Otisville Elementary's and the Elementary School's annual Halloween parades are two weeks away! And you're invited to view the parades! It's one of our most memorable days of the year for our elementary students!
CALL FOR PHOTOS: Share a photo of your student's parade costume for a Halloween photo gallery!
Meghan Donohue's ES first-graders have recently completed an "apple-lutely fantastic" apple investigation!
Students used all five senses to observe, understand, and record information on various types of apples. They learned about where apples come from and their lifecycle, how apples are used, and how delicious they can be! To complete a great lesson, they used apples to make their own apple orchard paintings!
District fourth-graders, like Jen Kemmerer and Cheryl Wilson’s IS fourth-graders, are working on their personal narratives as part of the ELA work. A personal narrative is a true story about a person's life, and is a common writing assignment for fourth graders.
Their students are now focusing on the use of transition words in their writing and were reminded they can pick words from their “transition word bank” to use as they continue with their assignment of writing details about their personal topic of choice in chronological order.
Deanna Feuerbach’s IS fifth-grade music students have been studying the “science of sound” in a very creative way!
Sound is vibration that is measured in waves. All instruments create sound through vibrations. Students can sort the way instruments vibrate to make sound into five sound families:
•Aerophones are instruments that vibrate when air is blown into them.
•Chordophones are instruments that vibrate when strings are plucked.
• Membranophones are instruments that vibrate when a stretched surface is hit (all drums).
•Idiophones are instruments that vibrate themselves (rain sticks, maracas, jingle bells, shakers, etc.).
•Electrophones are instruments that vibrate through electricity.
As part of this lesson, five-graders were tasked with creating their own instrument made out of recycled materials. They identified which sound family their instrument belongs to and what recycled materials were used when they presented their instrument project to the class. Take a peek at a sampling of their creative work! Well done to all! This
This is how we do it!
School photo season continues! It's Photo Day at the Middle School today, Oct. 15. Here's another peek at how keepsake school photos are created!
Kimberly McDermott's ES second-graders have been learning about red wiggler worms that are are involved in vermicomposting. The students contribute items to the bin for the worms to eat!
Vermicompost is a nutrient-rich, organic fertilizer and soil conditioner made from the excreta of worms. The process of making vermicompost is called vermicomposting, and the worms used in this process are called earthworms, red wigglers, or white worms.
Mia McLean's ES kindergarten library students are reading a perfect book which aligns with Hispanic Heritage Month: Roseanne Thong's "Round is a Tortilla." The book introduces these young students to some Spanish language words while reinforcing many shapes found in every child’s day! For example, rectangles are ice-cream carts and stone metates, while triangles are slices of watermelon and quesadillas!
Interested High School families: A reminder that tonight, Oct. 15, the High School will hold a College Fair and Financial Aid night on Tuesday, Oct. 15. The financial aid presentation will begin at 6 p.m. Participating colleges and universities are listed below. Don't miss out if interested! To learn more, contact the High School's Guidance/Counseling Department at 845-355-5161.
We invite you to attend the Transportation Department's "Test Drive a Bus" and Bus Rodeo Day on Saturday, Oct. 19 beginning at 8 a.m.
Registration is open for the Intermediate School PTO’s Halloween-themed "Fun Run" which will take place Saturday, Oct. 26 beginning at 12 noon. PLEASE SHARE!
The “Monster Dash” is open to all district students. The course measures just over a mile and will flow along the fields below the Slate Hill campus’ tennis courts. Runners, who are invited to run in costume, will “dash” from station to station through the course collecting prizes in their supplied tote bags.
The registration fee is $15 per runner and includes a “Minisink Valley Monster Dash” reusable tote bag.
Following the run’s conclusion, a “Trunk or Treat” will be held in the tennis court parking lot.
To register, donate to a participating student or become a local business sponsor, visit: visit myfunrun.com/monsterdash.
The PTO will use all proceeds to fiancé school assemblies, fifth-grade “Class of 2032” t-shirts and “Minisink Valley spirit t-shirts” for third and fourth-grade students.
To learn more, email to: chair.is@minisinkvalleypto.com
Another example of great inter-school collaboration and creativity!
The Eighth-Grade Band was invited to play with the High School Marching Band during last evening's varsity football game!
The eighth-graders had the opportunity to experience what awaits them in high school; and marching band members were great mentors and hosts! Thank you to all for making this memorable experience possible! It was a great evening, which included a BIG varsity win!
There’s A LOT that takes place during district elementary music classes! Take a peek at Cliff Loretto’s ES first-graders, who are getting an opportunity to play the bass resonator bar while singing the rhythmic “Peep Squirrel” as part of their class lessons!
"Peep squirrel, peep squirrel,
"Do da diddle-um, do da, diddle-um,
"Peep squirrel, peep squirrel,
"Do da diddle-um dee."
SOUP’S ON! Victoria Ingrassia’s FACS students are now soup makers! They recently learned how to make homemade chicken noodle, broccoli cheddar, French onion and minestrone soup! Delicious! They’re perfecting important cooking skills as part of their work, including prepping, following a recipe and cleaning! What’s even nicer is the entire middle school faculty was invited to stop by for a bowl of soup! A wonderful act of kindness!
National Fire Prevention Month is celebrated every October to raise awareness about the importance of fire safety. The month-long event promotes life-saving practices and home fire safety education. As part of their fire safety lessons, Jess Paglia's ES first-graders created their own special posters noting their personal fire safety rule!
Pumpkins! Hayrides! Games! Cider and donuts! Otisville Elementary's Fall Festival continues today!
It's Fire Safety Day at the Elementary School! Our students are learning so much from our area firefighters!
Knowledge about how to function in a kitchen is an important life skill! Victoria Ingrassia’s sixth-grade FACS students are being introduced to important measuring, cutting and mixing skills in class while recently learning how to make “Baked Apple Brown Betty.”
A Brown Betty is a traditional American dessert made from fruit, usually apple, but also berries or pears and sweetened crumbs. Similar to a cobbler or apple crisp, the fruit is baked, and, in this case, the sweetened crumbs are placed in layers between the fruit.
Plus, guess what these students are also learning about: The importance of cleaning up in the kitchen when you’ve finished cooking! (Yes, moms, they can do this!)
Joseph Ferara's ES second-graders have been working on adding two-digit numbers using a number line. Number lines are visual representations that aid students' number sense for conceptual understanding of the magnitude of numbers and add to students' mental math for addition and subtraction.
Can you do this? Two-digit addition is a simple form of addition in which numbers are placed according to their place value of ones and tens and then added. Students start adding from right to left, that is, starting from the ones column and move on to the tens column. Once both the columns are added, they obtain the final sum.
Bailey Riley’s seventh-grade science students recently completed an online lab simulation in order to determine the density of certain objects seen every day. They were able to manipulate the sizes of them to see how they would change. They were also given a few "mystery" objects and had to do calculations to determine what these mystery items were based on their densities
Thank you to our colleagues at ACT Through Music in Glen Spey for their recent donation of 100 kits to the High Sc hool's Counseling Center! These kits are filled with mental health resources and goodies that our counselors will be able to use throughout the year.
These unique “ACT Kits” include stress balls, journals/pens, and words of encouragement that focus on mental health. We appreciate your kindness! To learn more, visit: https://www.actthroughmusic.com/
