Brandt's Weekly Newsletter
9.17.2021
Inside this Edition
- Principal's Message w/ Back To School Night Information
- Grade Level Updates
- Related Arts and Science Updates
- The Counselor's Corner
- Nurse's Nook
- Meet the Brandt Staff
- The Friday Playlist
Principal's Message
We hit an incredibly important milestone this past Wednesday. We made it through five days of our instructional schedule all the way through for the first time. At this point, your children have all met their teachers, and they've started to get in the swing of expectations and routines.
As that is the case, YOU are cordially invited to meet our staff in two ways. First, please see our Meet The Staff Gallery featured at the bottom of this newsletter. Second, Back To School Night is scheduled for this coming Tuesday, September 21st, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM. Parents and Caregivers will have the opportunity to visit their child's classroom for a glimpse of their day-to-day routines. Keep in mind a few things for Back to School Night:
- Masks MUST be worn.
- The event is intended for adults only.
- Parents will report straight to their child's classroom at 6:30 to hear a video message from me and then a presentation from their homeroom teachers.
- Parents of students in Grades K & 1 shall enter through the Main Entrance of 9th Street.
- Parents of students in Grade 2 will enter through the Garden St. door.
- Parents of students in Grades 3 - 5 will enter through the Park Ave door.
- The initial session with your homeroom teacher will last until approximately 7:30.
- From 7:30 to 8:00, parents of children with multiple children will have the opportunity to go and meet their other child's teacher.
- Also from 7:30 to 8:00, students who receive instruction from Ms. Regan, Ms. O'Brien, or Mr. Caniglia will be able to meet and greet them as well. Please keep an eye out for an email from them specifically.
- Also from 7:30 to 8:00, there will also be an opportunity to briefly Meet and Greet our related arts and science staff members in the gym and the cafeteria.
- Remember, this is a "general overview of the school day" event. It is not an appropriate venue to engage your child's teacher about their progress or their needs.
As you know, our school district, through the help of the outstanding people at the Hoboken Public Education Foundation, is a 1:1 technology district. If your child has a district-issued device, I highly encourage you to sign up for our offered technology insurance plan. You can find the link for it on our HOBOKEN PARENTS AND GUARDIANS TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT website, which is here:
https://sites.google.com/hoboken.k12.nj.us/guardians/home
Speaking of online resources for parents, you are also able to fill out our School Lunch Forms
online if you have not already returned the paper copy to your homeroom teacher. You can find more information here:
http://www.hobokenschools.org/cms/one.aspx?portalId=2822372&pageId=3627093
You will also have the opportunity to fill out the form if you have not already done so during Back to School Night. Whether or not your child eats a school lunch, all must fill out these forms as every one is critical for government funding.
Last year, several of our 3rd and 4th grade students entered projects into the NJ STEAM Tank Regional Competition. The STEAM Tank Challenge encourages students to apply science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) in response to issues facing the world today. It lets students contribute to making the country sustainable, healthy, equitable, and safe. The New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) created the program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Army. I am so proud and pleased to announce some of our entries were chosen to compete in the NJ STEAM Tank State Finals! Congratulations to our chosen finalists, listed below with their project title in no particular order:
Find Tech 2000:
Shayna Fried
Raaga Hari
Dylan Tessler
Snacker Bottle:
Reaghan Lewis
Lia Russo
Harper Tow
Ocean Sanitizer:
Josephine Schlusser
Gabriella Stein
Jonathan McDonald
Alexandra Crimmins
Enviro Tech:
Kabir Sahu
Steven Crespo
Isabella Ziff
Waterproof LapTop Cover:
Audrey Osborne
Annabelle White
Daniel Goldman
Gavin Watkins
This week we began our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. We celebrate to recognize the achievements and contributions of Hispanic and Latino champions who inspire others to achieve success. Each month we have the opportunity to highlight the contributions of various groups that have added so much to the richness of our culture. While we work to reflect these contributions in our work throughout the year. September 15th to October 15th is time set aside to celebrate the many contributions our people of Hispanic and Latinx descent have brought to our community and our culture as a whole. Out students will engage with a variety of activities over the course of the next month. We will also take the opportunity to highlight authors, scientists, inventors, explorers, and innovators as well as the many contributing people of Hispanic and Latinx descent right here in our district!
