, Literature, and Literacy in Lower School
Fourth graders are currently reading
The Lemonade War
(by Jacqueline Davies) with MPH librarian Liza Morrison. During their scheduled “Library” time, the students meet in the Lower School library reading room. After reading and discussing the story with Mrs. Morrison, students have the opportunity to peruse the library to check out books of their choice. Mrs. Morrison works with each student to help him or her find new books, authors, and genres in order to foster their love of reading. Meanwhile, Coordinator of Academic Support Colleen Congel works with each Lower School class on explicit, systematic reading instruction. As a member of The Reading League, Colleen facilitates literacy training with Lower School teachers to ensure that MPH is following the most current and respected brain research.
See photos below, and view the video of Mrs. Congel working with Grade 2.
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The Kindergarten class began the year exploring all sorts of different materials on individual feathers. The wings were assembled after each artist made five feathers. The Kindergartners learned about mixing paint, oil pastels, watercolor, sponge painting, and water on marker. They also learned the value of working together to create something for a group. And ever since the wings were placed on the wall, our students can't help but stop for a picture!
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First Graders had their turn to visit the Administrative wing with a trip to see Mr. McCusker!
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Gratitude
With so much going on each and every day here at MPH, we'd like to recognize those members of our community who are pitching in to make things run smoothly. Our sincere thanks to those who organized the Halloween festivities last week: Elizabeth Ryan, Meera Adya, Mitch Sartin, Brianne Aiello, Deanna Lee, Rick Butler, Kira Crawford, Karen Downey, Tina Maxian, Cobbie Brundin, Kathy Fortner, Carolee Whalen, Theresa Heath, Amy Gross, Aparna Das, Melissa Marrone, and Catherine Shafer.
We'd also like to thank the parents who supported our performing artists last weekend by volunteering backstage at the play:
Dana Spiotta, Jing Xu, Kristen Montas Graves, Karin Trouyet, Moira Kelly, Paige Ouimette, Sarah Davis, and Teresa Mirakian.
We couldn't do it without you!
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Before the snow started falling, sophomore Nick Trivelpiece perfectly captured how beautiful our campus is in the fall. Thank you, Nick!
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