News from the Hill
September 30, 2016
Principal's Message
What a wonderful first month of school we have had! It has been a treat getting to know everyone at Hillside through bus time conversations, classroom visits and recess fun. Our PTSA Back to School Picnic was a great success too. Thank you to all students, families and staff that joined us in celebrating the new school year!
Per new state regulations, all school districts are required to test all sources of water for lead. This includes drinking fountains, sinks, hose bibs, etc. The Hillside water was recently tested on September 22, 2016 and the updated results will be posted on our district website under Announcements. Of the 89 samples collected at Hillside Elementary School, 15 sources had lead concentrations that exceeded the recommended levels 15ppb. In compliance with the regulations, we will be shutting off the 2 drinking fountains affected and children will be able to use alternate fountains. Additionally, we will be posting signs near affected sinks so that children and staff are aware it is not a drinking water source. The district is working to improve this situation. In the meantime, please feel free to send your child into school with water bottles that can be kept in their classrooms. Thank you for your kind assistance as we address this issue.
On November 16-18th, a team of educators will visit our schools for the Tri-State Review. This committee will be giving us feedback on student engagement and will speak with focus groups comprised of teachers, students and parents. In order to support this effort, below are some questions that may be helpful to use as conversations starters with your child:
1) What was your greatest success/proudest moment today? How did you feel?
2) When were you kind today? Brave? Surprised?
3) How did you help someone today? How did someone help you today?
4) What was the most challenging thing you did today? How did you meet the challenge?
5) How did you work as a team today? With whom did you work? What was your role?
On Friday, October 7th, Hillside will be having our first lockdown drill. The state mandates that we conduct four lockdown drills a year, one each quarter. The first one is the only one that will be announced. Students will be told that we are simply conducting a drill for safety, much like a fire drill. We will be working with the Hastings-on-Hudson Police Department for this drill to ensure that our protocols are efficient and effective.
Important Dates
- October 6th- Health and Wellness Fair POSTPONED until the spring.
- October 7th- Lockdown Drill
- October 10th- Columbus Day- No School
- October 12th- Yom Kippur- No School
- October 14th- School Pictures
- October 21st- 9:35 AM Late Start
- October 31st- 9:30 AM Halloween Parade
- November 8th- Superintendent's Conference Day- No School (for students)
We invite you to join us for the festive Halloween Parade at 9:30 AM on Monday, October 31st. More details to follow!
Wishing you a wonderful, restful weekend!
Warm regards,
Amy Cazes
CLASSROOM NEWS
Kindergarten
We are so proud of our kindergartners! These beautiful children have seamlessly transitioned into a brand new school. Each day, the children are learning new routines, making lots of great friends and enjoying our classroom activities. This month, we are learning and reinforcing our letter sounds (Fundations), practicing letter formations (Handwriting Without Tears) and even making our own alphabet books! Wow! We are also enjoying learning about two dimensional and three dimensional shapes in a very hands-on way! We are having a great time in K!
First Grade
First grade is FANTASTIC! As we welcome our students back to school, we are all excited for what this year brings! Our children are settling into their new classrooms beautifully and are learning to make new friends, sing songs and learn new classroom routines. We have started our Fables unit and our students look forward to hearing stories such as: “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” “The Goose and the Golden Egg” and an all-time favorite, “The Little Half-Chick” (Medio Pollito). Valuable discussions are had, where children figure out the moral of each story and relate the lesson to their own lives. In math, first graders have begun their work with addition and subtraction of numbers through 10. This review will lead students through composing and decomposing numbers.
Second Grade
The students are settling into the routine of second grade nicely. In literacy, we are working with fairy tales. We have read a range of fairy tales. The students determined which parts, including characters, settings, beginnings, endings and plots, characterize the stories as fairy tales. As a follow up, we have begun our work with expository writing. The students have been asked to write a couple of sentences that state the reason a story is a fairy tale with a specific detail from the story to support their statement.
In math, we are currently working with measurement, specifically with meters and centimeters. The students will undertake a variety of tasks to practice measurement with both units and to determine the best unit for measuring a particular object.
Our social studies work has centered around the concepts of community, including how and why communities establish rules. We have used children’s literature, including What if Everybody Did That? and Roxaboxen to teach the concepts and generate discussion.
