Juniors Simon Fortner and Jake Aretsky have spent some of their time during the COVID-19 pandemic helping various MPH community members with livestreaming technology. They started with a request from their technology teacher, Mr. Zlomek, to stream soccer games in the fall, which has led to streaming basketball games this winter. But recently, Mr. McCusker and Mr. Montas have needed some help with the weekly All-School Meetings, so Simon and Jake took it to the next level by creating MPH Light & Magic. They meet regularly to plan and create content each week. So far they have created opening videos for the meetings using themes such as Minecraft, Star Wars, the one-year anniversary of COVID-19, and the Olympics. Each video has an MPH "spin," including a recreation of the Phoenix Student Center in Minecraft and the passing of a faux Olympic torch from teacher to teacher. MPH Light & Magic has created a website to display all their work. With many more projects on the horizon, the goal of MPH Light & Magic is to expand the audio/visual offerings of the School by showcasing our campus and school events from the student perspective.  Check out their website here! And congrats to Simon and Jake on this exciting new adventure!

Join us in wishing the following students the best of luck at the Central New York Science and Engineering Virtual Fair this Sunday, March 21. Students were unable to participate last year due to the pandemic, and this year the event could not be held in the traditional format, so the organizers of the CNYSEF offered interested students a competitive virtual opportunity in which to show their work. Watch the keynote and awards ceremony beginning at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday.

Good luck to:  

First graders were really looking forward to St. Patrick’s Day this year and were thrilled to discover that they had a leprechaun visitor in their classroom. In typical leprechaun fashion, however, he was there to play tricks! He came early morning before school and then again during recess and made a mess of their desks! To add to the fun, after watching some Irish dancing during lunch, students received a short lesson in how to perform an Irish dance. Take a look at the video here. See some photos of the trickery, along with some other first-grade activities by clicking on the image on the left.

MPH’s Community Outreach Alliance (COA) has been busy making desks for students in need, who have been learning online without a space to study in or desks on which to do their work. The COA partnered with Operation Northern Comfort, an organization that sent desk kits and paired our club members with the students in need. The COA and additional MPH volunteers helped build, paint, and ultimately, deliver the desks. The members of the COA would like to thank our dedicated maintenance crew for making the deliveries possible --thank you Mike and Pat!

MPH continues to stay abreast of the latest travel guidelines issued by New York State. With increasing numbers of people who are now fully vaccinated, the variables that affect the safety of travel are multiplying. New York State will continue to change its guidelines as circumstances evolve, so if you are considering traveling out of state, check the New York State Travel Advisory regularly. MPH will continue to align its travel protocols with the New York State Travel Advisory. At the same time, we continue to emphasize our community’s commitment to the MPH Social Compact by which each of us makes individual choices understanding the potential impact on the health and well-being of the MPH community.

In anticipation of spring, second-grade students are learning about plants in Spanish class. They learned about the nutritional needs of a plant and even started growing their own “frijoles” (beans). See additional photos by clicking the image on the left.

The fourth and fifth graders in the Bridge both independently decided to study space for their next unit in science. As a kick-off project, students each made a sign with the name of a body in space (such as a planet, asteroid belt, etc.). Using those signs, they took to the athletic field to make a scale model showing the relative distance between these objects. Fifth graders then graphed the actual distances in astronomical units on number lines. Take a look at the video below!

Do you know someone who may be interested in exploring an MPH Education for their child? The Admissions Office will be holding March Admissions Information Sessions next week, and we have a hot-off-the-press March edition of our Discover MPH Admissions e-newsletter (which happens to include the registration link for those info sessions). Please find the e-newsletter here and feel free to forward it along to a friend or family member who may be interested. After all, the endorsement of our extended MPH community members makes for the best kind of encouragement for other folks to take a look!

Anticipating a full agenda, we encourage questions and/or topic suggestions be submitted in advance so that they may be incorporated into the presentations.

Students in Grade 3 have been learning about the Civil Rights Movement. An important question came up while they were researching – was America the only country facing these challenges of segregation and separation due to race and religion? To find the answer, students looked to Mrs. Chhablani’s 10th graders, who were focusing on imperialism throughout the world. Mrs. Chhablani’s students created picture books about imperialism in different countries and read them to the Grade 3 class via Zoom. After the Zoom call, students delivered their books personally so Grade 3 students could view them up close. It was a creative and innovative way for Lower and Upper School students to work together and for everyone to learn something new!

Take a look at upcoming offerings by browsing through the full summer course offerings brochure. And visit the MPH Global webpage to learn how to register for upcoming masterclasses with MPH alumni Carrie Manolakos and Noah Kellman.

Xiangqi (also called Chinese chess) is a popular board game for two players in China. There are many variations of Chinese chess around the world -- students in the Chinese Club this week had opportunities to exercise their tactics with both Xiangqi and the Korean version, "Janggi."

Last week, MPH's Z Club celebrated International Women's Day by distributing a beautiful yellow rose to every female faculty member. Thank you, Z Club!

A Kindergarten student created this beautiful St. Patrick's Day drawing that we thought was worth sharing with our whole community! We're lucky to have you at MPH, too!

Stay up-to-date on MPH happenings by visiting the MY MPH Portal, our Facebook page and our Flickr feed!

Manlius Pebble Hill School | 315-446-2452 | mphschool.org