Schools

Oceanport Students Go Back in Time to Celebrate MLK [PHOTOS]

Maple Place eighth-graders traveled back to Wolf Hill to celebrate MLK on Monday with a day of service.

While not originally scheduled to be in school on Monday, Oceanport students turned lemons into lemonade and celebrated the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. with a day of service.

A bus load of eighth-graders from Maple Place School arrived at Wolf Hill on Jan. 21 to take part in activities geared that morning toward commemorating and building upon lessons imparted by the civil right icon with younger students.

Wolf Hill Principal Melanie Lipinski said that bringing students from both schools together had often been discussed by administrators and adding the holiday back onto the school calendar to help make up days lost following Hurricane Sandy provided the perfect opportunity to do so.

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The Maple Place students were place in classrooms throughout the elementary school to help work with Wolf Hill students on various projects focused on King and his teachings.

Older kids pitched in in Mrs. McCarthy's third grade classroom to brainstorm words that reflected what King preached and then created paper doves on which they were written.

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Upstairs in Mrs. Matriana's fourth grade classroom, students watched a video showing children from all over the world dancing to the same song and then were stretched past their "comfort zones" with a team building exercise working with other students who were outside their usual circle of friends in the class.

Back downstairs in Mrs. Ippolito's preschool classroom, Maple Place eighth grade teacher Mr. Grassi was having fun dressing up and mugging with the little ones. Eighth graders assigned to that classroom talked to the younger students about sharing and performed some role playing to illustrate the idea.

Eighth-grader Lily Anderson said it was fun to go back to her old school and sit in her old classrooms, however, "Everything seems smaller," she said.


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