Congratulations to the six varsity baseball players who were honored for their many contributions to the team’s success during the team’s recent Senior Night!
“All of our seniors have been a key part of the program for the last five years, having lost their seventh-grade modified season to the pandemic, and had a truly positive impact on and off the diamond,” said Varsity Head Coach Joe D'Antono
Seniors, in numerical order, are:
●Infielder Nik Marrero (#1) – a three-year varsity player, and five-year member of the program who will continue his athletic and academic career at SUNY Orange.
●Infielder and Pitcher Nick Sommella (#2) – a two-year varsity player, and five-year member of the program who is attending Florida Tech in the fall.
●Infielder Dylan Acevedo (#5) – a three-year varsity player who will continue his athletic and academic career at Central Connecticut State.
●Infielder and Pitcher Nate Tormey (#8) – a three-year varsity player, and five-year member of the program who will play football at Alfred State University this fall.
●Outfielder Bobby Ayers (#12) – a two-year varsity player, five-year member of the baseball program who will be attending Stony Brook University.
●Infielder and Pitcher Nick Parco (#16) – a two-year varsity player, and five-year member of the program who will continue his athletic and academic career at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh next year.
Class of 2025 valedictorian Christopher Rickard and salutatorian Mia Abruzzese were among the valedictorians and salutatorians in State Sen. James Skoufis’ district who attended his May 28 Valedictorian and Salutatorian Celebration in Albany!
Students and their parents/guardians were treated to lunch, and a Capitol tour, introduced by Sen. Skoufis in the Senate chamber during its legislative session and presented with Senate citations acknowledging their academic accomplishments. It was an exciting day for all everyone!
“These young men and women are a fantastic group of scholars with bright futures ahead of them. I wish them - and all our Orange County graduating seniors - the absolute best as they complete their school year,” Sen. Skoufis said.
Shawne Demberg’s ES kindergarteners recently celebrated the 7th birthday of Addy, the therapy dog! In lieu of gifts, her class celebrated this sweet dog by donating items especially for dogs which were sent to the local Humane Society! Thank you to everyone who supported this drive, and Happy Birthday to Addy!
Thank you to members of the American Legion George Smith Post 1607, who visited Ashley Beairsto’s and Debbie Orrio's sixth-grade class to teach the students about Memorial Day last Friday, May 30.
Veterans Earl Demberg, Ronnie Aillet, Paul Gale, and Art Olah shared stories of their time in the military and shared positive messages of hard work and dedication to our country.
Becky Olah of the Ladies Auxiliary presented a history of Memorial Day and handed out poppies to the students with the help of Raegan Depola, a Post 1607 junior auxilian. The first national observance of Memorial Day occurred on May 30,1868, so their visit this past Friday made the day an extra special one.
AMAZING! Rain and unseasaonably cold weather didn't stop the fun and fundraising at the 2025 Otisville Elementary Color Fun Run! Over 200 participants had a fabulous time, and...over $10,000 WAS RAISED to support the wonderful work of the Otisville PTO!
Thank you to the Otisville PTO for organizing such a memorable and colorful day...and to all the sponsors, vendors and participants who came out! We appreciate you all!
See more photos on the district's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MinisinkValleyCSD
Buddy reading is a fun and useful ELA activity! Just ask Elisabeth Harrison’s Otisville kindergarteners, who regularly read to a class buddy!
That’s because reading to a peer further fosters a love of literacy, builds critical thinking skills, and enhances language development. Shared reading experiences also promote social-emotional development, improve memory, and increase children's understanding of the world.
High School families:
The Lors Photography site is now open for you to purchase from the galleries of photos taken by Lors photographers for the year 2024-25 school year. These include yearbook team photos, Senior Ball, Junior Prom photos and much more! Class of 2025 graduation photos willl be added shortly after the ceremony.
A portion of your purchase of any of these images will benefit the yearbook and allow the yearbook to be sold at a discounted price. (The preorders were all discounted from the actual printing cost.) Don’t miss out if interested!
CLICK HERE and check out all the great Lors images: https://lorsstudio.smugmug.com/Mini.../School-Year-2024-2025
Our Varsity Flag Football team played with fierce grit and tenacity today, May 31, but will not be advancing to the next level of play after today's 13-7 final against Section I champion Tappan Zee. But...the team is a NYSPHSAA regional finalist, and that's a huge accomplishment!
