2024-2025 November

Upcoming Dates for the EGMS Community

12/11-12/13 - Grades K-5 only: Early Release for Parent Conferences
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Grades 6-12 will have full school days and regular dismissal on these dates. Please plan accordingly if you have students younger than the MS age in your home!
12/9-12/13 - EGMS Spirit Week! Details Below!
12/13 - PJ for a Cause Day! Details Below!
12/13 - Crusader Madness EGHS 7PM
12/20 - Ugly Sweater Day (and a FULL last day of school before winter break)
12/21-1/1 - Winter Break (no early release on 12/20)
2/2- UConn Women's Basketball Game: PTO Fundraiser

November Students of the Month

Grade 6 - Gagana Bandikallu
Grade 7 - Oliver Gaudette
Grade 8 - Mason Cosker

Top Turkey Drive!

Many thanks to the EGMS Student Government for organizing our annual Top Turkey Drive in collaboration with the EG Friend To Friend Food Pantry. We concluded the drive on Tuesday, November 26th with a hat day and fundraiser, and the students and teachers definitely had a blast with this one! Students were treated to a popsicle for their efforts in collecting for the drive. We are especially thankful for Mr. Fusco's two day appearance as the Turkey in a Tutu.... lots of fun and many laughs were had by all!

EGYS - Therapy Dogs

Many thanks to East Granby Youth Services for providing us this well welcomed service of bringing trained therapy dogs to our school to bring some joy and be the furry friends that help to reduce anxiety.

Life Skills - Early Thanksgiving!

After a week and a half of planning, budgeting, and shopping, the Life Skills class prepared and served a Thanksgiving lunch on the Tuesday before the break!

Vaping: What Parents Need To Know

It has been brought to our attention with increasing validity that vaping has made its way to some of our EGMS students. Vaping is harmful, incredibly addictive, and deleterious to the health, growth, and development of young adolescents (not to mention adults!). It's also very easy to hide and very difficult to catch. Vaping devices often look like pens or technical equipment like a USB drive, and sometimes they can be hidden in plain sight in the home or stuffed with school equipment in backpacks. While we continue to educate our EGMS students on addiction and the ill effects of vaping and also vigilantly continue to put measures in place to reduce the likelihood that it happens at school, the behavior itself is elusive enough to be a struggle to concretely declare that it has never happened on EGMS school grounds during the school day or during community events (e.g. Soccer Under the Lights).
To the point, we urge parents and guardians to have a plain and direct talk about the ill effects of vaping and an honest and open conversation about what they know about usage in the EGMS community, with hopes that the reinforcement from home will be an added measure in prevention for our EGMS youth. Please consider reading some information on vaping by clicking on the links below, and thanks in advance for your support.

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/e-cigarettes/youth.html
https://www.drugfreect.org/vaping-and-smoking/
https://fvhd.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Dec-2019.pdf

Grade 8 Science and the Greenhouse

Dr. Faulkner's students are having lots of science based fun while keeping the Greenhouse full of life and learning about plate tectonics!

Grade 7 Social Studies

Students have been reviewing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and created class timeline about the South African system of apartheid. In this project students worked collaboratively to created presentations in which they had to classify events as examples of “discrimination, resistance or both” and identify which UDHR articles were being upheld or violated in the event.

Grade 8 Hallway: School Life Hacks

We like to decorate our walls at EGMS with messages of positivity for our students! Our current display in 8th Grade Hallway shows a few "School Life Hacks" that we think are helpful for all members of the EGMS community.

Grade 7 Science

In Mrs. Ciccarelli's class, 7th grade science students played a Jeopardy Review game in an old school fashion to help prepare for the upcoming unit test next week. Students will be applying all their learning from the chemical reactions unit to a new scenario and analyzing what is going on to the marble used to build the Taj Mahal.

Grade 7 REMIS

Team 7 celebrated the social and emotional success of our students again this week. Mr. McConnell always has something up his sleeve for his presentations!

East Granby Youth Services

East Granby Youth Services is excited to be back at the Middle School once a month with our “Lunchtime Reset” check-in program. Each month staff will be joining the middle school students to check-in and talk about mental health and wellness and have a mid-day reset. This month’s topic was Gratitude and Thankfulness. Students were given the opportunity to share something they are grateful/thankful for, and Youth Services staff will be creating a Gratitude tree that we will be bringing back to the middle school in the coming days.

