Our Board of Education is simply the BEST and we’re very grateful for their support of and commitment to the Minisink Valley School District. Please join us in thanking them for all they do on behalf of our students! To mark the recent School Board Recognition Week, members of the Middle School’s Minisink Motivates Club stopped by the Oct. 24 Board of Education meeting to share thank you posters, cards and specially made coffee cup sleeves. Students offered everyone a meeting snack of water, tea or coffee, as well as crumb cake and a vanilla or chocolate Bocconotti. Thank you to this awesome group of students who are always looking to spread kindness and good will throughout the district!
Tomorrow's the big day! The Intermediate School PTO’s Halloween-themed "Fun Run" at 12 noon. Be sure you're registered!
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
The Elementary School's Oct. 24 Fall Fest was spectacular! Pumpkins! Tractor rides! Games! Cider and donuts! And, lots of fun with friends on a beautiful and brisk sunny fall day! Thank you to the ES PTO for all their work to make this a memorable day for our youngest students!
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It’s always wonderful when alumni return to the district to visit and share what’s going in their lives! That’s what happened yesterday, Oct. 23, when Coast Guard Seaman E3 Luke Greiner, a Class of 2024 alumnus, visited Jennifer DiSimone’s ES first-graders!
Luke is currently on serving 15 days of “Hometown Recruiting,” where he will be visiting local high schools (including Minisink Valley) to talk about the Coast Guard and what a Coast Guard career entails. After that, he will report back to his unit at Small Boat Station Wrightsville Beach, N.C. Luke is working toward specific qualifications before he goes to his A-School to study ME-Maritime Enforcement.
While visiting these little students, Luke talked about his work, answering a wide range of questions from students. Did you know that Luke has never saved a baby whale, or fallen overboard?
Luke brought John Fitzgerald’s “U. S. Coast Guard A B Seas” to class and challenged students to pick the Coast Guard word used in the book which aligns with an alphabet letter. Students did pretty good with their guesses!
After that, Luke wanted them to experience what every active-duty service member does in all service branches: MARCHING! Luke spoke to them about the importance of marching as a unit, because marching teaches the important lessons of. discipline, professionalism, teamwork, good posture, and pride. Thanks for visiting, Luke, and thank you for your service!
Fire safety cuteness!
Carmela Sill's ES kindergarteners made adorable dalmatian puppy projects as part of their important lessons on fire safety and awareness. 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.
Otisville Elementary's and the Elementary School's annual Halloween parades is just one week 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!
Class of 2025 families: It's time to order your student's graduation cap and gown! We're resharing details already sent to you! Thank you for your attention to this important information!
It's Day 2 of Otisville Elementary's annual Fire Safety Program, made possible through the support of our local fire agencies. Our firefighter partners presented important life saving awareness assemblies to our Grades 4 and 5 students. Ask them about it!
Measurement skills are also an important life skill! Second-graders, like Joseph Ferara’s ES second-graders, recently went outdoors to apply the estimating and measuring skills they learned in the classroom. Students estimated and measured objects as big as the playground and as small of as a blade of grass. They had to decide if it was more appropriate to use a meter stick, a ruler or a tape measure to measure the outdoor objects. Then, they wrote their measurements and drew pictures of the objects the measured with their partners! What a great outdoor “lab!”
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Who knew owl pellets are important learning tools for students? You do, now!
Take a look at Kimberly Jordan’s Living Environment Freshman Biology students recently completed lab work focusing on owl pellets. In high school, owl pellet labs help students to learn about food webs (the complex feeding relationships between organisms in an ecosystem), nutrient cycles, (the processes that move nutrients through the environment, providing organisms with the elements they need to survive) and energetics (how living organisms capture, store, and utilize energy through various chemical reactions within their cells), as well as even how organisms play ecological roles in their environment. And, of course, students also build their scientific literacy through their work!
It was Fire Safety Day today, Oct. 22, for our Otisville K-3 students! Thank you to our firefighter partners for teaching our students and reminding them about important life-saving information. Ask your student about this!
First-graders, like Erin Chase’s ES first-graders, are learning about digestion as part of their science lessons! They now know that the body’s digestive system helps turn healthy foods into energy and a body’s digestive system includes the mouth, esophagus, stomach, and small and large intestines. Ask them about this!
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
Kimberly Jordan’s High School Living Environment students have been doing outdoor Lichen exploration as part of their lab work. They’ve been using their knowledge of the Scientific Method to understand the natural world. As part of this, they were tasked with observing part of the high school campus to hypothesize why Lichen grow on some trees more than others. In biology, lichens are a small group of plants of composite nature, consisting of two dissimilar organisms, an alga and a fungus living in a symbiotic association. They're neither plant or animal, but rather they're organisms unlike any other on Earth. While most people may think lichen are a type of moss, they are actually a combination of an algae and a fungus. The fungus provides a structure for the algae to live in, while the algae provides food for the fungus. Also in biology, the study of lichens is called lichenology, which is a branch of mycology (the study of fungi).
Fire safety lessons can be fun!
Rosamaria Acevedo’s ES first-graders discovered and identified fire safety items during a recent scavenger hunt around the school! Before beginning the activity, students discussed the different items on their provided sheet. What does each item do? Where might they see these items? Armed with clipboard and pencil, students walked around the school and were on the lookout for items from the list. As students found an item, they stopped to make a tally mark in the box. Once they returned to the classroom they discussed the findings and their importance!
COOKIE CRISP CEREAL AND DIVISION! Rachel Sebold and Stephanie Gove/Kirsten Reid’s Otisville third-graders have been learning about division in a very delicious way!
“Equal sets” is typically the first division strategy taught, so the teachers used Pat Hutchins’ “The Doorbell Rang,” a story about friendship, sharing and cookies --- and which gives a great introduction to basic math concepts --- as their introduction to equal groups in math.
In the book, the mother makes12 cookies for her son and daughter to share and they are happy because they each get six. Then two more people come and they have to split the cookies by four, then six, and finally 12.
Students used their recording booklets and modeled division using the Cookie Crisp cereal to represent the cookies the children get in the book utilizing the fair share method. What a creative way to have a hands-on math lesson using cookie manipulatives, which were happily eaten once the lesson concluded!
What a great day! Twenty-one people attended the Transportation Department’s “Test Drive a Bus Day” this past Saturday, and we received many follow-up applications to join our outstanding Transportation team!
“We were thrilled with the opportunity to show prospective drivers how driving a school bus and, more specifically, driving a school bus for Minisink Valley can be rewarding and a great employment opportunity,” said Director of Transportation Dwayne Powers. “I believe we have the best transportation team in Orange County. They’re skilled and dedicated drivers who always put safety first when transporting our students to and from school. We welcome everyone who wants to be part of this great team.”
THINK PINK! The district is "going pink" on Thursday, Oct. 24 to support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month efforts!
