School Board Report for OTES
January 2019
Winter Kids at OTES
First of all, the goal of WinterKids is to develop an active lifestyle within your school community. I will admit, the OTES community is very active and teacher value finding ways to connect students with nature with our outdoor learning classroom, gardens, and interactive playground activities. That being said, we are always looking for other ways to build our positive school culture and continuity within our K-5 programming.
Each week the students and staff are challenged with activities to build an overall healthy approach:
WEEK 1: Outdoor physical activities: 5 physical activity challenges
WEEK 2: Nutrition: 5 healthy eating challenges
WEEK 3: Family Engagement: 5 physical activity and nutrition activities at home.
WEEK 4: Winter Carnival, January 30th, our PTC will be helping to organize this event.
Each weekly challenge are worth 25 points each week. There are chances to earn bonus points and OVERACHIEVER Points too! The winner of this state wide challenge can win up to $5,000! We would love to win the money, but our focus is really on creating our healthy environment!
Communication is the Key to Success
We have made communication a priority and have concentrated on several ways to connect. Many of the teachers have used an app called Remind which texts the parent with updates, reminders, or general information. We also heavily rely on our Facebook Page and New Website to get updated information to our parents in a timely manner.
In February, we are sending out a survey asking for some input about our communication and will use the data to gauge our work and next steps. Here's a link to our survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/X8J9HS5
Author Visit in January
- Each year we explore our Author Visit with the idea we want to expose students to a variety of genres. We try to develop the programming to engage our students with books and get them excited about how books are made. The author visits can be one of the most exciting times for our students.
- Two authors are visiting this year:
Russ Cox; https://www.smilingotis.com/
Roger Stevens: http://mainefocusphotography.biz/
- To prepare our students for the author visit, the teachers and the librarian provide a lot of pre-teaching about the authors.
- In our school, we have two story walks using the authors' books and we have hung those pages along the long hallway for teachers and students to read during their free time or inside recess breaks.
- Author visits are funded by our PTC (Parent Teacher Club). The PTC really helps to provide some activities that connect our students more deeply to the curriculum and give them additional experiences that expand their world.
Upcoming Events at OTES
January 16: Author Visit
January 16: D.O.G.S Meeting
January 18: OTES Talent Show Try Outs
January 21: No School MLK Day
January 23: Children's Fund Meeting
January 25: Interim Reports Go Home
Feb 6: PTC meeting