On September 23rd, our students in grades 3 - 5 will get the chance to virtually meet author Katherine Applegate, who write the book Willodeen. Our students in grades K - 2 will also have an author visit in the coming weeks.
Also, remember tonight's PTO Back To School Party at Columbus Park is postponed until next Friday, September 24th.
Please make sure you have a great weekend, and be sure to check out this week's playlist in recognition of Hispanic History Month!
- Mr. Bartlett
IT'S COOL TO BE KIND
These friends were caught throwing kindness like confetti this week!
Dylan Decker helped another classmate understand the lessons and activities in class.
Nina Sirota warmly welcomed and helped a new classmate that joined us from a different school.
Shayna Fried volunteered to escort a younger student to her class when she was unsure of where to go during arrival time
Ms. Regan lent a helping hand to students in need in several occasions this week.
Kindergarten
First Grade
Second Grade
In Reading, students have been engaging in creating their classroom rules "Do's and Don'ts" by first thinking of things we shouldn't do in the classroom, and turning them into what we should be doing.
In Writer's Workshop, students have explored their new writing tools in order to begin becoming authors. Students discussed how important it is to have the tools they need when writing their own stories and were given the opportunity to explore these materials to understand their importance and when to use them in their Writing workshop.
In addition, in Science, students were asked to create all about me worksheets to introduce themselves to each other and myself. They were also introduced to the rules within the class and were asked to choose 1+ rules and draw what it looks like to follow that rule.
In Social Studies we are mindful of how we react to specific situations as well as how our brains work. Students are practicing various ways to and techniques in different situations and how to handle each.
Lastly, in Math students are becoming familiar with their materials and getting comfortable with displaying their work in various ways to solve while communicating their ideas.
Third Grade
We’re very excited to start the year with our third graders! This past week we jumped right into community building activities, read alouds, math games, and creative writing. Students had opportunities to learn about their classmates through play and exploration.
In math, students created "Math About Me" posters in Ms. Waag’s class. Students reviewed place value, time, and measurement, as well as learned some new games the students will use throughout the year. The third grade students are learning how to use repeated addition to assist them with multiplication. Students are drawing pictures and using stamps to create arrays that display a multiplication equation.
In ELA, the students embarked on a unit surrounding the popular read aloud "The Day the Crayons Quit.” In Ms. Tainter’s class, students got to pick a crayon & write their own creative letter to the story character Duncan of why they as crayons “quit.” Going along with Ms. Kontogiannis’ classroom superhero theme, students wrote about their own superpowers. Students picked one character trait as their superpower and described how they display that character trait on a day to day basis. Students then discussed the importance of that trait.
For social studies, students focused on building a welcoming classroom community and had many opportunities to share about themselves. Students created personal goals for the month and steps of how to achieve them. This week Ms. James’ group read the book “The Magical Yet” and discussed all of the things they can’t do yet at by themselves, educationally and on technology. Students then made a list of all the things they hope to be able to accomplish this year.
For challenge & support, third grade students are using the diagnostic tool to identify key math and ELA skills to work on. Students explored IXL and their recommended skills. IXL is a wonderful resource to help understand each child and develop an appropriate plan for their learning. In Ms. Rodriguez’s class, students are using IXL to navigate the site and how to use the real time data to improve their ELA and Math skills by tracking their class growth.
Fourth Grade
In fourth grade, our students have started the year with great enthusiasm! They have been diving into engaging read alouds that help discuss critical themes that tie to classroom expectations. Students have been active participants in creating these classroom expectations and discussed the qualities they look for in their classmates. To build a connection between ELA skills and SEL, every class has listened to read alouds such as “The Good Egg,” “The Bad Seed” and “The Cool Bean”--which all rely on powerful figurative language to discuss specific themes. These themes include: loving yourself, striving for balance not perfection, and it’s cool to be kind. Students have participated in meaningful and insightful class discussions regarding these themes!
