Fall Farmer's Market a Huge Success!

Green Club members with their tables of produce!

Chard, tomatoes, peppers, and sage, oh my! TMA’s Green Club got the garden ready for winter by sponsoring a Farmer’s Market this past Thursday after school with the season’s final harvest. Green Club members sold herbs such as thyme, rosemary, sage, chives, lavender, parsley, mint, and dill, as well as other vegetables, including green tomatoes, several kinds of peppers, eggplant, and chard. 

Ms. Lee rings up a customer.

All of the produce was grown in TMA's Garden!

 Elegant bouquets of zinnias, marigolds, and mums, made by Sydni Foshee, were also a huge hit! 

Green Club was also fortunate to be joined at the Farmer’s Market by Candice Sullivan, a personal chef matched with TMA through the Chefs to Schools Program. 

Chef Candice Sullivan and Ms. Lee at the beginning of the market.

  

Ms. Sullivan gave recipe ideas to interested buyers and explained how to store herbs until ready to use (wrapped in a damp paper towel in in the fridge).

Selling the produce at the packed farmer's market

  The Farmer’s Market sold almost all of the harvested produce and made nearly $100 to support the efforts of Green Club! Not a bad way to end a season!

Law Firm Tutoring Highlight: Crowell & Moring

DaQuan Gunn works on homework

 With eight weeks under their belts, TMA’s 11^th grade class continues to excel at the Law Firm Tutoring program each Tuesday. This past Tuesday, students who attend Crowell & Moring arrived at the firm and sat down to dinner (some of them already working on homework!). Once their tutors arrived, students and tutors turned their minds to essays, history projects, close readings of poetry, and math homework.

Monee Ford and her tutor

Each student at Crowell & Moring is paired with 2-3 tutors who rotate each week; often, students will have two tutors helping them! Students and tutors at the firm usually sit side-by-side at small tables, so that the two are working together to help students improve. Throughout the session, students and tutors talked both about homework and life outside of LFT, with tutors explaining their day-to-day work at Crowell & Moring, and students discussing classes and TMA’s social life.

Charell Williams gets some help from a tutor

After another successful evening of tutoring, students waited at the elevator to head back down to the bus. “I really like coming here,” said Tabria Green, “I get more work done here than I would at school!”

Charell Williams agreed: “It’s better when there’s someone right there to help you with your work!”

Press Pass Mentors

Congratulations to juniors Beverly Carpenter, Malachi McCaskill, Earica Parrish, and DeNiyca Short on their acceptance to the Press Pass Mentor Program! Through this program, students are matched up with journalists from the Washington Post who serve as their mentors for two years. Students and their mentors travel across the city for behind-the-scenes field trips to the White House, Redskins games and more. Press Pass students will then write articles about their trips which will appear on the Press Pass Mentors blog. This great opportunity allows students to learn more about the field of journalism and develop their writing skills with help from a real reporter. To find out more about the program or get involved next year, find one of these lucky juniors or speak to Ms. Sher in the Dean’s Suite.

Flag Football Flies to Championship

After a 21-0 victory over National Collegiate yesterday, the mighty Warriors will be going to the championship game! The Warriors will take on IDEA Academy this Monday, November 7th at 5:00 at Cardozo High School, 1200 Clifton St. N.W. Thanks to all the fans and cheerleaders who came out to cheer them on to victory. A special shout out goes to Ms. Ames and Ms. Moore for helping to supervise the "little warriors".

Interested in coming to the game on Monday? A fan bus will leave the school at 4:00 if you want a ride to the game. See Ms. Thompson for a permission slip and more information. GOOOO WARRRIORS!

TMA Unplugged: Blazing Trails in the Great Outdoors

After a surprisingly snowy Saturday, the sun broke out in full force through the autumn leaves this past Sunday afternoon as fearless members of TMA Unplugged: The Wilderness Club set out for a hike in Rock Creek Park. Starting at the Park’s nature center, the group set off for a trail head hidden behind the horse center and riding ring. Seeing the horses were a telling preview of the first foot on the trail. The first half-mile a steep downhill challenged the TMA trailblazers to maneuver around piles of horse manure and carefully place each step. The route then traversed along Rock Creek leading to a bridge back onto Beach Drive. In the spirit of Halloween, the path veered outside the park for a visit to Battleground National Cemetery, a burial ground for Civil War Union soldiers who fought at nearby Fort Stevens. Students relished the opportunity for a bonus and Halloween-inspired history lesson while munching on Halloween treats and their homemade GORP.

After leaving the cemetery, the hearty trailblazers returned to the park and followed a different uphill route to return to the nature center. Special guests on the outing included mentors (and former TMA teacher) Mr. Kaplan and Devin Johnson, Mr. Campot, and Riggs, the Wilderness Club’s resident mascot (pictured below).

Interested in exploring the great outdoors in DC and beyond? Join the Wilderness Club for breakfast every Friday at 8 AM and help to plan the next outing!

Green Club Goes Orange for Halloween

Green Club members explored the spooky side of gardening this week…with Halloween-themed pumpkin painting! Donated by the Capitol Area Food Bank and harvested from TMA’s very own garden, the pumpkins became the canvas for a variety of artistic styles. Whether spotted, striped, grimacing or grinning, these pumpkins proved to be a huge hit! 

Pumpkins waiting to be painted.

Veronica Davis and Shandale Scott prep their pumpkins.

Green Club members in the planning stages.

Troy Stringer's ghoulish design...

Malachi McCaskill hard at work!

Ms. Fried shows off her pumpkin!

 

Michaelann with her sunny, but scary pumpkin!

What will these intrepid Green Club members think of next?!? Stay tuned…

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Doors Opening: Mentor Program 2011

The excitement in the air was palpable last Saturday morning at TMA as 60 new mentor pairs met each other for the first time. Joining 20 returning mentor pairs, all students and their mentors spent a fun-filled day together. TMA students and mentors participated in a Metro-themed series of activities and made stops in different rooms where they participated in a scavenger hunt (U Street Searchozo), planned their first outing together (World Wide Webly Park), interviewed each other and then participated in a quiz game (Quiztal City) and then played teambuilding games including the human knot (Fort Knotten). The day culminated with a cookout where family members gathered to meet students’ mentors.

Look for another Mentor Program update in November. The next Mentor Day is November 19^th!

Mentor Rafia Zahir-Uddin and mentee Derricka Black at Quiztal City.

Mentor Omar Newland and mentee Malik Clark after planning their first outing at World Wide Webly Park.

Candidates Ramp Up Campaign for 2011 SGA Election

The field is set and the race is on for leadership positions in the TMA student government. Candidates submitted applications to run last week, and the campaign began Monday ahead of this year’s Student Government Association elections, set to take place November 8.

Students running for school-wide office will speak at the Pep Rally on Tuesday, October 25, while candidates for class representative will speak to their classes at lunches next week.

Here are the candidates for office for the 2011 election:

School President

Collecha Newby (12^th grade)

Kesha Payton (9^th grade)

Nick Tucker (10^th grade)

Vice-President

Taylor Middleton (12^th grade)

Elsie Mayo (12^th grade)

Secretary

Doneeisha Brown (9^th grade)

Treasurer

Allanxandria Hall (12th grade)

Freshman Class Representative

Carlos McKnight

Anthonya James

Cericia Wallace

Sophomore Class Representative

Kadeejah Johnson

Stewart Gray

Junior Class Representative

Kijon James

Frances Jackson

Darah-Rose Allen

Nadean Talley

Senior Class Representative

Aleah Mass-Covington