This Week @ OPS
Good News & Highlights from across the District!
November 14, 2019
Kindergarten Word School
Dix Street's kindergartners finished up their "Word Scientist" unit in Phonics, and celebrated by having Word School with stuffed animals. The students played I spy, made sentence patterns, and taught their animals the SNAP words they have been studying. How fun!
Rube Goldberg Projects
Fourth grade science was a wild ride over the last couple weeks as students put together their Rube Goldberg engineering projects. This is always a fun project for students to design, built and rebuild to get it all to work!
ASD Program Highlighted at Board Meeting
Monday's Board of Education meeting was held at Dix Street Elementary where our special education department highlighted the ASD program, now in its second year at OPS. Special Education Director Alice Hoekstra highlighted how our program works to strengthen their independence, social skills and life skills through both social and academic focuses. ASD teachers talked about their programs at their schools and how their kids interact with Level 2 and Gen Ed classmates. The Links programs, which take place at OMS and OHS, but also in a smaller way at DSE, the impact of the ASD program at Otsego is visible to both ASD and general education students. One of the parents also spoke to the board about the great strides she has seen in her daughter with the programming and staff here at Otsego. This is truly a source of #OtsegoPride for OPS!
AIM Class Celebration
The OMS AIM class had their end-of-trimester celebration. AIM stands for Attitude, Integrity and Mindfulness. Mrs. Garrett took over the class this year and had several great surprises planned for the kids' celebration, including notes of praise from their teachers! The kids were overwhelmed with the kind words. It was a great day!
"Bugsy Malone" a Sold Out Hit
This past weekend, the high school choirs performed three sold-out shows of "Bugsy Malone" at the OHS Auditorium. This dinner theatre-style show was held on the auditorium stage. There were fun activities prior to the show in the lobby, attendees were encouraged to dress in their 1920s apparel and the show was fantastic! This performance provided a different type of dinner theatre for students; they performed this instead of the Medieval dinner this year.
Next up... Mamma Mia in March!
MS Teachers Receive Grants
Melissa Garrett and Heather Sokoloski both received $100 grants from Honor Credit Union to help out their classrooms. Mrs. Sokoloski will purchase calculators to keep in her room for students and Mrs. Garrett's grant will go toward more beautification projects in the courtyard with her AIM class. (AIM stands for Attitude, Integrity and Mindfulness)
Students shared their work and future plans for the courtyard outside.
Students show off their work and pose for a picture with the Honor Credit Union representative.
Mrs. Sokoloski will use her grant to purchase calculators for her classroom.
Veterans Day Activities
Students across the district honored veterans on Monday through different projects. Through the activities, they talked about the meaning of Veterans Day and wrote letters of thanks.
Snowy Walk for Sprouting Naturalists
This wintry weather provided a perfect backdrop for this week's Sprouting Naturalist activity at Learn 'N Grow Early Childhood Education Center! The students walked through their nature areas, finding animals and discussing whether they migrate or hibernate.
Students Participate in World Kindness Day
From hallway bulletin boards to anonymous notes to classmates, our students participated in World Kindness Day in many ways. Some watched videos that stressed the impact of kindness; many classrooms read books that focused on kindness.
Anonymous notes
After watching a video on kindness, and reading the book "The Three Questions", Mrs. McLaren's class each drew a name and wrote an anonymous note to that student. The kids had very sincere and thoughtful messages!
Letters to the "one"
Students in Miss Sparks class answered the question "Who is your one?" then wrote that person a letter to tell them why they are important to them.
Kindergarten Kindness
Kindergartners in Mrs. Beall's class get to put their name on a feather to add to the kindness turkey when she catches them doing or saying something kind! It's fun to watch it grow!
Supt. Attending Youth Apprenticeship Summit
OPS Superintendent, Jeff Haase, was one of 34 superintendents chosen nationwide from AASA, the School Superintendents Association, to attend the Youth Apprenticeship Summit in Denver Thursday and Friday. Attendees are hearing from a variety of speakers talking about new ideas and practices they're using for giving students career experiences. This afternoon, they visited Cherry Creek Innovation Campus. There are four superintendents from Michigan at the event.
OHS Food Drive
The OHS Food Drive just ended with a final count of 2,400 items and $1400 donated! The OHS Food Drive goes toward the Otsego Christmas Basket Project.
Word Detectives Promoted!
The 1st graders at Dix Street were promoted from Word Detectives in Training to full-fledged Super Secret Detective Agency (SSDA) Word Detectives. Mr Rollandini, an SSDA field operative, was there to swear them in. The new agents will be called upon to solve hard words everyday in every book they read. Congratulations to the new SSDA Agents!
Have something to share for our new "Weekly Good News"letter?
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Have a great weekend and #GoDawgs!
#OtsegoPride
Holly McCaw, Director of Communications
Email: hmccaw@otsegops.org
Website: otsegops.org
Location: 400 Sherwood Street, Otsego, MI, United States
Phone: 269-694-7910
Facebook: facebook.com/otsegops
Twitter: @OtsegoSchools