Sanford High School is planning now for graduation ceremonies to be held in June at Alumni Stadium. As things stand now, the students will be on the field, physically distanced and separated from the audience who will be in the stands. Attendance will most likely be restricted, but by how much is uncertain at this time.
Spring sports at SHS are expected to start on time, if the weather cooperates. Baseball and softball practices are scheduled to start the week of March 22.
The students at Margaret Chase Smith School have been participating in Book Madness: A Tournament of Books. Various staff members have selected 16 texts to record and share with students throughout the month. Each day a “Guest Reader” is revealed during the morning announcements. During snack time, students enjoy the recording and discuss their favorite parts with classmates. At the end of the week the students vote for their favorite two books as they narrow their choices down to the Elite 8 and Final 4.
For the month of March, Carl J Lamb School is focusing on the Core Value of Courage. School Librarian Mrs. Milano is challenging students to identify courageous people from clues on the bulletin board, and students are reading about these heroes in Pebble Go autobiographies. The Kindness club is writing thank you notes to courageous people, spreading kindness by writing to their retirement home penpals and continuing the compliments with “Lucky to Know You ” Shamrocks.
Mrs. Payeur and her first graders at Willard School experienced a Book Bistro last week; this lesson’s learning target focused on literacy skills. It was a fun way to celebrate the ending of the opinion writing unit and to get students excited to move into the non-fiction unit. Mrs. Payeur shared a variety of non-fiction books students typically do not see such as cookbooks and non-fiction books that have illustrations instead of real photographs, to help students focus on content rather than on the stereotype that non-fiction books can only have real pictures.
This month, the Landscape & Horticulture students at Sanford Regional Technical Center took an opportunity to stretch their legs and reconnect with their farming partners McDougal Orchards and Ferment Farm, which are both located in Springvale. March is the perfect moment to prune many trees, especially fruit trees. Agricultural pruning is a very important piece of our curriculum, so students benefited from the experience as well as the exercise.
On Friday, March 12th, students in the Fire Science program participated in a training in automobile extrication using the “jaws of life.” Firefighters from Sanford and Acton volunteered to assist with this training, and Chandler’s Automotive and Towing made vehicles available for this event.
The 6th – 8th Grade Gifted & Talented students at Sanford Middle School just finished up a project on “Silver Linings.” It began as a lesson about English proverbs and other sayings, that led to “Every cloud has a silver lining.” They brainstormed positive things that have happened in their lives and our community in the past year during Covid. From there, the students came up with an art representation of the saying and their brainstorm list. It was hung in the hallway near the library, to invite the school community to think about their own silver linings.
The SMS PTA put on an incredible Winter Luau for all grades last Thursday and Friday. Comments from students were “This is the best day ever,” “Can we do this again?” and “WHOO HOO I love this school!” The PTA has also sponsored a March Madness Raffle for staff each day, with cool prizes to win.