It was a close game, and this team has a lot to be proud of not only today.... but for the entire season. They represented Minisink Valley with pride and distinction in a very new sport for girls athletics in New York State. They will be back...and just as tough.
Please join us in congratulating the team for a great season.
HOW SWEET AND ENCOURAGING IS THIS?
The Girls Modified track team has been busy making these special “clips” using regular clothes pins and writing positive words or phases before a home game and secretly clipping them onto an opposing team member’s bag or shirt. It’s a Tik Tok trend initiated by volleyball players, and Head Coach Nicole Van Pelt asked her team if they’d like to join in! The team immediately agreed and created over 80 clothes pins with inspiring messaging for their Port Jervis opponents during a recent home match.
“We’re leaving ‘the visiting’ with an abundance of encouraging messages,” she said. “The girls jumped at the opportunity to partake in continuing Minisink’s reputable sportsmanship atmosphere, and to spread kindness.”
WELL-DONE, EVERYONE! Take a peek at their kind, inspirational clips!
WHAT A HOOT! Joseph Ferara’s ES second-graders, like all second-graders at the Elementary School, have been studying owls over recent weeks. In this unit, students learned about the parts of an owl, what owls eat, where they live, the different species and much more!
One of the biggest things that they learned was that owls swallow their prey whole! When they do this, owls will later regurgitate up the bones and parts they can’t digest as a pellet. As part of their work, students had the unique opportunity to dissect owl pellets. Inside, they found the bones of the different animals the owls eat such as mole skulls, mouse legs and more. Students used charts to identify the different bones they found. As part of their learning, many classes, like Mr. Ferara’s, incorporated other “owl activities,” including drawings and other crafts such as these adorable hats!
Kudos to members of the High School’s Robotics Club, who competed for the first time in the recent, KISS Institute for Practical Robotics’ New York//New Jersey Botball Tournament the Rahway Recreational Center in New Jersey!
The club designed autonomous robots using code and sensors to perform tasks on a game board. This year's theme for the game board was “a restaurant.” The designed robots performed tasks such as placing ice in cups and delivering the cups to the customer area, or sorting out condiments.
“This was the club’s first year back in the competition after several years and proved to be an overall learning experience,” said advisor Jonathan Hannes. “The club looks forward to taking what they learned and applying it to next year's competition with the goal of going further in the tournament.”
KISS is dedicated to sparking excitement for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through hands-on robotics programs.
Botball is a team-oriented robotics competition where teams design, build, and program autonomous robots to compete in challenges that change annually, fostering teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
Heather Iannucci of the Two by Two Animal Haven in Pleasant Valley visited Otisville K-2 students yesterday, May 28, with eight animal friends to talk to students about endangered species, their habitat and the importance of being kind and respectful to animals, Ms. Iannucci also talked about why some animals don’t make good pets and gave students while showing them a toad, alligator, parrot, tortoise, bearded dragon, chinchilla, ball python and kangaroo!
This traveling animal program seeks to educate the public about animals, their welfare and conservation, while fostering kindness and empathy for all living things. Thank you to the Otisville PTO for sponsoring the visit!
Please support the good work of the Minisink Valley PTO and purchase an ULTIMATE DISCOUNT CARD!
This fundraiser concludes Saturday, June 7!
Get all the details via this link: https://www.ultimatefundraisinginc.com/discount-card-store/physical
The Middle School’s Minisink Motivates Club recently traveled up to the Elementary School for their second annual reading of the "Weird" series by Erin Frankel to second-grade classrooms. Middle schoolers read a story from the series and then completed an activity with students. It’s another great example of positive inter-school relationships!
Middle school students and elementary school students had a great time interacting with one another and completing the activity. Take a peek at this wonderful example of inter-school cooperation and relationships!
In one book read to some students, Luisa gets made fun of for her polka dotted boots. She comes to find that they are just one thing that makes her unique. Students used a chart paper in the shape of a rain boot and received two polka dots. They decorated one in their own creative way. On the other one, they wrote something that makes them unique or something nice about themselves. Each of the students' polka dots were put onto the poster as a reminder of how special they are.
