Londonderry News

Festival for Youth met this afternoon with Mrs. Blanch’s first graders. The first graders visited at the high school for their final end of the year project. Each first grader (with the help of his/her buddies) painted a shadow box with the word “friends” on top. Inside is a group picture from earlier this year.

Also, the group will be having a car wash on Saturday, June 7th from 10:00 to 2:00 at the Lukoil in Londonderry. They are raising funds to support Marcel’s Way, an organization that helps people battling Mitochondrial Disease. All money raised will be donated to help those battling Mitochondrial Disorders. Mitochondria are present in nearly every cell of the body and are responsible for creating more than 90% of the energy needed by the body to sustain life and support growth. Currently, there are three students in our district with this debilitating disease, and families incur many expenses as the costs for treatment, medication, blood tests, surgeries, and other needs are astronomical. Marcel’s Way assists families in need. They hope the Board and members of the community will come out and support them.

Middle School special curriculum teacher, Jan Armstrong, has informed me that Samuel Breslow, 6th grade Special Curriculum Advanced Reader’s Workshop student, has won the 2008 Nicholas Green Award for NH.

“The National Association for Gifted Children, through its affiliate, the New Hampshire Association for Gifted Education offered gifted children in New Hampshire the opportunity to be named the Nicholas Green Distinguished Student.

Nicholas was a delightful, precocious child, who, at the age of five, was touring Europe with his parents and younger sister. While in Italy bandits attacked his family’s car and shot and killed Nicholas. His death became noticed internationally because his parents contributed his organs to Italians in need of organ transplants. To honor Nicholas, his parents have established this award.
In memory of Nicholas, NAGC and NHAGE sought an outstanding student who is currently in grades 3 through 6. The award includes a $500.00 United States Savings Bond and a Certificate of Excellence.

Sam and his parents will be invited to the New England Conference on Gifted and Talented Education in October of this year, to formally receive the award before hundreds of teachers, administrators and other professionals.”

Gayle Esterly reports that eighteen Londonderry students received their National Academy Foundation Academy of Finance certificate at a ceremony at Rivier College on Thursday, May 29. Sarah Bundzinski received an AOF Advisory Board Scholarship. Kelsey Formalarie received the Glen O’Blenes, Jr. Memorial Scholarship, given in memory of Glen O who was in Londonderry’s first AOF graduating class.

Derek Hansen was recognized for being selected as one of only 25 students nationally who will receive a NAF-AOF Citischolar Scholarship.

The Londonderry High School Academy of Finance program also received a $3000 grant from Citigroup Foundation. Funds will be used to support curriculum, student recognition, and field trips related to AOF studies.

Sandi Brown from North School would like you to know that all of the 3rd grade students at North School participated in an “Empty Bowls” fundraiser. Students were from Ms. Rael.
Mrs. Martinez, Mrs. Francoeur, Mrs. Hammond, and Mrs. Brown’s classes. The 3rd grade students made bowls during art class with the help of art teachers Erin Crosby and Beverly Belus. On Thursday evening, 5/29, approximately100 people came to buy a bowl and have some ice cream. Ice cream was donated by Mack’s Ice Cream in Londonderry and Moo’s Place in Derry. Almost $500.00 was raised and will be donated to the St. Jude’s Food Pantry.

South School teacher, Jen Cutuli, reports that on Thursday, May 29th, the first ever South School Leapin’ Lizards jump roping team performed for their school. They began as a club in November where 90 kids learned the basic skills. Try-outs were then held in February and 28 students (all girls) were asked to become team members. They picked their name, Leapin’ Lizards, and they’ve been practicing ever since on Tuesday mornings at 7:45 a.m. The leaders of the group are Troy Berg, Joan Laurenti, Dawn Gray, Jen Colantuoni, Katie Miers, and Jen Cutuli. The team hopes to perform for the other schools before school gets out. They had a lot of fun and can’t wait to start up again next year. They continue to practice partly to keep their skills sharp and partly because the girls just don’t want to stop!

The Monsoon Team hosted its annual Senior Social on May 21st. Former Monsoon sixth graders visited and shared future plans with their teachers. Teacher Jeanie O’Boyle says it was great to see such articulate, well-rounded individuals share their memories with them from their experiences on the team.

For the past month the 6th, 7th and 8th grade struggling readers and writers had a Writer in Residence as their writing teacher. They worked for the 4 weeks on a writing piece with Mrs.Deady a local author. This was made possible by a grant from the Children’s Literacy Foundation. Deady writes fiction and non-fiction books for children and is the author of over 40 books.

The Thunderstorm team was honored this month to have Mike Boyle, a Chief Warrant Officer with the NH Army National Guard and the father of Devin Boyle a 7th grader on the team, present the school with a flag that has flown on Thanksgiving Day at Sather Air Force Base in Baghdad. He wanted to thank the students for sending cards and holiday decorations while they were stationed overseas.

Another 7th grade team just completed a collaborative research project on Historical Science biographies. Jessica Payeur taught the science and technology component, Peggy Fox the writing component, and Paula Chessin was responsible for the research component. The students created a newspaper or talk show script to make historical connections between the works of different astronomers and how their research was influenced by world events.

The 8th grade Foreign Language students of the month will be attending an annual field trip to La Carretta’s to celebrate their exemplary effort and participation throughout the year. They will spend this time speaking the language as well as enjoying the food.

6th grade science students were treated to a day of forensic science taught by the LHS Bioconnect classes. The 6th graders became the forensic investigators and solved a crime analyzing scene evidence, fingerprints, fiber evidence and DNA. This was a community service offered by the HS class.

If you walked by the Middle School on Thursday afternoon you might have been treated to a s’more cooked by student built solar ovens. Students tested their oven on Wednesday and then recorded the temperatures throughout the day on Thursday with the culminating event of actually cooking their s’more. Temperatures reached heights of 275 degrees in some of the ovens!

Matthew Thornton staff and students are all set for Walk NH Day on Wednesday, June 4th (Rain or Shine). PE teachers Mike Corf and Scott Lohnes have marked out two paths—one is around the blacktop and field and represents one-quarter mile. The other loop is around the playground and down around the lower field. That one is one-half mile.

At the end of the day, the total number of miles walked by students and adults will be tallied and reported to the State Walk NH Committee. Vicky Stickney has created certificates for each person that will recognize their participation.

All the log sheets have been counted and we are very excited to announce that this has been an outstanding year for “Books and Beyond”. Everyone at Matthew Thornton went bananas for books and participated in the program. 544 students have earned gold medals. Students read a total of 164,200 books or 4,105,000 pages. We all look forward to honoring our students at the awards assemblies in June and celebrating with banana splits. Congratulations to everyone.

Pictures by Mimi Johnson, text supplied by Pat Slozak.