Otisville Elementary was proud to have a small role in welcoming home veterans who were part of Hudson Valley Honor Flight's recent Mission 35 to Washington, D.C.! This WELCOME HOME banner was signed by everyone at Otisville! Students also made beautiful cards of appreciation!
Reminder: The 2025-26 student calendar has been available for everyone's use!
Today, April 11, Otisville Elementary welcomed members of its incoming kindergarten class for a fun morning learning about the library and music classes they will attend this fall! It's always an adorable morning when these little ones and their parents/grandparents/guardians visit to see all that awaits them. Take a peek at their cutie-pie faces!
We always appreciate Librarian Erin Andersen's and Music Teacher Skyler Klein's making them feel so welcome!
READY, SET....GO!
THANK YOU to everyone who helped make the annual Otisville Kindergarten Spring Egg Hunt (it may have been more like a race ) so much FUN for these little ones, who joyfully and gleefully ran around to gather as many eggs as they could! Everyone went home with eggs filled with goodies and smiles on their faces! It's a wonderful school tradition, which involves the "big kid" second-graders who set up the "hunt!"
Lillian Preziosi's Otisville fifth-graders surprised Assistant Principal Nikachi Griffin with this wonderful poster to show their appreciation for all she does! Many schools are doing the same and we thank all our district's assistant principals for all they do to support students, faculty and staff every day!
Please join us in congratulating these Otisville fifth-graders for their wonderful performances at last weekend’s NYSSMA Festival at Monroe-Woodbury Middle School:
• Elizabeth Claus
• Charlotte Coppola
• Leah Galligan
• James Karpinski
• Amelia McCarey
• Zoey Perkins
• Lucas Rider
• Lydia Rider
• Iliana Rivera
• Avery Slomka
• Harper Walsh
They each performed three major scales from memory, a solo for their instrument, and short sightreading example. Each musician had fabulous performance at the festival earning top scores in addition to receiving invaluable feedback from their judges!
For the past two months, these hard-working musicians attended extra help sessions before and after school with band teacher Maria Fenfert, and their hard work certainly paid off! Well done to all!
Meet the student scientists of Otisville Elementary! They wowed their peers, families and guests at last evening's SCIENCE FAIR! Take a peek at their displays and the evening's very cool science presentation! THANK YOU to everyone who played a role in this event's success; we appreciate you!
See more photos on the district's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MinisinkValleyCSD
Earlier this week, Kayla Fischer's, Lindsay Kane's and Melissa Manganello's Otisville first-grade classes went on a fabulous field trip to the Hudson Highlands Nature Center in Cornwall-on-Hudson!
Students learned about and met about “local” animals including the black rat snake, a house mouse, a toad and a rare albino pigeon. They learned about distinguishing characteristics, life cycles, special adaptations and habitats!
As part of their great day of learning and fun and a day out of the classroom with their peers, students hiked through the local forest and spied woodpecker holes, tree rubs made from white tail deer, plants that appeared to be growing out of rocks and the path that the great glaciers made through the land thousands of years ago!
Otisville Elementary’s PBIS and Diversity committees worked together today, March 28, to continue the school's “One Book, One School” year-long initiative, with faculty and staff switching up classrooms to read James Catchpole’s “What Happened to You?”
The book is first-ever picture book addressing how a disabled child might want to be spoken to. It tells the story of a boy living with a physical impairment of the leg. Joe is faced with a slew of questions on the playground about what happened to his leg: “What happened to you?”
When Joe continually diverts the questions posed by the other children, their imaginative guesses become more elaborate much to Joe’s frustration. The book offers a gentle, yet matter of fact way, that makes the reader (no matter the age) on asking about one's disability in a respectful and empathetic way.
Earlier in the week, students were given clues as to who their mystery reader would be.. Each classroom had two staff members read to the students in each room. Teachers from the previous grade read to their older students. It was a lot of fun, with some students getting a chance to visit with last year’s teacher! Most importantly, it was a great opportunity to reinforce important themes of respect, caring, empathy when encountering any one with a disability. Ask them about it!
Tasha Buchler’s Otisville second and third-graders are so “eggs-cited” to have six fertilized chick eggs in their classroom, and are on stand-by to welcome the soon-to-be born chicks, which have an estimated due date of April 1!
The eggs arrived on March 11 as a gift from Zoe Lockburner, the 4-H Livestock Program Manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Orange County. Ms. Lockburner recently visited their class to check on the eggs and to help students “candle” them. Candling an egg means shining a bright light through it to examine the contents, especially the embryo's development, and assess the egg's quality, fertility and viability.
Chick eggs have an incubation period of approximately 100 days. They’re staying warm in an incubator, set at 100 degrees, and are turned about 15 times a day to mimic what their mother hen would do.
