What's Happening @ DAIS?
Third Marking Period Newsletter
Math
During the third marking period, fourth grade students at DAIS have been working on operations with fractions and decimals with fractions. Fourth graders will be finishing up the year with time and graphing, measurement and geometry. Fifth grade students have been adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions. During the fourth marking period, fifth graders will be delving deeper into their understanding of algebra utilizing Hands On Equations and furthering their measuring skills. The sixth grade students have been studying expressions, equations, functions and inequalities. As we bring the year to a close, sixth graders will be focusing on statistical displays, area, volume and surface area.
DAIS students are working on developing and using habits of mind as they utilize problem solving strategies, discuss concepts in mathematics, and solve mathematics problems. In the last newsletter, Mathematical Practice Number 2 was discussed. The third of the Eight Standards for Mathematical Practice is Mathematical Practice Number 3; construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
The following questions complement Mathematical Practice Number 3 and can be utilized at home to help support your child’s efforts in mathematics.
What does your answer mean?
How do you know that the answer to the math question is correct?
How would you explain and prove to me why I’m wrong if I told you that I think the answer to the problem should be (offer your child a wrong answer)?
English Language Arts
In the third marking period, DAIS celebrated Read Across America Day on March 2nd - Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Over 1500 students and faculty read in the core together that afternoon. It is important to remember the gifts that literacy provides for our children - opportunities and imagination are just two.
April is Families and Literacy Month. The Keystone State Literacy Association has provided some resources including book lists for students in grades Pre-K through 8 as well as tips for parents. In addition, our York County Library System makes it easy to order and receive a library card - you register online for free, and they will send it to you! Last but certainly not least, our DAIS librarian, Mrs. Farrell, provides numerous resources for our children to access both at school and at home - ebooks, kid-friendly websites, and databases for research. Please visit her Symbaloo to explore some interesting links!
Here are some grade level snapshots from marking period 3 in ELA at DAIS!
4th:
Mrs. Young’s 4th graders have been diving into the Scrumdiddlyumptious World of Roald Dahl. During guided reading, students have been reading The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, George’s Marvelous Medicine, and The Magic Finger. In the pictures, you can see a student-created PHIZZWIZARD (that is, a very GOOD dream), and a flyer on how to spot a REAL witch.
5th:
Fifth-graders study mentor poets and create similar poems in different styles throughout the year. In marking period 3, two students from Team Persistence placed first and second in the Martin Library’s Annual Poetry Contest. Congratulations to Tess and Sophia! Tess wrote a poem about emotions, and Sophia’s inspiration was mentor poet Edgar Allen Poe.
6th:
Sixth-graders work on incorporating both style and research in their informational writing. Team Achievement students finished their European Country Google Sites in marking period 3, practicing both research and revision skills while informing others about their European country.
Science
This marking period, grade 4 studied life science involving plant structure and function. Energy movement through ecosystems was covered and FOSS inquiries were completed including studies with live Bess Beetles. There was also a field trip to the Witaker Science Center in Harrisburg for more hands on opportunities.
Grade 5 students concentrated within the earth science studies learning about topics such as layers of the earth and how they affect life, the importance of water and why we should protect it, and earth’s natural resources both renewable and nonrenewable. Students completed their 1st STEAM activities utilizing the engineering design process to build water filters and nonrenewable energy producing windmills from K’nex. In the near future, we are beginning a discovery within the FOSS unit of earth science on how erosion and deposition affect our land. Students will have the experience of setting up stream tables to compete against their classmates to find the least amount of deposition in the class.
Grade 6 students are exploring the concepts of Forces, Speed, Acceleration, Friction, Gravity & Newton’s Laws of Motion. They completed several labs related to speed and acceleration, as well as, a STEM challenge using K’nex to design, build, test and re-design a vehicle that can travel the farthest down a ramp and beyond. Also, students are exploring types of matter, measuring matter, and changes in matter including exothermic and endothermic chemical changes. Several labs are completed including identifying states of matter of an amorphous solid and calculating the volume of regular and irregularly shaped objects. The unit concludes with a STEM challenge which involves researching, creating a formula, and testing and improving an adhesive solution.
Social Studies
The Social Studies Department has been busy in grades 4, 5, and 6! In 4th grade, the students examined the Midwestern United States. The pupils created a variety of projects, pamphlets, and posters to showcase their work. Students will next travel west to continue their studies on the United States.
Students in 5th grade have been exploring the time period between the Revolutionary and Civil War. Among the topics studied were the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the different branches of government. Students will spend the fourth marking period studying the Civil War.
The close of the third marking period has seen 6th graders finish units on Europe and Asia. Sixth grade has also been busy with Biztown! Students are currently learning financial literacy, job skills, and how businesses impact the economy. Students are anxiously counting down the days until the job interviews that await them in the first week of April. We only have five more weeks until the simulation date!