Other students were read a book about Jayla, a bystander who gets involved in a way that she isn't proud of. She is "dared" to do things that are unkind. Jayla is very interested in the solar system and even does a project on it. Each of these students were given stars to decorate and write on to put on a solar system poster.
Lastly, some students were read a book about Sam, the story’s bully. Students learned where her bullying behavior stems from. She loves to play guitar so the students put hearts on a guitar poster, which also included decorating one and writing a note on the other.
“No matter which book they were read, the message ended up being the same,” said co-advisor Lauren Pullen. “Everyone deserves to be accepted and know that they are special in their own way. After reading, our members helped each of the second-grade students talk about, identify, and write qualities that make them feel special. Our hope leaving this visit is always that students understand the importance of accepting and celebrating others for who they are, as well as loving themselves for what makes them different.”
Congratulations to the High School Band, which earned a rating of “superior” at the May 23 Trills and Thrills Music Festival at Lake Compounce in Bristol, Conn.
The band earned a combined score of 96.5 from the two adjudicators. The superior rating is the highest level presented by Thrills and Thrills adjudicators.
Their performance was held at Edison Middle School in Meriden, Conn, followed by a visit to Lake Compounce, the oldest continuously operating amusement park in the nation, which opened in 1846.
The Trills and Thrills Music Festival at Lake Compounce is an adjudication festival for student music groups. It's a unique opportunity to combine music education, social interaction and fun while reinforcing ensemble musical standards.
The tradition continues! The High School Marching Band and the Middle School Band again represented the district with distinction yesterday, May 27, in the Unionville Memorial Day Parade!
It was a gorgeous day to remember those who gave their lives in service to our nation, and the district was honored to be a part of the events of the afternoon.
This included a stop at the Unionville Cemetery, where students Vincent Galligan and Drew Jashembowski and played solemn taps. Senior Audrey Guido was the student speaker and guest speaker was County Executive Steve Neuhaus.
District kindergarten students, like Tiffany Guareno’s ES kindergarteners, are learning about “teen” numbers. They’ve have already mastered counting up to 20 and are now working on counting out groups of 11 through 20!
In order to do this important work, they’re being taught to model a “teen” number as “10 ones” and “some more ones.” During this recent lesson, they had the opportunity to visit a rekenrek (a rekenrek is a counting frame, often used in math education, that consists of two rows of beads), a beans and egg carton and a cubes station. Students were given a “teen” number and had to represent their number as “10 ones” and “some more ones” at each station! Take a peek!
Learning "teen" numbers (11-19) in kindergarten is crucial for building a solid math foundation. It helps children understand the concept of place value, which is essential for later mathematical concepts like addition, subtraction, and understanding larger numbers. It also helps them develop number sense, which involves understanding the relationships between numbers and quantities.
Kelly Manganiello’s and Tara Frawley’s Otisville fifth-graders, like all district fifth-graders, are currently learning about The Renaissance. As part of their discussions, their students been researching different sculptures and artists, including Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (known simply as Michelangelo) --- the sculptor, painter, architect, and poet from the Italian High Renaissance ---and his painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
In a very unique class activity, students simulated painting like Michelangelo via an under-the-table mural activity. They taped paper underneath their desks, laid on the floor and created artwork experiencing the similar challenges that Michelangelo did.
Michelangelo is most celebrated for the Pietà, the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes, and the David. These works, along with his architectural designs like the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, have cemented his legacy as a true Renaissance master.
•Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is renowned for its stunning frescoes depicting scenes from the Old Testament. Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling between 1508 and 1512.
•Michelangelo was primarily a sculptor, not a painter, and initially resisted the commission.
•The frescoes cover a massive area, with the ceiling painting alone spanning 12,000 square feet.
•The Sistine Chapel is the site of the papal conclave, where cardinals gather to elect a new pope.
THAT'S A WRAP! The first season of Unified Basketball ended yesterday and featured a Disney theme! What a wonderful season for this team! Head Coach Theresa Uhelsky and Volunteer Coach Kara Anderson-Winchell send their appreciation and gratitude to everyone who has supported this team and contributed to making these games fun and memorable!
The Varsity Boys Tennis Team’s seniors were honored at their recent Senior Night for their many contributions to the team’s success! Congratulations and best wishes to Liam Ordway and Dylan Percy!
