What's Happening @ DAIS?
First Marking Period Newsletter
Welcome to the 2017-18 School Year!
Math
Our fourth and fifth graders have been working on becoming experts at place value. They have also been refining their computation skills including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, appropriate to each grade level. Sixth graders started the year focusing on ratios and rates. This made a smooth transition to their study of fractions, decimals and percentages. Our higher level math skills require our students to regularly practice their basic facts to ensure their success as they travel the road to math fluency.
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. The first of the Eight Standards for Mathematical Practice is Mathematical Practice Number 1; make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
The following questions complement Mathematical Practice Number 1 and can be utilized at home to help support your child’s efforts in mathematics.
- Can you think of a problem that you have solved before that is like this one?
- What plan can you make to solve this problem?
- Can you draw a picture or act out the problem?
- What information is in the problem and what are you trying to figure out?
- Are you making progress toward solving it? Should you try a different plan?
- How can you check your answer? Can you check using a different method?
English Language Arts
ELA kicked off the year getting to know our students as readers and writers and discovering their interests and strengths so we can build upon those as the year progresses. Thank you for your support of literacy at home!
Grade level snapshots!
Grade 4:
Fourth graders on Team Inspiration are working hard to climb Mount Narrative! By using storytelling elements in their writing, students earn climbing gear for their mountain climber. Students are using dialogue, figurative language, sensory details, and more to make their writing come alive! Soon, they will be publishing and reading their first class book full of narrative stories!
On certain days, Team Honor ELA teachers use a Tic Tac Toe board to guide enrichment in our rooms. The board is designed to use IXL, Study Island, and “foldables” as ways for students to independently practice skills. It also makes the Storyworks magazines useful so that students are working with partners to explore various texts, such as plays. See the photos!
Team Courage is participating in the Global Read Aloud (GRA), where teachers from all around the world are reading the same book to their students over a 6 week period. The project was created in 2010 with a simple goal in mind; one book to connect the world. The GRA has grown to more than 2,000,000 students participating. This year we are connecting with a 4th grade class in Wayzata, Minnesota. We connect each week to talk about the book, Fenway & Hattie by Victoria J. Coe, and get to know more about where they live. The pictures are from our mystery Skype session in which we discovered the location of our partner class.
Grade 5:
Team Commitment completed our personal narrative writing unit. We celebrated with a gallery style sharing session. Each student set up their desks with a copy of their story and a comment sheet. With snacks in hand, the students traveled around the room to read and respond to as many stories as they could. There was a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie around the room. Each student ended with a comment sheet they could be proud of. This gave our unit of writing a specific audience and goal in mind.
Grade 6:
Team Initiative used a hyperdoc to introduce the memoir writing unit - What’s a hyperdoc? Click the link to see!
Click HERE to see a 6th grade student’s work which exemplifies synthesizing the theme of a book discussion novel and supporting it with text evidence and elaboration.
Team Optimism students successfully unlocked the locks to the narrative writing breakout box to kick off their narrative writing unit!
Students on Team Respect created Google Drawings to practice and personify the 6 traits of writing:
Team Achievement students have used the reading unit of perseverance to build their growth mindset. Students know that with positive thinking and positive effort, they can achieve anything. Now, students are recognizing growth mindset within characters that they analyze in literature!
School and Community Resources:
York County Library System - https://yorklibraries.org/
Get your free library card (complete the online form and they will mail it to you)! https://yorklibraries.org/library-services-programs/get-a-library-card/
Mrs. Farrell’s Symbaloo - In addition to the tremendous amount of books in our DAIS library, our librarian, Mrs. Farrell, has an amazing collection of online resources too, including ebooks: http://dallastownis.ss13.sharpschool.com/encore/library!
While students can retrieve information from the Power Library at school on their Chromebooks easily, in order to access the Power Library resource from home, all students need is a York County Library System library card. With the free library card, students can obtain research materials and additional ebook collections from the comfort of home.
Science
Grade 4 students are finishing up studies on topics of weather, and are now investigating electricity and magnetism. They are looking forward to building a circuit in the upcoming marking period and a STEAM hovercraft challenge.
Grade 5 students are continuing their ongoing investigation of life science topics, and look forward to digging into specifics on ecology. This includes the upcoming experience of dissecting their own owl pellet. Check out this website for great information.