Guidance
The counseling department would like to welcome all our new families who recently enrolled at DAIS. Students and families receive a tour of the school and meet with the school counselor periodically to help our children transition to our school and community. Welcome to our DAIS family!
Counseling Classes continue to take place for students in all grade levels. Students receive guidance class for one marking period. All lessons connect with our district wide initiative called Dallastown ROCS (Respect others Care for Self). Students receive lessons on social skills, conflict resolution, empathy, diversity, bullying prevention, career awareness, coping skills, decision making, sportsmanship, and motivation.
Furthermore, DAIS School Counselors provide a mentoring program called SEALS (Supporting Education and Leadership Skills). The purpose of SEALS is to align Dallastown High School students with Intermediate students by providing a safe and supportive environment that fosters confidence, leadership, academic achievement, and social skills. High school mentors serve as positive role models helping intermediate students to be successful through school work and recreational activities.
Another great mentoring program run by the DAIS School Counseling Department is called Connections. The school counselors pair Intermediate students with staff from DAIS. Staff members serve as positive roles models and provide mentorship in constructive, supportive, and encouraging ways by making weekly contact with the student. This year there are over 100 students and 100 staff members participating in the program.
This marking period the School Counseling Department and Children’s Home of York partner together and provide a family program for our Dallastown families. The program is called Strengthening Families and runs for seven weeks. A special thank you to Chartwells for catering all the meals for our families. Some of the topics in the program include how to solve problems together, family values, and build family communication.
Health & Physical Education
Health
In health classes, fourth grade students are progressing through the body systems unit, where we are exploring the skeletal, circulatory, immune and digestive systems. We will end this unit with a culminating project where classes will work together to create life-size human body systems.
Fifth grade health students are finishing their exploration of non-communicable diseases, and are about to move into learning about food and nutritional information. In mid-April, all fifth grade students will take part in a discussion on adolescence. Information will be sent home with more information prior to the presentation.
Sixth grade students are finishing up their tobacco projects, and recently had the opportunity to meet the School Resource Office (SRO) from the secondary campus. As we move into the fourth marking period, some sixth grade homerooms will be starting the human growth and development unit, and some will move on to guidance class. Please look for a letter home about the human growth and development unit with third marking period report cards.
Physical Education
In Physical Education we are excited to start our spring units, which include Frisbee Golf, Lacrosse, Wildcat Weight Room, and the Outdoor Fitness Center. The DAIS Outdoor Fitness Center is open to the public after school hours and features a wiggle walk, jump panel, chin up bar, push up bars, overhead ladder, double chest press, double leg press, single ski-runner, double waist and back stretch, double lat. pulldown, single rower, and double sit-up bench. Hopefully everyone enjoys the warm weather by being active and exercising!
Save the date for our annual Games Camp Monday, July 23 – Thursday, July 26, 2018 at the Dallastown High School Gym. This camp is offered by the Dallastown’s Phys. Ed. staff and is designed to teach basic loco-motor and ball skills through playing FUN games. It is a great way to help kids stay active during the summer! Click here for the registration flyer.
iLibrary & Technology
Fourth grade students are continuing their Google instruction with Mr. Hartman and becoming increasingly comfortable with their chromebooks. The focus right now is on web design with Google Sites. It’s amazing to watch our students embrace Google technology, showing strong confidence and creativity. We encourage you to talk to your student about what they are learning about their chromebooks. No doubt you will be impressed, and possibly learn something new!
Students in 5th and 6th grade will be spending the remainder of the school year learning about many digital resources offered via the DAIS Library website. We will be using resources such as World Book Online, Explorer, and SIRS Discoverer to help us with research. Students will find that search results in our subscription research databases will be more refined and reliable than what they will find by just using Google. We will also spend time exploring the Scholastic databases, True Flix, Freedom Flix, and Science Flix.
Our DAIS Library ebook collection continues to grow! We have just under 400 titles in our Capstone Interactive collection, and we have just added a new collection of ebooks from Rosen Digital Publishing. This collection is entirely nonfiction and contains great collections on historical topics such as the American Revolution, Explorers, and Westward Expansion. There are also science topics including Earth Science and Ecology. These ebooks are available at home, and students may access them by logging in with their DAIS Google account. You can access all our digital content via the DAIS Library Symbaloo, http://is.dallastown.net/encore/library. Please contact Mrs. Farrell with any questions about accessing any of our digital resources.
Students continue to practice their keyboarding skills using Typing.com and Typing Club. Ensuring students are using the home row keys is vital to successful keyboarding. Please encourage your student to practice at home and stress the importance of proper finger placement. We want to avoid hunting and pecking!
Innovation Station
We will be thinking like programmers for the remainder of the school year in Innovation Station! This theme is always the most popular, as students get the opportunity to program and code robots. Students will have some Olympic size fun with a little robot called Ozobot! They will code Ozobot to compete in table-top curling. Other fun activities in this station will be using Meeperbots to create and code monster trucks, bowling with Sphero, creating our very own DAIS video game with Bloxels, coding with Osmo and Cosmo, and a coding our way through a library scavenger hunt with Dash robots!
