2024-2025 January

Upcoming Dates for the EGMS Community

2/2- UConn Women's Basketball Game: PTO Fundraiser
2/4 - PTO Meeting (7-8pm in EGMS Library; see blog update below!)
2/10 - Parent Advisory (Virtual 5:45-6:45PM)
2/13 - Early Release (Teacher Professional Development)
2/17-18 - Presidents' Day Weekend (No School)
2/26-2/28 - Early release (Parent-Teacher Conferences)

January Students of the Month

Grade 6 -- Emma Dion
Grade 7 -- Lucy Catter
Grade 8 -- Chloe Hayes

EGYS: "Reset" Program

Many thanks to East Granby Youth Services (EGYS) for visiting our students during the lunch waves today! At today's "Reset" program workshop, EGYS worked with students on our continued social media safety initiative that we've been working on this month, and there are so many "do's" and "don'ts" with social media behaviors that our middle level students need to learn. There was the EGYS Booth, a spinning wheel, situational dialogue, and a "post it note" board about (ironically) what to post and what not to post on social media! It's important for our whole community to imbue a sense of social media responsibility in our students, and were thankful for EGYS's dedication and involvement on this. Please talk to your student about what they may have reflected on and learned about today.

EGMS PTO: Meeting 2/4 and Other Announcements

Please consider joining the EGMS PTO for our next meeting on Tuesday, February 4 from 7:00pm-8:00pm. The meeting will be held in the East Granby Middle School Library. During this meeting we'll be discussing upcoming PTO events and volunteer needs (e.g. coordinating Teacher Appreciation Week), funding requests, and options for the PTO beyond this school year.

The EGMS PTO is in jeopardy of disbanding at the end of the 2024-2025 school year as two of the three board members will be transitioning off, and we have been unsuccessful in recruiting new leadership. During our meeting on Tuesday, we would love to hear from parents/guardians who are interested in taking on a role to continue the PTO and will also discuss options to disband the PTO, if needed.

Please reach out with questions or interest in a PTO leadership role at EastGranbyMSPTO@gmail.com. We hope to see you there Tuesday evening.

EGMS: A Little Bit of Fun on a Friday

It was a funny start to the last Friday of January '25! Before the day's announcement team got to work, they sat down and told us that our EGMS Office chairs are really comfortable. That even commented that they should start getting into trouble so they can sit in them more often. Click on the pic if you'd like a silly moment. Happy Friday!

Grade 6 Social Studies

From Mr. Tomala:

During International LEGO Day on January 28, students in Mr. Tomala's sixth grade Social Studies class had an exciting opportunity to create scenes using LEGO that reflected their learning about ancient India.

The students built impressive representations of Hindu Temples, geographical features of the region, watchtower forts, and Harappan homes. I am proud to say they did a phenomenal job of collaborating, showcasing their creativity, demonstrating their knowledge of the content, and most importantly, having fun.

Local Youth Lacrosse

For those who may be interested in playing lacrosse in the spring, please review the attached brochure.

Quarter Two Announcement Team

"Gooooooooooooood MORNING EGMS!!!!" Many thanks to Kenzie Cormier and Ryan Hamilton for starting off our mornings right everyday in the second quarter. Nice work!

Upcoming EG Public Library Events

Candy Suchi Competition - Space is limited and will fill quickly!

Monday, February 10th from 5pm-7pm.

For more info and to register: https://egpl.libcal.com/calendars?t=d&q=candy&cid=-1&cal=-1&inc=0

Motivating Your Unmotivated Student Parent Webinar

Thursday, February 6th at 7pm

For more info and to register: https://egpl.libcal.com/event/13545438

Drum Circle

Monday, March 24th from 7pm-8pm

Make music with buckets, sticks, and everyday objects. No experience needed.

For more info and to register: https://egpl.libcal.com/calendars?t=d&q=drum%20circle&cid=-1&cal=-1&inc=0

Chess Club

Wednesdays, March 5th - April 30th from 5:30pm-6:30pm

For more info and to register: https://egpl.libcal.com/calendars?t=d&q=chess&cid=-1&cal=-1&inc=0

EGMS Afterschool Midyear Dance

160 EGMS Students (...160?!?! Wow!!!) stayed after school and left some buses relatively empty at dismissal for a Friday! We had a BLAST! Great music, lots of food and pizza, and good times had by all! Special thanks to our Mr. Tomala, Mrs. Petersen, EG Youth Services, and the EGMS Student Government for putting this thing together! Strobe lights, photo booths, cotton candy, and even some good music going as far back in time as the 1960's! Many thanks also go to our EGMS Faculty and Staff for joining us and for getting out on the dance floor! An administrator may have even been out in the big circle doing a Ted Lasso running man at one point... so I heard...

EGMS Advisory: Digital Citizenship

Our teachers and students were reflecting on our own practices with social media and devices as a follow up to our schoolwide lesson with Trooper James White. To the point, I think we can all agree that "unplugging" is the right thing to do sometimes... even if it's really difficult to do!

