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SES15 Pearl Street EastSidney NY 13838February - March 2009

Sidney Elementary SchoolNewsletter

“Be active with good character”Responsibility-Respect-Trustworthiness-Fairness-Caring

SES to Hold Open Kindergarten Registration

Registration for all Sidney Central School Districtstudents eligible to enter kindergarten in September2009 will be held the weeks of Monday, March 16through Friday, March 20 and Monday, March 23through Friday, March 27 from 9:00 to 2:00 p.m.The registration will take place in the district Regis-trar’s office located in the Middle School. Parentswill need to present their child’sbirth certificate, immunizationrecords and proof of residencyas well as fill out paperwork during registration. They willalso have an opportunity to signtheir child up for a kindergartenscreening.To be eligible for kindergarten, achild must be five years old onor before December 1, 2009. Achild who turns six years old any time during theschool year must attend school at the start of Sep-tember 2009.It is important that all district kindergarten entrantsfor the September 2009 school year register at thistime. If you have any questions about registration,please call Jill Brazee or Mary Miley at 563-2135extension 4200 or 4202.

Early Kindergarten

February might have been a cold and dreary month,but it was a healthy month in Early Kindergarten!First we learned how to keep ourselves healthy byexercising every day and making good foodchoices. We now know that some foods are GOFoods which we can eat almost anytime, some areSLOW Foods which we can eat sometimes, andsome are WHOA Foods which we should eat onlyonce in a while. Our motto is “We Go for GoFoods!” Next we learned to keep our teeth healthyand happy, we need to brush twice a day, floss, seeour dentist and stay away from sugary foods. Thentwo great presidents helped us keep our mindshealthy. George Washington, father of our country,taught us to always tell the truth while Honest AbeLincoln showed us that honesty is always the bestpolicy. We loved making stove pipe hats withbeards. Everyone thought we were miniature presi-dents! Now that March is here we are having funusing our magnets and simple machines. And last,but not least, we are doing a great job learning theletters of the alphabet and counting to ten.

SES Taking Names for Universal Pre-K Slots

Sidney Elementary School is now taking names of children for their Universal Pre-Kindergarten pro-gram in the fall. Children that reside in the SidneyCentral School District and who will be four yearsold before December 1, 2009 are eligible. The classwill be determined by a lottery drawing at a laterdate. Please call Jill Brazee or Mary Miley in themain office at 563-2135 extension 4200 or 4202 toadd your child’s name to the Universal Pre-K list.

Reflections from Mr. Green

Spring time is almost here and hopefully warmweather will be right around the corner. The stu-dents have continued to do a great job at SES! Thestaff and students have been focused on the charac-ter traits of trustworthiness and are moving on tofairness for March and April. Our third, fourth andfifth grade students completed the NYS math testduring the first week of March. The students gavetheir best effort and I am extremely proud of them!We have very exciting events and programs com-ing to SES over the course of the next few months.On March 23rd the rainforest program will do twoday time performances along with an evening pro-gram. The Catskill Valley Wind Ensemble willperform on April 3rd and Chocolate Wars willmake an appearance on April 28th. As always, Iappreciate the positive home-school connectionthat we have built!

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Universal Pre-K

The UPK Class has completed a unit on winter.During this unit we experimented with ice cubesmelting and freezing. The students made great sci-entists. We read The Hat and The Mitten and madea wintery hat to wear and a mitten with all the ani-mals from thestory. The stu-dents did a nice job recreating thestory using ani-mals they colored.Last week we metin the evening towork on a quilt weare making for Ms. Jenkins. Nine families came tothe quilting party. We will be putting the quilt to-gether and presenting it soon to Ms. Jenkins. In themonth of March, we will be learning about springweather. We will be starting a mobile of all thetypes of spring weather. We are also learning tosay / sing the alphabet, recognize letters and num-bers, and we have been practicing writing our name.Most of all we are looking forward to seeing thesigns of spring!

Second Grade

During the month of February, thechildren learned about Washingtonand Lincoln. One interesting fact wasthat George Washington’s teeth weremade out of ivory and gold. This ledto discussions about healthy dentalhabits to honor dental health month.The children have been working onlearning how to add and subtract dou-ble digit numbers with regrouping. We encouragethe students to think like mathematicians when solv-ing word problems. They have learned key wordsto help them to decode the problems.In March, the second graders will begin an excitingscience unit on interactions. This will involve a va-riety of hands-on activities for the children to do.We continue to strive for our goal of 400 steps bythe end of May in the 100 Book Challenge readingprogram. Please make sure your child is bringingboots to school daily as the playground is verymuddy. We look forward to meeting with you dur-ing parent/teacher conferences this month.