Grade 6 students continue their studies on physical science with a focus on forces, energy, and motion. Each class looks forward to the chance at the highly anticipated K’Nex car building challenge this year now including a 3D printed component.
Social Studies
In fourth grade, we spent the first marking period learning about the major landforms throughout the United States and how water affects the Earth’s surface. We’ve spent some time on immigration, government, and the meanings of our national symbols. We’ll finish the first marking period by studying the Northeast Region of the United States.
During marking period one, fifth grade students began the year learning map skills. After this unit, we studied explorers who traveled to the New World, along with the making of the 13 original colonies. We are looking forward to learning all about the Revolutionary War time period next.
The 6th grade Social Studies curriculum focuses on the geography of the world and its people. At the beginning of each year, students spend a brief period of time reviewing the continents and oceans before delving into the characteristics of culture. After learning and demonstrating their understanding of the 8 traits of culture, students then complete projects such as Culture Collages. We discuss how these are the building blocks of culture regions, which launches our exploration of our neighboring culture region Latin America.
Guidance
DAIS welcomes Mrs. Erica Poster to the DAIS School Counseling Team. Mrs. Poster will be working with our fourth grade teams in the Yellow and Blue communities. (Team Honor and Team Courage) Mrs. Poster works part-time at DAIS and Ore Valley. She previously worked in our high school counseling department. We welcome Mrs. Poster to our DAIS family!
Classroom Lessons
All DAIS students will be involved in classroom guidance lessons as a weekly encore for one marking period. Students will participate in one class per cycle for a total of 7 lessons taught by their community counselor. Listed below are the topics. Students at DAIS are learning “tools for life” that span far beyond the classroom.
Grade 4
- Week 1: Orientation (introduce ROCS)
- Week 2: Developing Friendship and Social Skills/Conflict Resolution
- Week 3: Empathy and Introduce Diversity
- Week 4: Diversity
- Week 5: Bullying
- Week 6: How to Handle Bullying Situations
- Week 7: Career Lesson
Grade 5
- Week 1: Orientation (ROCS)
- Week 2: Friendship and Social Skills/Conflict Resolution
- Week 3: Empathy and Introduce Diversity
- Week 4: Diversity
- Week 5: Bullying
- Week 6: Bullying/Anger Management
- Week 7: Service Project/Helping Others/Career Awareness
Grade 6
- Week 1: Reintroduce Guidance and Expectations -Appreciating yourself and others
- Week 2: Sportsmanship
- Week 3: Relationships
- Week 4: Boundaries, Personal Space, and Relationships
- Week 5: Emotions, Stress, and Mood Changes
- Week 6: Motivation
- Week 7: Decision Making
Groups: Counselors will be facilitating Guidance groups beginning the second marking period. Guidance groups assist students who are experiencing a stressful situation in their lives. The school counselors facilitate groups in a confidential setting. Customized group sessions are based upon topics that include divorce, grief, self-esteem, social skills, and any other topic, as needed. Guidance groups meet during the school day, one time per cycle for 7 sessions. Referrals to group can be made by teachers, parents, or students.
Mindfulness
Our School Counseling Team offered a training during in-service for our teachers on Mindfulness in the classroom. Teachers were introduced to programs and activities to implement in the classroom to help our students succeed academically, emotionally, socially, and behaviorally. Our teachers are trying a new tool called Mind Yeti to learn about and practice mindfulness in our classrooms. Teachers have also been incorporating numerous other programs to support the social, emotional and academic development for all our students and engages students in community-building and conflict-resolution skills.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is being aware of your thoughts, feelings and sensations in the present moment, without judgement. Research shows that children and adults who practice mindfulness experience a number of benefits, including improved well-being, increased emotional intelligence and empathy. Mind Yeti makes it easy to create a mindfulness practice in just a few minutes a day.
Why are we practicing mindfulness in our classroom?
With all the social, emotional and academic demands of school, getting a young mind ready for learning can be challenging. We’re using Mind Yeti 4 Classrooms to learn how to practice mindfulness in the hope that it will help us throughout the school year to calm down, stay focused and create a kinder, friendlier classroom environment. Through this work, we will be supporting your child’s social-emotional learning, a crucially important skill for all young people.
