GET WINGS and support the Class of 2025!
Buffalo Wild Wings in Middletown will donate 10% of your purchase on Saturday, Nov. 23 to support Class of 2025 initiatives. Make sure you bring this ticket!
Members of the Middle School’s Pet Club welcomed another guest speaker who shared her expertise and experience with them!
Retired vet technician Crystal Sovak, who worked in the field for 20 years, shared stories and real-life experiences with students. This also included showing students x-rays and dental images from different species!
But the real star of the gathering was Marvel, Ms. Sovak’s dog, who was a rescue dog! Marvel happily allowed Ms. Sovak to brush his teeth and trim his nails, which are both an important part of healthy pet care. It was a great opportunity for students to learn tips from a professional as well as to learn more about careers in the animal care field.
Ashley Hamilton and Bridget O’Mara-Green’s eighth-grade math classes recently created their own, unique tessellations to conclude their lessons about geometric transformations.
Learning about geometric transformations in eighth-grade is important because it helps students develop spatial reasoning skills by understanding how shapes can be moved, flipped, rotated, and resized in a coordinate plane.
In math, a tessellation is a pattern created by fitting together identical geometric shapes on a plane without any gaps or overlaps, essentially forming a repeating pattern that can extend infinitely in all directions. The shapes used in tessellations are typically polygons, and they fit together perfectly, repeating in a regular or semi-regular arrangement. The key characteristic of a tessellation is that each shape is arranged in such a way that it fills the entire area, and the pattern continues indefinitely in all directions.
Geometric transformations provide a crucial foundation for further study in geometry and has practical applications in fields like art, architecture, and engineering, where understanding how objects change position and size is vital. Plus: this also enhances critical thinking and problem-solving abilities by allowing students to analyze and manipulate shapes through transformations.
Dutch graphic artist MC Escher made woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints, many of which were inspired by mathematics. His work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyperbolic geometry, and tessellations. He produced his first piece of tessellating artwork in 1925.
What's for lunch at the Middle School? There's a lot to choose from: hot entrees, pizza, sandwiches, salads and more...there's something for everyone. And everyone eats for free!
Yum! Today, Nov. 7, is delivery day! The Middle School PTO's Krispy Kreme fundraiser was a huge success, with 323 boxes of doughnuts sold! (We cannot guarantee those boxes will be full when students arrive home today!) Thank you to the Middle School PTO for spearheading this effort!
CAN YOU HELP?
The High School's FBLA Club is hosting its annual Food Drive, with donations being accepted through Friday, Nov. 22.
Community donations may be delivered to the high school's main entrance, where it will be collected for distribution.
Support the Class of 2025 and add to your collection of outstanding Minisink Valley attire! The selections are great to wear for any occasion and for any event in any building!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
The Middle School’s annual Library Halloween Writing Contest was a success! Students were asked to write an “ode to the season” or create a Halloween themed character and write about it. All students, faculty and staff were invited to vote for their favorites in three categories. The winners are:
• Most Halloween Spirit: Molly Yourman, sixth-grade
• Best Artistic Design: Isabella Kaminski, eighth-grade
• Funniest: Sophia Tropiano, sixth-grade
Reminder! Minisink Valley has partnered with Paper, an online tutoring service, to provide students in Grades 6 through 12 with the ability to access live tutors seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Middle School students and family members have unlimited access to trained tutors so every student can ask questions, work through problems and grow their confidence at no cost to families.
Learn more: https://www.minisink.com/page/paper-online-tutoring-for-grades-6-12
Modified Volleyball Head Coach Kelsie Doller proudly says this volleyball season has been incredible to watch as each player has grown so much on and off the court!
“Being a part of a modified team is all about learning the fundamentals and, just as importantly, building confidence in yourself,” she said. “It's been inspiring to see them embrace every challenge, growing stronger together with each practice and game. One thing I always remind them: go after the ball! In volleyball --- and in life ---- if you want something, you've got to be bold and take that initiative yourself. These girls are learning not just about the game, but about going after their goals and believing in their own abilities. Here's to a season of growth, grit, and going for it!”
The Middle School Craft Club kicked off the school year with a canvas painting project called "Ghost in the Woods, a perfect choice for this spooky season!
At each session, students followed a painting tutorial while also adding their own creative touches to the paintings. Teachers Kaitlin Santos and Alison Miller are planning many creative craft projects for future meetings! To learn more, email to ksantos@minisink.com or amiller@minisink.com!
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!
Eighth-grade Life Science students are studying characteristics of life and in this instance, had the chance to have close encounters with earthworms! Students used touching and water and vinegar to elicit different reactions from the earthworm before returning them to the teachers.
In a life science lab, when studying earthworms with water and vinegar, you can observe their response to stimuli, specifically their sensitivity to changes in moisture and acidity, as earthworms breathe through their skin and are highly sensitive to environmental conditions, causing them to move away from harsh substances like vinegar, which is acidic, and towards areas with more moisture like water.
THINK PINK! The district is "going pink" on Thursday, Oct. 24 to support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month efforts!
Be part of the district's KINDNESS movement!
Support the good work of the Middle School's "Minisink Motivates" Club and by getting yourself some great KINDNESS apparel! The club will earn $6 from every order and will use it to spread kindness around the district!
Instrument lessons are an important part of a student musician's success! (But! They also need to practice at home!) Take a peek at Laura Hulle's middle school flutists having their instrument-specific music lessons!
In the U.S., flute players are generally known as flutists. But, another word often used is "flautist," which comes from the Italian word "flautista," which is a combination of flauto (flute) and -ista (-ist).
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!
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!
Photo reminder! Don't miss out!
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!)
