Mary Hogan Family News
October 16th, 2026
Hello Mary Hogan Families!
October is Farm to School Month in Vermont and at Mary Hogan. But what is Farm to School? Farm to School is an approach that connects classrooms, the cafeteria, and community so that students understand the world around them, know where their food comes from, make food nutrition decisions, and the interconnections in our community and farming.
At Mary Hogan, we do this in many different ways that you will see in the newsletter most weeks, including:
- Spending time gardening
- Delicious meals that include local products, including food from our school garden
- Learning about local farms now and in the past
- Making food together in classrooms
- Math - measuring, predicting, counting when out in the garden and cooking
- Writing about what we see in the garden, the woods, or about food stories, and more
- Science - taking water quality samples, observing the world around us, understanding weather patterns and their impact on farming, and more
- Visiting farms, food producers, and suppliers
- Celebrating the Harvest of the Month on our bulletin board, at All School Meeting and Cooking with NOM
- Fall and Spring garden and grounds work days
There are so many ways we dig into Farm to School and we are excited to keep growing this work and sharing it with you!
đź’™,
Jen
Learning about Civics
The 4th grade started a new unit of inquiry this week, as the began to think about how we organize ourselves with a government and why. Students will inquire into the Vermont government, Town Meeting Day, Election Day, the 3 branches of government, and how they all work.
They also are reading a book connected with this work in their classes. This week, one class took a moment to explore a book and then talk about their predictions for what the book would be like.
Music Together
Our preschoolers have been working with music educators from Middlebury Community Music Center to take part in Music Together. Music Together is a music education program for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers that helps children learn rhythm, musicality, self-control, and so much more with joy. This week, the lesson started with rhythm sticks and a call and response song. Students were working on matching the beat and remembering the phrases to repeat them back. There were a lot of smiles and some giggles as the lesson got underway.
