Hawk News Archives - Page 117 of 179

Hawk Life

Djembe, Dance and Song: Students Learn from Senegalese Artists

While her husband M’bor beat an energetic rhythm on his Senegalese d’jembe drum, Oumou Faye, garbed in colorful clothing from her west African homeland, wasted no time in arranging a group of Mount Madonna School (MMS) middle school students in rows to teach them lyrics and a series of choreographed movements for the KouKou dance.

Watching the students learn the movements (and at times joining his father to beat a drum) was the couple’s youngest ch

This year Mount Madonna School (MMS) took the largest Model United Nations (MUN) delegation it has ever had to Stanford University’s MUN conference. Our students participated in a variety of committees, ranging from a historic crisis committee dealing with the Opium Wars, to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Each of our 14 delegates was asked to engage fully with their fellow delegates and to work on resolving the issues set before them.

Giving Thanks and Breaking Bread: Fifth Grade Celebrates Thanksgiving Colonial Style

Earlier this week fifth grade students celebrated Thanksgiving “colonial” style, preparing and feasting on Hasty pudding, hardtack, cornbread, chef Nate stone soup, Washington’s applie pie, pumpkin pie, gingersnaps, colonial macaroons, pound cake, potato balls, mulled cider and liberty tea!

New Literature for Third Grade!

Mount Madonna School third graders spent the dollars they earned as a prize for selling Drive for Schools tickets on new books for their classroom! In addition, many generous parents bought the class new books at the recent Scholastic Book Fair. so the class is happily enjoying great literature!

So many of us, young and younger alike, have read (or at least watched film versions of) Jules Verne’s iconic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . Captain Nemo’s underwater adventures are nothing short of legend, steering his Nautilus into the great ocean depths and, to this day, into our imaginations.

Congratulations to Mount Madonna School (MMS) junior Cat Ching, who qualified and competed in the Central Coast Section (CCS) cross country championships on November 14. Ching placed 39 out of the 72 division five (D-V) runners with a time of 23:27.6 in the three-mile race, and is the first female runner representing MMS to compete in CCS!

Ching and her teammates, juniors Caroline Smith and Abigail Gray, were also honored as having the highest collective scholastic average among CCS D-V teams, 3.926, and the second highest average among all CCS cross country teams. Congratulations to these scholar athletes!

‘I was unfamiliar with the course and it was mostly hills, which was kind of difficult,’ shared Ching following the race. ‘But after running hills up at MMS I think I was better prepared than I expected. I was especially pleased our girls team won first place for the scholastic award in our division!

‘At the beginning of the season, I joined the cross country team for exercise and fun — and because I didn’t want to play volleyball,’ she explained, smiling. This is a strong statement for a student at a school that lives and ‘breathes’ volleyball from elementary through high school. ‘Along the way, my teammates were all so open and welcoming that it made me really comfortable and more open, too; and not only for cross country, but at school and in my everyday life. At each meet our team and supporters were so loud and so confident; we weren’t ever first, but everyone was really happy and enjoyed being part of it!

‘For the CCS meet I was appreciative of the people who supported me and wished me good luck. I was nervous before the race and knowing I had people backing me up helped a lot. I couldn’t have been there without our awesome coach, Steven Harrington, and teammate (and ‘co-coach’) Ethan, who showed up at the race to do the warm up run with me, even though he didn’t have to.’

In addition to participating in the CCS finals, it was quite a weekend for Ching in other ways, too. On Friday she departed with several high school students to participate in the three-day Model United Nations Assembly at Stanford University. Early Saturday morning, instead of heading off to the committee she was assigned to, she donned shorts and running shoes and headed for the trails at the Crystal Springs Cross Country Course in Belmont. After the race, she didn’t miss a beat, returning to Stanford and rejoining the WWII Soviet cabinet committee to debate global political issues.

The Scholastic Championship Team awards were instituted by the CCS Board of Managers in 1985 as a way to recognize teams with the highest collective grade-point average in their respective sport during that season of competition.

‘My goal is to make it to state next year,’ said Ching. ‘Maybe not, maybe it won’t happen, but it’s my goal.’

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Photo by Shmuel Thaler

Contact: Leigh Ann Clifton, Director of Marketing & Communications,

Nestled among the redwoods on 355 mountaintop acres, Mount Madonna is a safe and nurturing college-preparatory school that supports students in becoming caring, self-aware and articulate critical thinkers, who are prepared to meet challenges with perseverance, creativity and integrity. The CAIS and WASC accredited program emphasizes academic excellence, creative self-expression and positive character development. Located on Summit Road between Gilroy and Watsonville.

Santa Cruz Sentinel: CCS Girls Volleyball: Mount Madonna’s Six Seniors Play Final Match in Loss to Santa Catalina

Santa Cruz Sentinel, 11/15/2015, “CCS Girls Volleyball: Mount Madonna’s six seniors play final match in loss to Santa Catalina,” by Julie Jag. Read more

Each of Us Plays a Role

Soon you will be receiving our Annual Giving 2015/16 campaign information in the mail outlining the need for each of us to be participate in Annual Giving.

Annual Giving campaigns at independent schools provide families with a tax-deductible way to help us meet the school years operating costs. Our students directly benefit from every dollar we earn.

Our current tuition rates fall short approximately $2,500 per student, averaged throughout the grades.