As part of her visit, Ms. Lockburner read students Sauer’s “A Little Chicken,” the story of a chick who faces her list of fears one by one, ultimately catching a bouncing egg just as her new sister hatches. Thank you, Ms. Lockburner, for the visit!
Otisville families: Be sure your calendar is marked for Thursday, April 3 for the Otisville Elementary Science Fair at 6 p.m.! Our wonderful student scientists have been working hard and with great creativity and are looking forward to sharing their work!
Guest readers from Cornell Cooperative Extension recently visited Otisville Elementary to read to students as part of their activities to mark Agricultural Literacy Week. Students were read a book about pumpkins and given a planting kit so they could plant pumpkins this spring! Thank you to former Otisville teacher Karen Krogslund, Gerda Krogslund and Ed Fairweather for stopping by!
Cornell Cooperative Extension's New York Agricultural Literacy Week (ALW), held annually in March, is a state-wide initiative that connects volunteers from the agricultural community with elementary school classrooms to share the story of agriculture through book readings and hands-on activities.
Part of district fourth-graders’ studies of the American Revolution include more than just learning the historical facts. It also includes taking the material and applying an ELA application to it: What do certain words actually mean and pulling examples from their readings to demonstrate this, in addition to other ELA elements.
Take a look at Susanne Balfour’s Otisville fourth-graders, who are working on this through their activities workbook which work in tandem with the Amplify Reading Program’s Unit 7. This unit focuses on the American Revolution, covers the causes and events of the revolution, including the establishment of the thirteen colonies, the French and Indian War, key figures, and major ideas in the Declaration of Independence.
This recent Otisville Elementary lunch menu featured hot pretzels as part of the day's lunch offering! And it was a big hit, too! Take a look! REMEMBER, breakfasts and lunches are free to everyone! Please encourage your student to try both, and as an added perk, there's two less things for you to take care of each school day!
ST. PATRICK’S DAY FUN: ROLLING FOR GOLD!
Kelly Bernice’s Otisville second-graders also had some St. Patrick’s Day-centric math fun playing several rounds of the “Rolling for Gold Math Game!”
Students rolled the dice, added the dice and then move along on the gameboard. They took turns rolling and adding. If they landed on “a Leprechaun’s hat” they had to move back several spaces on the gameboard. If they landed on a shamrock, they were able to move forward several spaces. Whoever reached the “Pot of Gold” at 100 won the game!
This fun game reinforced addition skills, promoted number sense and fluency and encouraged strategic thinking and problem-solving!
ST. PATRICK’S DAY FUN: MAGICAL MATH
Jessica Kahn’s and Julia Ferguson’s Otisville kindergarteners celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with some fun, “magical math” work!
First, students took the marshmallow bits in Lucky Charms cereal and sorted them by shapes. Then, they counted each type of marshmallow bit, took those numbers and graphed them on a bar graph. Lastly, the teachers and students discussed which marshmallow but was “the greatest and least” for each student, including if any had the same amount.
Bar graphing is important in kindergarten because it helps children develop foundational math and data skills, including counting, comparing, sorting, organizing, vocabulary and understanding basic data representation, all while making learning fun and engaging.
HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S day from the big and little lads and lassies at Otisville Elementary!
Understanding verb/tense agreement is an important skill for district fifth-graders to master! Take a look at Mary Louey’s and Alyssa Pagano’s Otisville fifth-graders, who are practicing identifying present tense subject/verb agreement during this recent ELA lesson. They’re really good at this, by the way!
There are 12 verb tenses in English, encompassing the simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous forms across the past, present, and future.
Today, March 14, is the All District Choral Festival, which was held at the High School! Fifth-grade, eighth-grade and high school choral students gathered to make music and share their choral experiences. Part of the day included rehearsing for their performance of "Connected," which will be performed on Tuesday, March 18 as part of the Music in our Schools Concert at the High School! Be sure to be there to see the results of their hard work! This large ensemble sounds magnificent! Thank you to everyone who played a role in today's event!
REMINDER: HAVE YOU SIGNED UP?
OPEN TO ALL AGES....DON'T MISS OUT, there's limited seating and a similar program held last fall SOLD OUT!
The High School Art Club is hosting a Spring fundraiser called “Printing” on Tuesday, March 25 at 4:30 p.m. in Room 217 at the high school.
In this workshop, participants will learn the art of printmaking on fabric. They will create stamps and use ink as a medium to make beautiful, handmade, wearable pr hangable art.
Participants will be guided by a talented Minisink Valley Art Club student to create one-of-a-kind artwork.
Reservations are required by scanning the QR code on the flyer below. Refreshments and snacks are included in the admission price:
Adults: $12
Children/students: $10
Siblings discount: $5 per additional sibling
Cash only, payable at the door.
All proceeds will go toward art scholarships, museum field trips for art students, additional supplies for our art club studio, and other events.