Communications Class: Grades K-2
As a class, we have been getting to know our classmates, our routines and our schedules. In Kindergarten, we are learning and reinforcing our letter sounds (Fundations), practicing letter formations (Handwriting Without Tears) and even making our own alphabet books! We are also enjoying learning about two dimensional and three dimensional shapes in a very hands on way! In First Grade, we have started our Fables unit and our students look forward to hearing stories such as: “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” “The Goose and the Golden Egg” and an all-time favorite, “The Little Half-Chick” (Medio Pollito). Valuable discussions are had, where children figure out the moral of each story and relate the lesson to their own lives. In math, first graders have begun their work with addition and subtraction of numbers through 10. This review will lead students through composing and decomposing numbers.
Communications Class: Grades 3-5
The students have had a great start to this year. In ELA we are reading books that stress the importance of school. We are focusing on story elements (setting, characters, problem and solution) and answering comprehension questions when reading these books. In Math, we are learning about place value, counting by ones, tens, hundreds and thousands and using place value for addition. In Social Studies we are focusing on maps and how to use them and learning about our great state of New York. In Science, we are learning about living things by sorting items into the categories of living versus nonliving. We look forward to an exciting and productive year!!!!
Integrated Learning Class: Grades 2-4
Third Grade
3rd grade has taken flight! We have started our multiplication and division unit in math. Children are learning various strategies to learn their facts, and to solve word problems. In ELA we have begun our power reading unit, which includes learning about how children around the world access books to learn. Our Third Grade theme is, “How does WHERE you live affect HOW you live?”. We have read books such as: Ruby’s Wish, Rain School, That Book Woman and Beatrice’s Goat. In science we are in our “Living Things” unit. We have been learning about physical and behavioral adaptations and how they help animals survive in their habitat. Our focus right now is on camouflage. We have been creating camouflage prints and next we will have our first outdoor activity. In a “Camouflage Hunt” students will become birds as they search for worms (tri-colored pasta) to see camouflage at work in a food chain.
Fourth Grade
4th grade is off to a wonderful start! In math, students are already learning the place value of multi-digit whole numbers, and are recognizing terms such as expanded form, unit form and standard form. In ELA, students have finished reading The Stories Julian Tells, and we have used this book to help us build strategies as readers such as finding the perfect reading spot, and stopping and jotting to help us understand what we read. In Social Studies, students are learning about the landforms of New York, as well as its waterways. This will prepare us for our upcoming study of the Iroquois people. The 4th grade teachers enjoyed meeting so many of you at Back to School night and we look forward to seeing you at parent conferences in November.
Art
Welcome Back! The first two art class have been very exciting. The Art Studio will be celebrated the International Day of the Dot on September 16th…ish. Please take a look at the DOTS around the Art Studio. Also, the fourth graders have begun drawings for the Yearbook Cover that will be submitted to Mrs. Troop at the end of September. Please visit the Hillside Art Blog for updates about the Art Studio - http://www.hohschools.org/Page/1225
Music
Music classes are off to a great start! Instrumental lessons have also started. Remember to check the lesson schedule and send your child into school with his/her instrument, book, and folder on lesson days. Third and fourth grade chorus has started and will continue to meet on Tuesday mornings from 7:50-8:30am.
Ms. Concra’s classes: Kindergarteners have started their Hillside music adventure. We are developing echo and steady beat skills while we learn about each other and the music room. 1st graders are reviewing echo and steady beat. We are also working on controlling our voices by experimenting with a range of silly voices and pitch inflections. 2nd grade just started a song from Ghana. We are using rhythm sticks to practice steady beat and coordination by passing the sticks to their neighbors. 3rd and 4th grade are working on graphic notation project. Students are using different shapes to create compositions for their peers to perform. We will compare the performance to the composers’ intentions. Look for the compositions on the bulletin board outside Ms. Concra’s room.
Mr. Campbell’s classes: Kindergarten and first graders are learning to develop their singing voices and keep a steady beat through short echo songs and rhyme chants. They are also moving to music and learning simple tunes and chants with and without words. Second graders are learning about the difference between loud (forte) and soft (piano) sounds through singing, chanting, and playing instruments. The third grade students are learning about ABA form and how there are common patterns in pieces of music. Both third and fourth grade students have begun learning to play xylophone, metallophone, and glockenspiel. The third graders are playing steady beat accompaniments to songs they sing while the fourth graders are learning to play simple tunes by ear using solfege.