Physical Education
Track Meet Selection Process
In physical education class, students complete physical fitness and track meet testing. These tests include the 50 meter dash, 100 hundred meter dash, 600 yard run, standing broad jump, and softball throw. The scores from the four homeroom teachers from each pod are compiled, and the female and male students with the top scores in the different events are selected to represent their floor in the spring track meet. The selection process is very competitive, and approximately half of the students from their pod will compete at the track meet in late spring. These students are notified with a letter and permission slip in the early spring. At the track meet, the five floors compete against each other. Bottom floor blue is the Blue Team, top floor blue team is the White Team, red floor is the Red Team, bottom floor yellow is the Yellow Team, and top floor yellow is the Green Team. Boys and girls compete against other boys and girls in their grade from the other colored teams. All students will receive a permission slip to attend the track meet and cheer on their classmates. This wonderful event has been a tradition in the Dallastown Area School District for well over 35 years.
Health
Our incoming fourth grade health students have settled in quickly. We have been exploring topics of the health triangle and understanding how to achieve wellness. We are gearing up to begin our body systems unit by exploring the skeletal system with our new augmented reality technology, Virtuali-Tee (see picture). Fifth grade students have learned about the importance of hygiene and living a drug-free lifestyle. We are beginning to progress into our diseases unit, where we are set to explore communicable and noncommunicable diseases. Sixth grade students developed an understanding for goal setting, and the benefits of approaching challenges with a growth mindset. We are about to begin our drug prevention unit, and will have the High School Resource Officer meet with students as a guest speaker.
Art
We are wild about the Art of Africa!
This school year DAIS artwork is organized around a multicultural theme, African art! We are learning about people of different African countries and cultures and how they use art forms to preserve and pass down their family traditions and history. The variety of African animals and their significance, play a large role in the Arts and Culture of Africa. Using our imaginations, we create art and make connections to the world around us!
Grade 4 will explore the genre of expressionism and the artists Wassily Kandinsky and Rene Magritte. We will experiment with printmaking and collage as media.
Grade 5 focuses on American artists Andy Warhol and Grant Wood. Fifth graders will be weaving traditional baskets and making copper relief sculptures.
Grade 6 highlights include the Expressionist artists Jackson Pollock and Edvard Munch, yarn painting, and mask making with plaster craft.
We welcome volunteers! Do you have secret aspirations to be a museum curator? Do you have an extra morning each week or twice a month? Would you enjoy decorating and creating art displays around the DAIS building?
Send an e-mail to: Jennifer.bell@dallastown.net (Yellow 4, 5, 6, and Red 5, 6) or michelle.eberly@dallastown.net. (Blue 4, 5, 6 and Red 4)
Save the date: Art Show is May 7th during parent/teacher portfolio conferences!
iLibrary & Technology
iLibrary
It’s been an exciting start to the school year in the DAIS iLibrary! Students are once again rotating through four stations; Classroom Instruction, Book Selection, iLibrary, and Innovation Station.
Classroom Instruction—4th grade students are off and running with their Google Chromebooks! Mr. Hartman has begun basic instruction on proper use of Google apps and tools. 4th grade will meet with Mr. Hartman once every cycle all year for technology instruction. 5th and 6th grade will meet with Mrs. Farrell every cycle to learn about library resources and online tools to enhance how they use their chromebooks in the classroom.
Be Internet Awesome!—5th and 6th grade students have embarked on a journey through Interland, Google’s online world of good digital citizenship. In Interland, we will travel through the five kingdoms of internet safety and learn how to be Smart—Alert—Kind—Strong—Brave while we traverse the online world. At DAIS we strive to keep our students safe as we work in our one to one Chromebook culture, ensuring we are leaving behind positive digital footprints.
Book Selection—All grades will have an opportunity to exchange library books every other cycle. Our library collection continues to grow, and we are eager to get our new books into students’ hands!
iLibrary—Our technology center is an exciting station where students can practice learned technology skills on their own. We will explore new resources here, as well as dive into our large collection of ebooks. Students will also use this time to continue to practice their keyboarding skills.
Innovation Station—We are Thinking Like Engineers in our first round of Innovation Station! Students have been creating projects based on structural, mechanical, electrical, and civil engineering. Using Snap Circuits, Legos, Little Bits, and Marble Runs, we are learning how engineers play a vital role in our day to day lives.
The sound of music is filling our halls!
