Westport Students Visit Newtown

By Eliza Hallabeck

Saugatuck Elementary School second grade teacher Katie DiPerrio Bloom said this week that her students may have felt a heightened experience when visiting Newtown, because the Newtown native had been sharing stories of her childhood home with the students before their visit on Wednesday, October 13.

The entire second grade from the Westport school examines different communities each year to compare them to Westport. In previous years students have studies Stamford and other towns. This year, Ms Bloom and three fellow second grade teachers and their classes visited Newtown.

“They loved the flagpole,” said Ms Bloom after the visit.

During the day in Newtown, the second graders met with First Selectman Pat Llodra at Edmond Town Hall, visited Newtown Savings Bank, Ram Pasture, and Ferris Acres Creamery.

The four classes also broke up to visit different places in town for a brief part of their stay in Newtown. Students toured the C.H. Booth Library, Newtown Police Department, and The Newtown Bee offices.

The second graders also spent some time drawing the Newtown landscape view from Castle Hill.

Ms Bloom said Mrs Llodra was a wonderful with the tour group.

Back in Westport, the second graders are working to organize the information they gathered on Newtown to compare it to the time they spent touring their own town on October 5 and October 6.

Ms Bloom said some of the students enjoyed Newtown so much, they reported back on Monday, October 18 — they had ventured back with their families to eat at Ferris Acres Creamery again.