Kindergarten

February was a very busy month in kindergarten!We celebrated the 100th day of school. The kin-dergarten students made a 100 inch snake, crowns,necklaces and counted out 100 pieces of varioussnacks. The children spent the day counting byones, fives and tens. The SES PTO donated 100books to the pre-kindergarten and kindergartenchildren. Thank you so much again for your gener-osity!During the month of March we will continue tolearn new sight words and letters. The children aremaking great progress with their 100 Book Chal-lenge steps toward 400. Thank you again for tak-ing the time to read with your child at home everynight. The family projects have been very creativeand we appreciate the time spent on completingthem. We look forward to meeting with you onMarch 20 or March 27 at parent-teacher confer-ences to discuss your child’s progress!

First Grade

The first grade has enjoyed learning about dentalhealth, the groundhog seeing his shadow, Presi-dent’s Day and of course sharing our Valentines.We ended February celebrating the 100th day of school! We can not believe we have been in school100 days already. We celebrated by doing activitiesthat have 100 involved with them.We are moving right intoMarch by learning aboutnight and the solar system.This is going to be so in-teresting to learn about!The middle of March willbring us to weather and St.Patrick’s day. To continuewith learning about “go foods”, we will end Marchby talking about nutrition and how to nurture ourhealthy hearts. We are looking forward to the flow-ers blooming and the sun shining!

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Third Grade

Third grade has been focusing on preparation for theNew York State math tests. Now that they are over,we can continue on with the memorization of ourmultiplication facts. Aswe start to wrap up ourNative American unit, weare reviewing our key vo-cabulary such as culture,traditions, resources, etc.As always, support athome with the 100 Book Challenge program isgreatly appreciated. Weare looking forward tomeeting with you at parent-teacher conferences the afternoons of March 20 orMarch 27. Our next large units of study will befairy tales and the solar system.

Fourth Grade

Our fourth grade students have been working ex-tremely hard preparing for the NYS math test. Weare very proud of their efforts and congratulate themon a job well done. The last NYS test will be thescience exam in April. Our students have just com-pleted their unit on Colo-nial America in New York where they made quiltblocks, candles, bonnetsand tricorne hats.In science, our students arebeginning a major unit on current and static electric-ity where they will make a complete circuit four dif-ferent ways with one light bulb, one battery and onepiece of copper wire. Students are also starting aunit on identifying and usingparts of speech and quotationmarks in language arts. Finally,our Cool Characters continue tobe excellent examples of ourfive pillars of character educa-tion for the entire elementaryschool!

Fifth Grade

In reading class student are finishing up their novelswith a theme of Black History. They will be com-pleting a writing project on freedom.Fifth graders are learning about “Mystery Matter” intheir science inquiry classroom. They will be per-forming various tests on know substances to com-pare to an unknown substance so they can identifyit. Our fifth graders spent a day in Schenectady atProctor’s Theater on march 4. They participated inan interactive CSI presentation. This performancewas a perfect fit to the science unit they have begun.We have survived the NYS Math test that was giventhe first week in march.D.A.R.E. is coming to a close. Students havelearned much about the dangers of drugs, alcohol,and tobacco. They have also learned ways to stayhealthy. D.A.R.E. graduation will be Tuesday,March 24 from 8:30 - 10:00 a.m. in the High Schoolauditorium.While Mrs. Barnes was home recuperating from hersurgery, she kept in contact with her class through awebcam. Students presented their biography reportsto her through the webcam. Mrs. Barnes was alsoable to just “call in” and see and speak to the stu-dents throughout the day.From March 16 through May 8, Ms. Strub, a studentteacher from SUNY Oneonta will be working withMrs. Barnes’ class.

Upcoming Events

Friday, March 20 & Friday, March 27

11:00 a.m. Students dismissed for half day parent-teacher conferences

Tuesday, April 7

7:00 p.m. K-12 Select ArtExhibitHS community room

Friday, April 10 - Friday, April 17

No School — Spring Recess

Monday, April 20

6:30 p.m. SES PTO meetingSES LMC