February '25 Acceleration Academies

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• An Amazing Week of Learning and FUN at Acceleration Academies
• High School Acceleration Academy
• Middle School Acceleration Academy
• Elementary School Acceleration Academy
• Soccer Without Borders February Break Clinic!
• Thank You Staff!

Staff and students reflecting on their experience at Acceleration Academy.

El personal y los estudiantes reflexionaron sobre su experiencia en Acceleration Academy.

500 students attended the three Acceleration Academies at Chelsea Public Schools during February vacation! Students at our high school, middle school and elementary schools participated in these academic programs focusing on English Language Arts (ELA) instruction. Students engaged in lessons based in a variety of topics such as environmental justice, poetry, journalism, documentary writing and more!

Students were recognized for the work in the classroom, perfect attendance, and even participated in field trips during the school vacation week. Keep scrolling for photos, videos and more details about all the activities at our schools last week. Stay tuned for information about the Acceleration Academies, focused on STEM, that will happen during April Vacation!

Acceleration Academy is all about rethinking how we learn and teach by offering unique, hands-on learning experiences. This week, we focused on connecting the arts and literacy by giving students the chance to explore and create something that shows their discoveries.

Art and literacy go hand in hand, helping us express stories, feelings, and ideas. While art lets us communicate these messages, literacy helps us understand them. Together, they help us see the world more clearly.

We hope students will keep exploring, finding inspiration, many “Aha!” moments, and creating or writing about what they love and find meaningful.

Thank you for a fantastic week!

Ms. Floyd & Ms. Romero

• On Day 1, students explored Newton’s 3rd Law via Balloon-Car races.
• On Day 2, students tried their hand at wind resistance, by dropping eggs from 20 ft high.
• On Day 3, students took to Bernoulli’s Principle to the limit by making giant paper airplanes and testing them out in the gym.

During the week Ms. Francioli’s MLE English 1 class explored the theme of heroism through the Percy Jackson Graphic Novel and its movie adaptation: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

The week began with students defining what makes a hero and reflecting on their own personal heroes, connecting these ideas to the characters in the story. They analyzed Percy Jackson's journey and the challenges he faces, relating them to their own experiences of overcoming fear and doubt, especially in the context of their transition to Chelsea. As the week progressed, students delved deeper into character motivations, comparing the portrayal of heroism in both the graphic novel and the film.

Activities included discussions, movie watching, reading, and character analysis, with students making personal connections to the challenges the characters faced. On Friday, students presented their final projects—posters that illustrated their personal journeys and drew parallels with Percy’s adventures, showcasing their growth as heroes in their own lives.

This week, students in Mr.Barrera’s MLE English 2 class read Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Graphic Novel.

At the beginning of the week, students individually created a definition of the word “hero.” As the week went on, students learned about heroism through the character of Percy Jackson, but also through their own experiences of overcoming fear, anxieties, and adversity.

An important word we learned this week was the word “quest”. After reading about Percy’s quest in the Graphic Novel, students created a map of their own quests to the United States and reflected on the many ways they are heroes in their own stories.

This week, students in Ms. Floyd’s class read a variety of narrative essays from “The Book of Delights” and listened to a variety of slam poems. Students analyzed the author’s craft in the texts they read (identifying allusion, juxtaposition, symbolism, metaphors and more!) and wrote analysis paragraphs about how the authors conveyed powerful or meaningful themes through these choices. Students crafted their own “delight narratives” and slam poems, then dove into the editing process—refining and elevating their work to mirror the powerful techniques of the authors they explored throughout the week!

Environmental Justice Through Literature & Art

This week, students learned about the importance and root causes of environmental justice. We analyzed the effectiveness of artwork designed to protest environmental injustices and generated our own environmental justice posters. We also analyzed environmental narratives and determined author’s choice and mood of the narratives, and wrote our own stories!