Students were also asked to share their ideas on activities/games they would like to see available in the cafeteria during the lunch waves that they can use to interact with each other and have a “reset” moment during lunch. Youth Services will be reviewing those ideas and hope to have the activity bins available for students early in the new year.

After the Thanksgiving break classroom teachers will be given a Youth Services “reset” box for their rooms. The boxes are filled with small trinkets/fidget toys and stickers as well as other activities they can use with their classes, at their discretion, to help with any “reset” moments during the day.

Next month our topic will be Stress Management & Self Care.

Parents are welcome to contact East Granby Youth Services with any questions (860/653-7800) or check out our website which contains information about programs and services available to the community. (https://eastgranbyct.org/youth-services-bureau)

Have a wonderful weekend.

East Granby Youth Services Staff

Life Skills Program

In Dr. Schoorens' Life Skills class, students went grocery shopping at Geissler's for the Thanksgiving lunch they are cooking next week.

Grade 6 Science

As a follow up to Mr. Dorr's owl pellets lab, students displayed the bones that they found in the pellets! Check out the student work below!

Youth Action Council (YAC)

Join the YAC on November 23 for some snacks and hot chocolate! EGHS Old Gym, Doors open at 5:30.

7th Grade Science

7th graders have been looking closely at chemical formulas and equations. Friday we did an Odor Detection Lab. This helped them to answer questions about how they can smell different scents from bath bombs. We also looked at the molecular structures of the different odors. Next up, how can we apply all of our new learning to a new scenario and that will wrap up our unit.

Veterans Day

Simply put, EGMS looks forward to this day every year! The posters, the spirit, the parade of cool cars and fire trucks, and (most importantly) meeting the veterans! We enjoyed celebrating our heroes that dedicated their service to this country and hope that they feel appreciated by our community.

Sixth Grade iLead

Mr. Ziff reported that this was a great class working on networking skills in grade 6 iLead. Students learned how to ask guiding questions and learned facts about one another in a business setting similar to a college or job fair.

CT Science Museum

The sixth graders had a great time at the CT Science Museum in Hartford, CT! So many experiences to choose from in the photos... lots of learning, and lots of smiles! There was even a lot of singing on the bus on the way home! Even the adults got in on the fun. Enjoy the pics!

Lunch time!

7th graders having fun at recess! Even though the temperature is dropping, some fresh air and fun can always be found during lunch waves!

Quarter 1 Announcement Team

Many thanks to our two students that lent us their voices every morning for the announcements in Quarter 1! Chloe Hayes and Everett Lowman did a splendid job in waking us up everyday with the Pledge of Allegiance, daily reminders, and new information of some history makers during their respective months of culture celebrations. Nice job Chloe and Everett!

EGMS PTO Fundraiser

Save the date! On February 2, the UConn Women's Basketball Team is playing at the XL Center at 1PM. Information about tickets is forthcoming, and this will be a great and fun opportunity to raise some funds for the EGMS PTO. Stay tuned!

Grade 8 ELA

In Mrs. Stewart's ELA Class, students wrote, directed, and filmed their own movie adaptations of suspenseful short stories! Check out these photos of 8th graders filming on location!

Grade 6 Math

In Mr. Simeone's math class, students learned how to prepare budgets and had some fun doing it! They were tasked with identifying something that they wanted to purchase and then identify variables and parameters such as income/allowance, current balance of their savings, and a timeline for meeting the goal (side note - holiday gift giving is closer than you think... parents who partcipate might want to ask their students about this project). The best part was that the students presented their findings to their peers, who shared their feedback on the jobs well done!

Grade 6 - Language Exploratory: Spanish

In Senora Ash's Spanish Exploratory class, students tasted the foods of many Spanish speaking nations on the next to last day of class in Quarter 1. Students worked together or in groups to make crowd favorites likes plantain lasagne, empanadas, coconut rice among other tasty treats. Lunches probably went uneaten due to the wonderful food that we shared in class.

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