DAIS Holiday Choral Concert News
Our upcoming DAIS Choral Concerts will be held on Monday, December 4, 2017 at 7:00 PM and Tuesday, December 5, 2017 at 9:30 AM, 1:30 PM and 7:00 PM in our auditorium. Please see the attached letter to determine your child’s concert date and time. 6th Grade students will be performing at all four concerts. Due to the large number of attendees, please consider coming to one of the daytime performances. Those people coming for a daytime performance can park by the red community or by the Special Education Office (flag pole).
Miller’s Plant Farms will be selling poinsettias to us at their cost. The cost is $13.50 for a 7” pot. We will use these flowers to decorate our stage. The flowers will be delivered on Monday, December 4th and can be picked up AFTER your student’s evening concert for you to enjoy during the holiday season. If you are interested in purchasing a poinsettia, please return this form by Wednesday, November 29. Thank you for considering this!
DAIS Holiday Instrumental Concert News
Our upcoming DAIS Band and Orchestra Concert is on Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 7:00 PM in our auditorium. We have over 300 students participating in this concert and approximately 800 seats in the auditorium. This allows only about two to three people per child for the evening performance. There will be other opportunities for grandparents/friends to view our concert with additional performances on: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 9:30 AM and 1:30 PM.
Please know that we have about 300 extra seats for each of the daytime performances. Those attending these performances can park by the red community or by the Special Education Office (flag pole).
Miller’s Plant Farms will be selling poinsettias to us at their cost. The cost is $13.50 for a 7” pot. We will use these flowers to decorate our stage. These pots will be delivered to the school and can be picked up the evening of the concert.
Note: All performances will be streamed live for those who cannot attend one of the concerts. Please go to the DAIS website. The link will be listed under the “Technology” tab.
Parent Teacher Conferences
The Dallastown Area Intermediate School staff invites you to attend our annual parent/teacher conferences on November 20 & 21, 2017, scheduled as follows:
- November 20, 2017: 1:00 PM to 8:30 PM (Break 4:00 PM to 5:15 PM)
- November 21, 2017: 1:00 PM to 8:30 PM (Break 4:00 PM to 5:15 PM)
Teams have been in communication with parents/guardians regarding conference scheduling. Should you need assistance, please contact your child's teacher or your community secretary.
2017 Caring and Sharing
Let’s celebrate a season of caring and sharing during the holidays and throughout the New Year! Our annual holiday service project is underway and we invite you to participate! Be sure to stop by the giving trees in each of our community lobbies to pull a snowflake tag to help local families. Click here for details!
New & Improved Morning Video Announcements!
DAIS is once again featuring live video morning announcements. The video announcements are a great way for DAIS to showcase all of the exciting activities happening at school, student successes, and more! We are happy to announce that you can view these announcements at home too! Click here to view our video announcements.
DAIS Yearbooks!
Pathways Explorer Program (PEP)
The DAIS Pathways Explorer Program is underway! This innovative weekly program regroups our grade 4-6 students and teachers into PEP teams based on their interest in a particular topic (STEAM, Health & Human Services, Arts & Communications). Through engaging lessons, activities and guest speakers, students connect classroom learning to real-world careers. PEP groups meet each Day 1 for twelve weeks. We are excited to announce that 100% of our students received one of their top 3 choices.
For more information please visit the PEP page on the DAIS website.
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.
The PTO is looking for volunteers for these upcoming events:
- Holiday Choral Concert: Volunteers needed to help maintain safety and organization during the concerts. Volunteers will still be able to watch their student(s) perform. Clearances are required for this volunteer opportunity. Sign up HERE.
Winter Weather Announcement
The winter temperatures have arrived and we would like to remind students to come prepared with the appropriate winter attire. Remember to monitor TV and radio stations, Twitter and the Dallastown website, www.dallastown.net, should weather conditions necessitate a change to the regular school and/or activity schedules. Also, be sure that current telephone numbers are on file with your child's school so that School Messenger inclement weather notifications reach you.
DAIS PTO FUN RUN
We would like to congratulate all of the DAIS students on their efforts in raising donations for the DAIS PTO Fun Run. Job well done! Due to your amazing efforts and support, students earned an extra pep rally along with amazing prizes and rewards! The funds raised from the Fun Run will benefit student assemblies, field trips, book fairs, scholarships, and more!
Congratulations to our Top 5 Student Winners:
- Giovanni Fusillo
- Jagruti Thimmapuram
- Elliot Post-Kulisiewicz
- Taylor Crump
- Isabella Hershey