• Analyzed George Ella Lyon “Where I’m From Poem” Frida Kahlo’s self portrait, Sandra Cisnero’s My Name and Jessie J’s Who You Are using Think Write Pair Share, See Think Me, We, and Chalk Talk among other cool micro practices!
• Metaphor Me Challenge- created metaphors for each other to represent our identities, values and dreams!
• Name & Identity Collage, Where I’m From Poems & explored our school identity.
• Explored MFA! So Fun!

This Acceleration Academy we focused on ourselves as individuals, self love, and community growth! We dived into self identity and caring for each other as a form of supporting the communities that are important to us. We analyzed poetry and wrote our own, as well as studied art and created our own.

Poetry 📖 📇

This week we looked at 12 poems––a combination of old classics, contemporary poems, and slam poetry!

Annotations & Analysis 📝 💭

We worked together to tackle each poem and make sense of them, looking at what’s on the line, off the line, and between the lines!

Synthesis 🕸️ 🗣️

We then synthesized each day’s grouping of poems, finding thematic connections between them and creating mind maps to trace our thinking and learning.

Altered Books 📚 🎨

We spent every afternoon putting together our altered books. During this creative time, we thought about how we could visually represent each poem and make creative choices to not only showcase, but extend our thinking and analysis of the poetry itself.

Museum of Fine Arts 🖼️ 😍

We loved our trip to the MFA and left feeling inspired to come back to CHS and do more art! :)

The following images are examples of the altered books created by out 11th grade students!

Connecting Poetry to Universal Themes

Students analyzed sets of 4 poems and connected poetry to themes of identity, community, legacy, and reslilience.

Finding Commonality Across Diverse Poetry

Students worked individualy, in pairs, and in groups to connect and synthesise the themes in diverse poetry sets.

Exposure to Different Types of Poetry

Students analyzed traditonal, slam, and spoken-word poetry.

Creating Art that Reflects Poetry

Students created art using mixed media to reflect the themes and imagery of the poetry.

A Final Product

Poems, student analysis, and art was all assembled in an altered book.

A new addition to the offering of extended learning opportunities for CPS students was the Teen Referee Certification Program! This program is a comprehensive course designed teach our students the essential skills needed to officiate sports games with confidence and authority.

Participants learned the rules and regulations of the sport: basketball, soccer, etc., develop game management strategies, and gain valuable experience in handling in-game situations and player safety. The program also emphasizes communication, conflict resolution, and decision-making under pressure.

After completing the course and passing a certification exam, teens will be fully equipped to referee local games, gaining leadership experience while earning extra income.

Students received expert and hands-on instruction from an experienced referee of NCAA Division I sports. Every student who participated is now a certified Teen Referee, equipped with the skills and knowledge to excel on the field.

Fifth grade students learned about children activists and created their own books!

Sixth grade students created news articles after reading "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind".

Seventh and eighth students practiced documentary writing based on the real-life events that they studied!

All students participated in an Art special and took field trips to Salem, Mass. for a walking tour of the historic city!

Elementary school students from the Berkowitz, Kelly, Sokolowski and Hooks Schools also participated in Acceleration Academy last week.

Below you'll find a video recap of Chelsea Public Schools students' experiences at the February 2025 Acceleration Academy! Students experienced hands-on ELA instruction over this program that occurred during February Vacation. Students wrote poetry, completed artwork and more.

There is another video that showcases all the students' poems and more pictures from a wonderful week of learning and fun!

Chelsea Public Schools (CPS) students also participated in a soccer clinic with Soccer Without Borders (SWB)! Through CPS' partnership with SWB, elementary and middle school students played soccer over four days during the break at the Williams School. Students had fun with their classmates while continuing to develop their soccer skills!

Thank you to all of our wonderful staff members who put together a wonderful reach of enrichment and academic development for our students. All of our program supervisors and teachers created welcoming environments where students felt belonged and ready to learn. See the quote below for perspective for a CPS staff member on the impact of Acceleration Academies.