Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Marshmallow Challenge

Have you ever tried making a marshmallow and spaghetti stick tower? Well, the fifth graders in Madison Elementary School get to do cool challenges like this all the time! Our challenge was to use a certain number of spaghetti sticks, a marshmallow, and a certain amount of tape to make the tallest tower we possibly could in 18 minutes. The fifth graders got to do this in groups of three. It was a lot of fun, even though a lot of people's towers broke or fell! This is just one of the many more amazing reasons why Madison is a great school.

-Aanvi 5th grade student

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The Annual Pancake Breakfast at Madison

This past Saturday morning, there was an unusual amount of noise and an abundance of sweet smells wafting through the halls that are normally so quiet on wintery weekends. The usual quiet of a few teachers working to prepare new lessons for the next week was interrupted by many staff and parents working to prepare for the masses that would come for our annual Pancake Breakfast!

A great number of volunteers worked Friday night and Saturday morning to mix batter, cook sausage and prepare the griddles and tables.  By 10:00AM, hundreds of parents, students and staff enjoyed stacks of pancakes, sausage, juice and coffee!  Part of the annual tradition includes a chance for students to not just fill their stomachs, but to fill their minds as well.  Many students brought a few books from home to the Book Exchange and left with some exciting "new" books to read over the weekend!  All in all, it was a very successful morning.

The Pancake Breakfast serves as a way for parents to engage with each other, kids to see their teachers in another light, and for the Madison community to help fund the awesome PTA initiatives around our school.

Monday, January 11, 2016

Get FIT lab and STEAM Table in LLC

Check out the new Get FIT lab and STEAM table in the Madison LLC!

This is our first experience with the Get FIT lab. We use materials we have on hand or donated by our parents. We have future plans to create challenges using the standards of our new science curriculum, as well as purchasing more technology, such as Spheros or Makey Kits.

Our goal of the Get FIT Lab is to give students new opportunities to collaborate, learn, problem solve, build, fail, think critically and produce something to share with others. These challenges incorporate Social Emotional Learning Standards, other curricular standards and are made through the collaboration of teachers and the LLC Director.

Submitted by Mrs. Graham and Mr. Callahan