EGHS/EGMS Spring Musical

Mrs. Mullane and Mrs. Gilbert and their students from EGMS and EGHS are preparing for the Drama Club's "Rock of Ages" musical taking place in late March!

7th Grade Social Studies

In Mrs. Petersen's classes, students had a few fun learning experiences using crafts and candy. In one lesson, they were building models of Eastern Asia. In one of the following lessons, they were demonstrating different types of government with gummi bears!

Student Government

Our EGMS Student Government was having fun and working hard with Mr. Tomala and Mrs. Petersen while getting ready for the school dance on January 24th!

Starbase: Infento Club

Ms. Zils and her students were working and thinking hard with an engineering lens as they used the mechanical parts to start building the Infento Carts! Check out the photos below.

8th Grade ELA

Our 8th graders completed a really cool project that is now on display on the wall near the EGMS Commons! In "8th Graders Unmasked", students made "Identity Self Portraits" by creating silhouettes of themselves and decorating them with collages of what's going on inside their heads. Great work!

Last Call! PTO Fundraiser - UConn Women's Basketball Game

Last chance to get your tickets for the UCONN women’s basketball fame on Sunday, 2/2 at 1pm at the XL Center in Hartford! Ticket sales will close this Sunday, January 19. There are still 20+ tickets remaining so get yours now! All ticket sales benefit the EGMS PTO, and you can get your tickets by clicking HERE!

EGMS Afterschool Dance - 1/24/25 2:15-4:00PM

We’re excited to announce our EGMS School Dance, sponsored by Student Government! The dance will be held after school on Friday, January 24, 2025 from 2:10 PM to 4:00 PM. The event will take place in the Middle School gym and Commons, and students will need to be picked up promptly at 4:00 PM at the doors outside the gym. A letter went out to families via email on January 15, and some questions and thoughts have come our way since then.

First, families may either pay with cash, check (payable to EGMS), or "My School Bucks" (MSB). Regardless of payment method, both hard copy permission slips signed by parents and payment must be turned in to us by the end of the school day on Wednesday, January 22nd. For planning and staffing, late permission slips will not be accepted.

Second, for those using MSB, simply log into your account and follow these steps in order:
- click on "store"
- click on "view all" towards the bottom right
- click on "next" at the bottom right
- click on "Middle School Dance - January 24" (Note - IMPORTANT -- Our dance is NOT the "Snowball Dance". That one belongs to the high school!)
If you'd like visual assistance on these steps, click HERE for a document with what your computer screen should look like at each step.

8th Grade ELA - Contest Winners!

Some of Mrs. Stewart's creative writers were a hit and won some accolades! Congratulations to Bartlett Clark, Everett Lowman, Spencer Namnoun, Lacey Payette, Lylah Jones, and Kiele Lizon for participating in the "100 Word Suspense Writing Contest" and for being selected by Young Writers to be published in Fright Club - Creeping Shadows! Awesome job!

One Word Project - Faculty

The 2025 ONE WORD project was such a hit that the teachers decided to give it a go, too! As described earlier this month on the blog (keep scrolling if you want to see the students' work from the 7th grade), this activity is a spin on the basic New Year’s resolution. This time, teachers chose a word that was meaningful to them that they wanted to embody and use as a focus for themselves throughout the rest of the school year. It could be a personal word or it could be something related to their profession, but teachers chose words that really were connected within themselves to help them be a better person through out 2025.

EGMS Winter Concert

We had our annual EGMS Winter Concert on Wednesday, January 15, and WOW, not only did the students put on a show, but the house was PACKED! Special thanks to Ms. Chaloux (Band) and Mrs. Gilbert (Chorus) for leading and teaching these wonderful singers and musicians across the grades in our school. They sounded great with some new spins on some traditional music. I especially thought the "Nutcracker Jingles" was a cool way to sing "Jingle Bells", and I know the students loved making noise during the number titled "Abandoned Toy Shop"! Check out the photos below.

EGMS Clubs: Starbase Infento and D&D!

Our Thursday afterschool afternoons are looking a lot more fun lately!
The Starbase Program is back in action at EGMS this year with a very popular club called "Infento". In this club, students will work with Ms. Zils and Mr. Garner and put their engineering caps on to make actual working scooters.
At the same time and in another classroom, Mr. Fusco, the head "dungeon master" (okay... "advisor") is "supervising" (okay... "playing") Dungeons and Dragons in D&D Club! We're happy to see the smiles on all those faces while working their brains off the clock!

Social Media: Trooper James White

Many sincere thanks to East Granby Youth Services (EGYS) for putting together this awesome assembly! With a little coincidental irony that this took place on the same day that the US Supreme Court began hearing arguments about TikTok's future, students convened in the auditorium with their Chromebooks and had an interactive learning experience about social media usage and the digital footprint. Trooper White brought a positive vibe that was perfect for our middle schoolers, and they had some fun while digging deep into some of the do's and don'ts of social media usage. The main takeaway: NOTHING is private, and EVERYTHING is permanent... so be kind, safe, and responsible with your technology!

