SUMNER – Using a $2,500 grant from the Michael Jordan Fundamentals Foundation, Hartford-Sumner Elementary School third grade teacher Linda Andrews-Chute and her class have been able to explore what it means to be an American.

The grant is available to schools where at least 50 percent of the student body is eligible for the federal free hot lunch program.

Hartford-Sumner qualifies with a little over 50 percent, Andrews-Chute said.

Andrews-Chute sought the grant for her gifted and talented pupils in grades three though six.

The grant provided for:

• purchasing copies of the book, “They Behaved Cleverly,” a fiction based on the diaries and lives of New Englanders in the 1700s;

• a trip to the state capital in Augusta where the third-graders opened a session of the Maine House of Representatives by singing the national anthem. The third-graders also performed a concert in the State House rotunda;

• another trip to the state capital for middle school students, who worked as pages for state representatives;

• performances by students in four local nursing homes;

• a hike to two Revolutionary War graves in Buckfield; and

• funding for ongoing pen pal correspondence between pupils and deployed American soldiers.

The grant also supported research projects on famous Americans and the creation of paper mache’ puppets for third-graders and to support teaching of classic American folk and patriotic songs.

“These were very popular at the nursing homes,” Andrews-Chute said.

The grant also enabled class T-shirts to be designed showing the class names and American symbols, which they wore on their field trips.

On Saturday, 10 of the 15 third grade pupils in the gifted program showed their knowledge of history with the paper mache’ puppets at a short assembly for parents. They also sang American songs between each puppet presentation.