Mary Hogan Family Newsletter
March 29, 2025
Dear Mary Hogan Families,
What a week! Snow, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and we get to end with a warm sunny day. What a fickle spring this is turning out to be. We have been going out and the grass can be wet and muddy. Please be sure to send in your kids with a change of clothes (including socks and back up shoes)... even if they are in 5th grade! They can leave their change of clothes in their classroom. I promise they will appreciate it when they get wet and muddy.
My highlight of the week has been seeing all of the students in 5th grade working on Exhibition. They are all doing a lot of research into their topic of interest (based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals). They will be presenting their projects on Thrusday 5/1 from 9-10.30 at Mary Hogan. Everyone is welcome to join them and learn from their projects.
đź’™, Jen
SAVE THE DATE - May 3, 9-11.30
Mary Hogan will be hosting a Mary Hogan & Middlebury Community Garden and Celebration Day at the Mary Hogan School Garden to kick off spring, celebrate the arrival of our new timber frame garden shed, and get the garden started. We hope you will save the date! More info to come.
April's Harvest of the Month is whole grains! This month we will be cooking on Zoom on Monday 4/14 at 5:00pm. NOM is partnering with Alianza Latinoaméricana Y Caribeña which is a cultural organization at Middlebury College. We will be making Chilaquiles as the main and Brigadeiros for dessert!
Chilaquiles are a Mexican dish typically made with leftover tortillas that are quartered and then fried into totopos (tortilla chips). This dish is typically eaten for breakfast or brunch, and often made with different salsas, queso fresco, crema (cream), cilantro, and onion. They also are served alongside eggs and beans
Brigadeiros is a traditional Brazilian sweet that is a ball often covered in chocolate sprinkles. Check out the image in the photo to see what they look like!
Sign up HERE by Friday 4/11 if you want to Cook with NOM & Alianza on 4/14. You will get an email on Sunday 4/13 with the link and info about the food coming home with your child on Monday.
Here is a little bit more about Alianza: Our goal is to learn more about Latinx, Hispanic, and Caribbean cultures and share this knowledge with the Middlebury Community through events such as lectures, films, mixers, and social activities. Simultaneously, we hope to create a space where Latinx, Hispanic, and Caribbean identifying students can find community and support to help foster a sense of belonging in Middlebury and the college setting.
We finished up our Biking Unit this week in questionable weather. Students LOVED riding their bikes and their skills grew tremendously during the unit. We also have seen their growth year over year because of this unit.
We are so grateful to Local Motion and Middlebury Safe Routes for the 3 weeks of free bike trailer use! And we definitely couldn't do as much without the AMAZING banana costume wearing Laura Assermily and the other volunteers who helped with the unit.
We have been incredibly lucky to have over 50 students on the Middlebury College Football team who are coming to mentor 5th grade and some 4th grade students this spring. The project grew out of an idea by Head Coach Doug Mandigo. The college students have been paired up with every single 5th grade students (individually or as a group) during a lunch block or during Exhibition research. They have some 4th grade lunch buddies as well.
Our students are LOVING having these college mentors who are helping grow positive connections with students, modeling being scholars (and athletes), fostering conversation, helping with research and editing, and learning together. This is the start of this connection and it will be awesome to see how it develops in the future. Thank you Middlebury College Football Team!
Student Council members baked and the sold cookies at MESA's Line Dancing (which was SUPER fun) last Sunday. Thank you to all who contributed. They raised $200 to help replace the boards in the GaGa Ball pit. They are now working on measuring the boards and sorting out how many we need. Stay tuned for more info going forward on this project.