In ELA, students have also been busy setting up their Reading and Writing Workshop notebooks by determining goals they hope to achieve this school year. Students discussed the SMART acronym and used this to help guide the development of reading and writing goals.
In Math, fourth grade has hit the ground running by reviewing skills and concepts from last year while embarking on their new Investigations curriculum, which focuses on multiplication!
In Social Studies, students have discussed September 11th, and the importance of honoring and celebrating real-life heroes. Students are currently working on “A Hero to Me” writing pieces, in which they select a hero in their lives and describe specific character traits these special people embody.
In addition, fourth grade has launched their new Social Studies curriculum, Young Citizens. First up, life of the first peoples in the Americas. This interactive curriculum has an awesome online component that involves the fictional community of Mapletown.
The entire fourth grade team is looking forward to a wonderful school year!
Fifth Grade
It was a busy and buzzing week in 5th grade as we excitedly settled into the start of a new school year!
In Social Studies, students began with a Growth Mindset unit to develop the foundation for academic and personal success. We explored strategies and techniques that can be used to cultivate this mindset through various activities, discussions, and personal reflections. This unit will provide students with the skills they need to thrive and flourish throughout this school year and beyond!
In ELA, 5th graders were hard at work engaging in Start Strong ELA lessons to refine their skills in reading and writing. This week we explored strategies related to reading informational texts to make inferences, summarize, and understand various text structures. In addition, students are excited to jump into our first novel study, Love That Dog, a novel written in free verse by author Sharon Creech. Students will begin by exploring metacognitive strategies to monitor their comprehension as they read.
In Math, students reviewed and polished up on previously learned concepts as a part of our Start Strong initiative. This week we explored topics related to place value, addition and subtraction, and multiplication. As we dive into our first math unit: Puzzles, Clusters, and Towers, students will be investigating the properties of numbers as well as multiplication strategies. We started off by building arrays to discover the properties of prime, composite, and square numbers.
The Counselor's Corner
Welcome back friends!
I'm so excited to begin another year as your school counselor. I'm so impressed how our students and staff have jumped right back into our routines like we never left. It's been great seeing all the smiling faces around the building. As your school counselor I am here to help with any needs you may have throughout the school day.
What does a School Counselor Do?
-Provide support for students to ensure they maintain academic standards and set goals for academic success.
-Develop programs to provide students the skills to improve organization, study habits, and time management.
-Assist students on working through personal problems that may affect academics or relationships.
-Help students improve social skills.
I'm looking forward to a great year ahead!
Email: jhosbach@hoboken.k12.nj.us
Physical Education
This week the students played Hula Hoop Showdown and Fitness Ladder Frenzy. The objective of the two games were to move from one area to another through various locomotor movements and to help student think about choices. Physical education is about lifelong learning and ensuring a healthy body. As we think about that, we also need to understand the choices we make and consequences that follow. The students used their cardiovascular system by using various hops, jumps, and movements. Muscular endurance was needed for those who were successful and stayed in the game for longer periods of times. We also were able to reset and make different choices if the first did not work as planned. As a class we discussed we make mistakes and we learn from them. In a classroom we can use an eraser if we wrote something incorrectly, in PE we reset and get back into the game and try again. Life long learning means never giving up.
Mandarin
Spanish
Bienvenido a la clase de Español. Our friends Brandt began their school year by sharing their goals for learning Spanish!
Art
This first week in Art class, we began by becoming familiar with each other once again, and spoke about our growth the past year, how we spent our Summer, and what we really look forward to working on and learning this year. The students were really excited to create some wonderful drawings, and sketches, and share their stories and pictures with their classmates and with myself as well.
Wednesday, September 15th, was International "Dot Day." We watched a small reading of the book, The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds, which illustrates the power of a teacher's actions and how it can change a child's life. The book speaks about the importance of teacher-student relationships, and shows how creative thinking can unlock a child's own creativity, confidence, and growth. The little girl's teacher in the book encourages her to make a mark on the paper after being frustrated and not having any inspiration on what to draw, and this begins her journey into discovering that you can make beautiful art with just dots. It also teaches students that they can do anything that you set your mind to.