Physical Education
This week all grades have started our soccer unit. K-1 are focusing on playing cooperative games in order to develop their passing skills. In grades 2-4, we have reviewed the proper technique to passing, dribbling, and trapping the soccer ball by working in partners. This year is off to an energetic start and we are are proud of all the students and the enthusiasm they bring to class.
We are asking our 3rd and 4th graders for help with our bulletin board. Our theme is TEAM, Together- Everyone-Achieves- More. We would like students to bring in pictures of themselves working as a team and writing about it on a 3X5 index card. The teamwork can be in sports or any other activities they are involved in. Some of the students have given us great ideas such as yard work, cub scouts, girl scouts, and of course their outside sports teams. Please send the pictures and “blurbs” whenever they are ready. Thank you!
FLES
All students are working on their “Todo sobre mí” (All About Me) unit.
In Kindergarten we are learning how to introduce ourselves to others and ask for someone’s name!
First graders are extending their knowledge on how to initiate conversation and diving into greetings! Depending on the time of day they may say, Buenos días, Buenas tardes, or Buenas noches!
Second grade is focusing on stating how they feel by answering the question, “¿Cómo estás?” using the sentence starter “Estoy…”
In the third grade, students are focusing on talking about activities they like and dislike by using the verb “gustar.”
Our fourth graders have just finished publishing a book entitled “Todo acerca de mi” and now are enjoying their time learning about adjectives to describe themselves while meeting other people!
Grades 1-4 we will be reviewing key vocabulary learned last year as we prepare for our country studies.
For more information on the FLES curriculum, to check out the Back to School Night Presentation, or to find useful links you can access at home with your children please refer to the website nunez-fles.weebly.com.
Library
Our big news is that Bob Shea will be the Star Author of March is Reading Month, joining Alyssa Satin Capucilli, Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman, Leslie Kimmelman, Roni Schotter, and Mac Cadenhead in K-4 as listed. September 26-October 1st is Banned Books Week when we Celebrate the Right to Read (and create fertile ground for a group of outraged first amendment lawyers out of the children).Check out the bulletin board to be amazed and horrified at the books that have variously been challenged and/or removed from various library collections, none, we assure you, ours. This year the perennially challenged Captain Underpants lost out to Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan by Jeanette Winter, the story of a young girl whose life is mended by a devoted teacher when her grandmother enrolls her in a secret school for girls.
The library cards are finally made and check outs have begun; parents of Kindergartners and 1st Graders remember that books come back weekly. First grade may now check out two books! We have been working on parts of the book and care of books with K; reviewing parts of the book and choosing just-right books with 1st grade; learning to find books using the Dewey system and introduction to the school catalog with 2nd; navigating the school catalog, “addresses” and location of books in the library, and introduction to Playaway audiobooks with 3rd and 4th. We are emphasizing choosing Just Right Books this year, because we have found both from our own experience and from the teachers that children are checking out books, but they often languish unread in book bags and bedrooms. We’re looking forward to author studies, book reviewing, and book talking as the Fall progresses. We’ll also dive into research with the older grades. Ms. Ratt and Ms. Nedwick
Maker Space
Thanks (again!) to the Hastings Education Foundation for their grant for the 2016-2017 school year that has allowed us to take our littleBits inventing to the next level with the Gizmos and Gadgets Kits. The 3rd and 4th graders had a blast this week creating with these kits. 2nd graders that visited had the opportunity to use Lego StoryStarter kits to build on the fairytales they had learned about in class by creating scenes from favorite fairytales, creating alternate endings, or just creating their own fairytale using the story elements they learned. 1st grade classes used littleBits to engineer circuits for “tickle machines”, as well as the ever-popular trick handshake buzzer. Kindergarten classes were read the story Stuck by Oliver Jeffers and used Lego Duplo pieces to engineer a solution to a problem in the story. As always, so incredibly impressed with the creativity and engineering capabilities of our children! For all things MakerSpace and Library, please follow me on Twitter @hohjned!
Hillside Elementary School
Email: cazesa@hohschools.org
Website: www.hohschools.org
Location: 120 Lefurgy Avenue, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, United States
Phone: 914-478-6270
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hohschools/
Twitter: @Hillside10706