Rockville Centre students stay sharp at summer enrichment program

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Students proudly displayed their journals that they worked on in a class called Write On.
Students proudly displayed their journals that they worked on in a class called Write On.
Jen Curran/Herald

The ACE Program Summer Enrichment program encouraged kids to go to school in the summer — for fun, that is!

Jennie E. Hewitt Elementary School hosted the ACE — short for Academic and Cultural Enrichment — program, which allows kids to explore their creativity, and athletic ability while learning along the way. The camp, which wrapped up on Aug. 2, ran about 20 days, and this year hosted 540 children.

“The kids can pick three classes, and we have about 40 different classes they can choose from, all taught by certified teachers from the district,” explained Jim Duffy, who oversees the program.

The children have the opportunity to choose anything from Cooking Around the Globe, to robotics, to a new class called Perfectly Pinterest, which seems to be a new favorite for some, including fifth-grader Bridget McCormack.

“You take crafts from Pinterest and you recreate them,” Bridget said.

Several of the classes also spark the students’ interest in fields relating to science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM. Classes like Math Mania, Battle Bots, and Summer Science Lab are designed to disguise the learning through fun.

“You build robots and fight them,” Lilah Thorne said of Battle Bots. “Each robot has a balloon and you attach a certain number of tacks to your robot in order to pop each other’s balloon,” added Kate Palya.

No summer camp is complete without some outdoor play. Chris Zappia, a physical education teacher and the instructor of Play Ball, said he was happily surprised to see the growing interest in wiffle ball from the kids. “It’s great because all of the kids around here play lacrosse,” he said, “and to see them interested in wiffle ball is really cool.”

“Our summer enrichment program is a wonderful partnership between the Rockville Centre School District and our school community,” Dr. Christopher Pellettieri, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, told the Herald.

“Keeping students involved in school in lessons they love right here in our community is truly a win-win for our parents, our students and Rockville Centre Schools as it can help battle Summer Slide,” he added. “It seems like more and more students are joining us each year and we could not be happier.”