Book Selection
We have wrapped up the Pennsylvania Young Readers’ Choice Award Program. This program was very popular in our library! Many students took the opportunity to read the nominated books and will be voting for their favorite book. Voting will take place in the library during the last week in March. The DAIS winner and the statewide winner will be noted in the next newsletter. Mrs. Farrell would like to thank all the students who participated in the program! Participation was higher this year than ever before! https://pyrca.wikispaces.com/2017-18+Nominated+Titles
If you watch our morning video announcements you may have noticed students giving book recommendations. Any student is eligible to recommend a favorite book to our DAIS family. Book recommendation forms are available in the library. Mrs. Farrell will schedule a time for you to record your announcement in the green screen studio.
Music
The chorus students at DAIS have been busy preparing for our Spring Concerts. The choruses will present a wide variety of music. Since we have many students participating in the spring, the choruses will be split into two separate concert nights. The Concerts are scheduled for May 14 and May 15. Parents should have received a flyer explaining which homeroom will be performing on which night. 4th and 5th grade students will be split into two separate concert nights. To maintain the quality and continuity of the program, we are asking our 6th graders to perform at both evening concerts. This will include participation by the 6th grade chorus and the Honors Choir. Please mark your calendars for the date(s) and prepare to join us in person or to watch the live stream of our concert.
The 8th Annual DAIS Band Festival will be held in the auditorium on May 23 at 1:30 pm and May 24 at 9:30 am and 7:00 pm. Band students in grades 4, 5 and 6 will play music of our Heroes; from heartfelt to super to those who serve. Our own DAIS Jazz Band will also play some fun favorites, so we hope to see you there.
Orchestra
String students at DAIS are in full swing preparing for our Annual String Festival, on May 9, 2018 at 7:00 PM in the school gymnasium. The music will cross several genres while incorporating themes of light vs. dark. Mark your calendars!
Learning objectives for Fourth Grade string students have been centered on achieving the “ring” (allowing the sound to vibrate freely) for a clear sound while playing. The focus for fifth grade has been rhythmic independence, altered tones, and flexible fingering allowing for their intonation to greatly improve. Sixth grade students have been working on playing expressively, shifting, key signatures, and bow tapers. All of these technical aspects challenge the musicians to play more than just the notes on the page, while actively engaging both sides of the brain.
We are pleased to offer eight summer camps related to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. All camps are held at DAIS and run Monday through Thursday, 8:00 am - 12:00 pm.
Campers must register online, using the camp-specific links below. Payment may be made through our secure web store, or you may send cash or check to the Red Community office.
CampDatesCostRegistration Links
STEAM 101: June 18-21 $101 STEAM 101 registration
Virtual Expeditions: June 25-28 $101 Virtual Expeditions registration
Studio Engineering: June 25-28 $101Studio Engineering registration
Flight School: July 9-12 $151 *Full roster, registration closed
3D Engineering: July 9-12 $101 3D Engineering registration
Lego Robotics: July 16-19 $101 Lego Robotics registration
Gardening & Hydroponics: July 16-19 $101 Gardening & Hydroponics registration
Minecraft EDU July 23-26 $101 Minecraft EDU registration
Camp Details:
STEAM 101...a hands-on introduction to flying drones, robot coding and engineering challengesVirtual Expeditions...journey into the exciting world of virtual and augmented reality. Navigate through virtual worlds, and create your own to explore using new virtual reality headsets. Experience and create augmented reality adventures. Cospaces, Google Expeditions, and Aurasma are just some of the engaging programs that will be used. Students will each get their own Google Cardboard virtual reality headset!
Studio Engineering...Dreams of Hollywood? Step into our studio and experience the magic of movie and TV technology with green screen effects, audio/video editing and film production.
Flight School...learn to fly various indoor and outdoor drones, and you get one to take home!
3D Engineering...computer design, 3D printing and modeling. Make it, take it!
Lego Robotics... Do you like coding? How about robots? Like building with Legos? Combine all three as you code robots to overcome obstacles and complete missions that you build out of Legos! If you're interested in our FIRST Lego League, this camp is a great introduction to some of the challenges an FLL team faces!
Gardening & Hydroponics...learn the basics or organic gardening at our school garden. Design and create a hydroponics lab to grow plants all year long.
Minecraft EDU...a week of Minecraft with your friends, 'nuff said
DAIS Monthly Character Counts
DAIS PTO
PTO Information - Ways to help the DAIS PTO...
1. Join the PTO: It’s never been easier. There are two ways to join. You can fill out the form and return it to school or join online!
2. Box Tops: Clip and send in your box tops labeled with your student’s name on the 4th Wednesday of each month. Also, there is now a box top app. You can double your box tops (these will not go towards team contest totals but will greatly help our school)!
3. Giant Rewards: Do you grocery shop at Giant? Be sure that DAIS is designated as your A+ School Rewards school.