Also, courtesy of EGYS and written by the Mental Health Coalition, please look below for a two page flyer (titled "Time Well Spent") regarding family discussions between parents and students about social media.

Salmon Delivery from a Special Guest...

Dr. Faulkner's 8th graders were visited by Board of Education Chairman Bob Paskiewicz today. Mr. Paskiewicz delivered an annual new collection of salmon eggs along with showing his skills from his days as an 8th grade science teacher. The students will take care of them throughout the winter and early spring months before releasing them into Salmon Brook at Granbrook Park in East Granby in late April.

Science - Grade 6

Mr. Dorr's students performed a wide variety of their own chemical experiments today! Lots of critical thinking, collaboration, and FUN was happening with our sixth graders in science class! Check out these photos below!

Parent Request/Information: Chromebooks and Gaming

Our internet access for EGMS students has a lot of filters and firewalls in place to help ensure that the websites our students can go to when using our Chromebooks are school appropriate and educational. That said, naturally (and not surprisingly), our students are very adept at circumventing all of that to help themselves play video games on their devices during the school day... including during class when teachers are not right on top of them. If we block or cancel one website, students will find ten more to go to. While we do have ways of blocking access or turning off gaming sites while students are in school (and we catch them), it can be a rather daunting task for our professionals are trying to do their jobs of teaching classes. We ask that parents have a discussion with their students to reinforce responsible usage of our devices and our internet access. Our hope is to reduce the gaming moving forward before having to follow up with school consequences. Thanks for your support from home.

Grade 8 Health

In Mr. Ziff's Health class, students were tasked with conducting information sessions with each other on the ill effects of certain health situations, such as insomnia, diabetes, and inappropriate use of substances. One group had a simulation of doing a "sobriety test" by having people spin fast in place then trying to walk in a straight line. We're thankful that participating students, teachers, and administrators reported zero injuries in the process!

General Music Grade 6

In Ms. Chaloux's class, our sixth graders have made a lot of progress this quarter with their guitar playing! Check out their performance with "Jingle Bells" by clicking on the photo!

7th Grade Social Studies

In Mrs. Petersen's class, students were having a lot of fun while creatively 3-D mapping out East Asia using craft supplies and collaboration!

Attendance - Chronic Tardies

EGMS starts school at 7:40AM, and students must be at their desks ready to go with their class materials at that time. We have an increasing frequency of "7:41ers" lately that are coming in the front door after the school day has already begun. Not only are students missing the routines and procedures (e.g. lesson objectives, daily morning slides, announcements) to start the school day, but they are also collecting some negative attendance data that we are obligated to report to the State of CT. To the point, we expect students to be in the building no later than 7:35AM, so that they may get in, get ready, then get settled for the school day that starts at 7:40AM. Further actions taken by EGMS for chronic tardiness may include school consequences that are delineated in the EGMS Student/Parent Handbook on pages 9-12.

Please click HERE to access the EGMS Student/Parent Handbook for more information. Thanks in advance for your support in getting EGMS students to school on time and ready to learn.

Mrs. Ciccarelli -- 7th Grade: "One Word" and SCOOT

First, check out this sampling of Mrs. Cicc's 7th graders' 2025 ONE WORD intent and focus for the year. This activity is a spin on the basic New Year’s resolution… Students chose a word that was meaningful to them that they wanted to embody and use as a focus for themselves throughout the rest of the school year. It could be a personal word or it could be something related to their academics, but students chose words that really were connected within themselves to help them be a better person through out 2025. Ask your 7th grader what their ONE WORD was and why they chose it. (Side Note: Mr. Phelan's 7th grade son, Emmet, chose the word "relax", which ended up being the following day's Wordle word... we think the universe may be trying to tell Mr. Phelan something!).

Also, the 7th grade scientists also played "SCOOT" in class, which is a great way to review content and earn prizes based on how many questions they get right. It was a fun way to review all the information about states of matter and phases changes from before winter break.

EGMS at the Hartford Stage!

Rashad Matthews, grade 7, was a member of the cast of "A Christmas Carol" at the Hartford Stage during this past holiday season! He had many roles, including Young Ebenezer Scrooge and Fred's son, and we even had a few of his fans in attendance at his last performance on December 29. Check out some of his work below!

Social Media Awareness: Trooper James White

On Friday, January 10, Trooper First Class James White, CT State D.A.R.E. Coordinator will be visiting EGMS during the school day to present to our students on the do's and don'ts regarding social media platforms. The assembly is interactive and gives students a chance to reflect honestly on their own usage and the possible digital footprint that they are creating when using it. We look forward to this interactive learning experience!

Grade 6 - FACS

In Mrs. Corey's Family and Consumer Science (FACS) class, students made French Toast!

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