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The third grade classes at Eggert Elementary went to the Agricultural Education Center at the Erie County Fairgrounds on Tuesday November 8. Students rotated through stations to learn about turkeys, fall harvest foods, and Thanksgiving celebrations. There were connections to science concepts, such as buoyancy, and ELA/social studies concepts with Native American legends. Students participated in fun activities: building a model cornucopia, making pumpkin pie, and mapping out the planting patterns representative of the Native Americans.
The OPHS STEM Club did a phenomenal job representing their school on October 22 by launching their custom-built rockets at the Geneseo War Plane museum! The club had two teams participate in the Regional Rocketry Challenge, a MOOG hosted event. Teams needed to design a rocket to travel to approximately 850 feet in elevation and remain aloft for approximately 40 seconds, all while transporting a raw egg! Both teams put in a lot of hard work and brought home awards for their efforts. Click here for more information.
South Davis Elementary Art teacher, Miss Bleem helped South Davis students visually represent how they will make their mark on South Davis Elementary and their community. In Art class students learned about collaborative art and what it means to work together and to plan and design their artwork to be part of a larger piece. They discussed organic lines and patterns and used the philosophy of the book The Dot with the idea “just to make a mark and see where it takes you”. Students followed a bingo chip around their paper with a marker to create unpredictable organic lines. The students filled in all the sections that they created with different colors and patterns using 4 different art supplies: colored pencils, markers, oil pastel, and watercolor paint. Fifth-grade students then worked together to arrange all of the individual dots, made by each K-5 student at South Davis, into a large collaborative mural in a rainbow design.
Author Jerry Pallotta presented to students at Windom Elementary on Wednesday, October 26 and Thursday, October 27. The students prepared for Pallotta’s visit by reading his books, creating a variety of their own artwork, and using his books as an inspiration for their own writing. Windom even hosted a giant “Who Would Win” tournament to get ready for the visit. Jerry Pallotta is an award winning author of children’s alphabet books, imaginative fiction and the very popular Who Would Win series. He has been writing children’s books for 30 years and has written over 90 books and sold over 10 million books. He grew up going to Peggotty Beach in Massachusetts and often uses those experiences to inspire his books. The Windom PTO, Principal Phil Johnson, faculty and staff, and librarian Jim Clark collaborated to make this exciting and enriching experience happen for Windom students.
The Orchard Park Central School District and the Town of Orchard Park have come together to assist the families of the community by opening the Orchard Park Central School District Family Solutions Center, located within the Orchard Park Community Center at 4520 California Road. The Family Solutions Center will support district and community families with school-age children by providing direct counseling services to families, hosting parenting classes, and providing resources. The mental health professionals at the Family Solution Center will work with families to promote problem-solving strategies to develop healthy relationships using solution-focused communication. By recognizing the family as the most significant influence in the development of a child, mental health professionals will optimize student success by empowering families. The Family Solutions Center is not a mental health clinic but provides counseling to families to address parenting, school, social/emotional and behavioral issues that interfere with a family's well-being. The Family Solutions Center will support district and community families with school-age children by providing direct counseling services to families, hosting parenting classes, and providing resources. The mental health professionals at the Family Solution Center will work with families to promote problem-solving strategies to develop healthy relationships using solution-focused communication. By recognizing the family as the most significant influence in the development of a child, mental health professionals will optimize student success by empowering families. The Family Solutions Center is not a mental health clinic but provides counseling to families to address parenting, school, social/emotional and behavioral issues that interfere with a family's well-being.
The Orchard Park Central School District is hiring bus drivers. There are great benefits including: competitive pay, annual wage increase, health insurance coverage, paid training, flexible schedule and NYS retirement. If you are interested, please contact the Orchard Park Central School District Transportation Department at 716-209-6237.
This fall the district will launch its K-5 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program at all four district elementary schools. Over the course of the summer, the spaces that once housed the elementary computer labs have been renovated to create elementary STEM classrooms. The renovation includes flexible and collaborative seating options, open floor space for robotics lessons, Lego walls and dry erase surfaces and upgraded classroom technology. Students in grades K-5 will have STEM once every 6 days which is approximately thirty STEM classes per school year. Click here to learn more about the K-5 STEM program.
On August 9th, Speaker Carl Heastie and Assemblyman Patrick Burke announced $1 million in school safety funding for Orchard Park and West Seneca schools at a press conference held at West Seneca West High School. Orchard Park will receive $500k from the NYS Assembly and these funds will be used to enhance the safety and security of our school buildings. This generous funding will help Orchard Park continue to build upon our strong foundation of safety measures that are currently in place.
Mr. Gill, OPMS Technology Teacher, offered his 8th grade students an opportunity to take the FAA Recreational Drone Pilot exam. Already, approximately 50 middle school students have become FAA certified Recreational Drone Pilots and more students have pledged to take the exam soon! This means that the students have the basic understanding to safely fly their drones for non-commercial purposes. With the immense access to drones that students have outside of school, it is wonderful that so many students will now have the knowledge of how to conduct safe drone flights when they are flying on their own.
Former Eggert Elementary students and members of Girl Scout Troop 30517 wanted to give back to the Eggert Elementary Community, so they created an outdoor classroom for students and faculty to enjoy. Troop members cleared a pathway, created a border with old tree limbs, wheelbarrowed eight yards of stone, and constructed bench seating for classrooms to use at the end of the trail outside of Eggert Elementary.
The Fall Community Education Brochure is now available. Please click here to visit the Community Education site to access the brochure.
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