Reading Is Fun?

By Kathleen Brown,

Nicole Benzinger,

Natasha Kokoszka

How can reading be fun? Just ask Mrs McGough, the Middle Gate school media specialist. “I was looking for something that kids would like and encourage them to read,” she said. That’s how she stumbled upon the “Patches Program.”

The program took place over the summer and encouraged students to read different types, or genres, of books. If you read five books from a genre, you receive a patch. More than 250 students participated. To Mrs McGough’s surprise, thousands of books were read and she handed out many patches.

The top patch received was the animal patch, followed by the general reading patch. Compared to last year at Middle Gate, many more students participated in the reading program over the summer. Wow! Reading really can be fun!

By Kelsey Phillips and

Kristen Gacciardo

At Middle Gate School, many children love to read. All of the fifth, fourth, and third graders get the opportunity to read to the younger grades as a part of Book Buddies. The teachers and children think that reading is fun.

“The experience of being read to by older students helps the younger ones read and they also form a strong friendship,” said Jennifer Torpey, a second grade teacher.

Mrs McGough, the media specialist at Middle Gate, teaches fifth graders how to read Book Buddy books. She instructs students how to read with an excited tone and how to choose appropriate books. Book Buddies is a fun way for all students to get into reading. Everyone loves Book Buddies!

School Store

By Melissa Dowd and

Joanna Barry

Here at Middle Gate School, Lauren Busser, a fifth grade student, works at the school store. She comes to school at 8:15 am and goes to work at the school store where she helps children purchase supplies and gives them their change.

Lauren likes working there on her assigned Wednesdays. School store is a place in the school’s art room where students can come and purchase school supplies for a reasonable price.

Why do we have school store, you might ask? Well we have a school store for students to get their supplies without having their parents drive them to the store.

Native Americans Come To Middle Gate

By Stefan Toi

The six basic Native American regions have been spread all around the fifth grade. Our first assignment to this long, exciting project was the map.

Students drew an outline of North America and carefully made borders of each region: Eastern Woodlands, Far North, Middle America, Plains, and Pacific Northwest. The students color sorted each region and used clay, paper, cardboard, etc., to make small models of what the region consisted of. If the Native Americans used wigwams students made them to put on the map. The maps turned out very different from what anyone expected. But the map was only an introduction to this amazing project.

Students have now completed their organizers on the Native Americans, which includes where the Native Americans lived, environment, animals, technology, culture, and life today. Each group had about two weeks to complete it. Students found most of the information from the library cart of Native American books and on the Internet.

Even though this is only the beginning, the fifth graders at Middle Gate are enjoying this exciting project.