The student's then created and illustrated their own "dot art," which will be on display for all to see later this week.
Music
For our first week of music with our kindergarten to second graders, we listened to Mozart's The Magic Flute!
Students used writing, coloring, and drawing to express how the music made them feel and responded around the classroom with their thoughts.
We played some call and response games to gauge the student's interests in different musical areas, and we are sure to see amazing work from these groups soon!
Our third, fourth, and fifth graders played Musical Kahoot—a rapid fire fun quiz including musical trivia and knowledge-based questions to get our students excited for the upcoming year of music! Musical Kahoot was a wonderfully energized activity to get to know where our students' musical knowledge lies and how we can grow that knowledge. We are so thrilled to see the magnificent things our students will create and compose this school year!
Science
In addition to familiarizing ourselves with each other, establishing daily routines, reviewing expectations, distributing books and preliminarily exploring the online component of the Dimensions series, we also discussed some introductory lessons in our science classes. Some of the initial content we've covered so far includes topics such as sorting, similarities and differences, careers ( including various types of engineers, veterinarians and meteorologists ) and thunderstorms, with an emphasis on lightning. Overall, we've been impressed with the kindness, manners, preparedness, focus and discipline we've experienced from the students during their science period through the opening days of the new school year.
Students began working on the concepts of engineering and technology. They worked on identifying different types of engineers and how they design items that are helpful to us.
Students are able to establish and apply the rules used in their school day to science specifically. They learned about and discussed different types of scientists and what they do.
Students completed a fun, interactive lesson involving science themed primary resource pictures from the Library of Congress. This allowed us to learn about different types of sources and start getting comfortable sharing our thoughts and ideas in front of the class. The students were introduced to the five steps of the scientific method through a short video and got to apply the steps with an interactive activity involving gummy bears soaked in various liquids.
Mr. Metcalfe's students were able to use their creativity with Google slides to express their own meaning of science in pictures and words. The students also explored how the scientific method is used and how it can be applied to everyday situational problems. They enjoyed working with peers on shareable documents in order to express their ideas.
Nurse's Nook
WELCOME BACK!!!
I just wanted to say that it has been such an amazing start to the new school year. Having a full building back, hearing all the laughter and little chatter, seeing the students at their desks, and getting the updates on how their summers went has filled my days with smiles.
I want to thank all the parents for continuing to send you children with masks, filling out the covid forms, and adhering to the district’s reopening plan. We have a fantastic Brandt Community and we recognize all that you do to help us guide and teach your children. Remember, if you ever have a question about the reopening plan and any possible changes, never hesitate to reach out.
As an important reminder, if your child has any new or pre-existing medical condition that you would like us to be aware of, please note it on the health history form that was sent home and contact me if you need to give any additional information. If your child has Asthma, any kind of Food Allergy, or will need medication given in school for any reason, please have your physician complete the forms below. This is to be done annually. Medication, OTC or Prescribed, CANNOT be given without a doctor's order.
Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Emergency Care Plan
Medication Administration Form
If your child went for their annual physical over the summer or has an upcoming appointment, please have the physician complete the form below.
For any families that are new to the district or I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet, I want to quickly introduce myself. My name is Nicole and I am the Brandt School Nurse. This school year is my 9th year as a School Nurse. I have worked in the elementary, middle and high school settings. I also previously worked as a Mother/Baby Nurse at Hackensack hospital for 4 years. I was born in Hoboken and raised in northern NJ but have lived in Hoboken, until recently, for the last 11-years. School Nursing has become a passion of mine because I get to connect on a different level with the students. My job is to keep students safe, healthy and in school. I try to get to know something different about each of my “frequent fliers” or just occasional visitors so that the Nurse office is a place of security and comfort.
If you ever have any questions or concerns, I am available by phone or email listed below.
I know it is going to be a great school year.
Nicole DeMatteo BSN, RN, CSN
201-356-3757
Email: ndematteo@hoboken.k12.nj.us
Website: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/steps-when-sick.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fabout%2Fsteps-whe