NEW EDITION – Pen & Paper – Volume 16 – Skies Askew

Matilda Jr!

Presenting Unquowa’s Spring Musical, 2026, Matilda!

After months of rehearsal and hard work, the 6^th, 7^th & 8^th grade cast and crew delivered an amazing production!   Every student involved should be proud. Congratulations to all!

Holocaust Survivor Endre Sarkany

Humanities 7th and 8th grade students and parents had the privilege of hearing from Holocaust survivor Endre Sarkany, whose powerful testimony brought meaningful depth to our courses of study.

Confronting hard history and bearing witness to survivor stories is essential to honoring the promise of “Never Again”. Experiences like this remind us of the vital role honest education plays in helping students understand the past to shape a more just future.

Our Foreign Language Speakers Accolades!

Each year the Connecticut Council of Language Teachers (CTCOLT) organizes a virtual poetry competition that invites students in grades 7 through 12 from across Connecticut to recite poems via Zoom in the languages they study.

This year, ten students from Unquowa participated, representing Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese, Hebrew, and Hindi among more than 400 language learners from independent and public schools. Students were assigned age appropriate poems, and teachers provided support to clarify meaning. During each recitation, students presented to a virtual audience and were evaluated on fluency, body language, and comprehension.

We are pleased to announce five Unquowa students placed in the top three across three languages: Sophia – 1st Place Gold, Middle School Heritage, Portuguese; Avery – 1st Place Gold, Middle School Heritage, Hebrew; Maxim – 2nd Place Silver, Middle School Level 2, Mandarin; William- 2nd Place Silver, Middle School Heritage, Portuguese; and Salma – 3rd Place Bronze, Middle School Heritage, Spanish. Congratulations to all participants for their dedication and excellent work. We are so proud and impressed of their success!

Sharing the Stories of Unsung Heroes Through Art and Writing

The seventh grade recently shared the stories of Unsung Heroes, individuals who made a positive impact on the course of history, but were largely unrecognized during their lifetimes, at a special reception for family and friends. Students were tasked with selecting and interpreting one of these Unsung Hero stories through art. They were allowed to work in any media, and they conducted extensive research on their chosen hero. Students also wrote artist statements to accompany their artwork that discuss the Unsung Hero’s unique contribution, the student’s creative process and interpretation, the hero’s enduring legacy, and what each student learned from the process. 

The students’ art and writing can be viewed in the online gallery. We hope that you are inspired by the students’ work as well as the legacies of these incredible individuals.

Language Learning Meets Real Life!

Leaving the classroom to visit the Colombian restaurant Noches de Colombia, our 7th and 8th grade Spanish students didn’t just learn about Colombian culture, they experienced it firsthand. From traditional breakfast dishes like calentados to freshly baked favorites such as almojábanas, palitos de queso, and orejas, to fun drinks like limonada de cereza and limonada de coco, students explored new flavors while deepening their appreciation for the culture behind the language.

What made this field experience especially meaningful was the students’ commitment to using Spanish in real-world situations. They confidently placed their orders in Spanish and continued speaking the language throughout the entire experience. In fact, the immersion didn’t stop when they left the restaurant—on the bus ride, students were enthusiastically singing in Spanish and continuing conversations entirely in the language.

At one point, their dedication was so strong that even Mandarin students who shared the bus ride back from their field experience, jokingly expressed frustration—they couldn’t get their friends to switch out of Spanish! Moments like these highlight just how engaged and excited our students are about their language learning journey.