Hats Off to Poor Choices!

Dayton Avenue School's Red Ribbon Week culminated with "Hats Off to Poor Choices" at Dayton Avenue.  Good choices are consistently reinforced at Dayton Avenue School through our Positive Behavior Intervention and Support system.

The Founders of the Feast!

5th grade students in Mrs. Moran, Mr. Litto, and Mrs. Skidmore's class cultivated the land in the Dayton Avenue School outdoor classroom.  Students reaped the benefit of their harvest with a healthy feast held in class.  Keep up the great work. 

Utilizing Technology to Support Literacy Collaborative

Students in Mrs. Arroyo's 4th grade class our using Think Central an online resource that supports our Literacy Collaborative program.  Furthermore, students have in their hands new Dell 2 in 1 tablets and laptops to support instruction in the classroom. 

Mrs. Smith's Ghoulish Science Lab

Mrs. Smith once again provided two full days of hands-on science experiments for her students embracing the Halloween spirit.  Students are engaged in meaningful and rigorous science labs throughout the day. 

Pumpkin Math Centers in Third Grade

Students and parents in Mrs. Defeo's class collaborated together on a math center lab.  Parents helped students move from one center to another as they applied various mathematical concepts.

 

Students Learn Continents and Integrate Art

Students in Mrs. Gottchalk's 3rd grade class deepened their understanding of geography and the world that they live in by decorating their pumpkins with each continent. 

Third Grade Students Have An Array Of Fun!

Students in Mrs. Rubin's 3rd grade class had fun making multiplication arrays using Froot Loops.  Students created the arrays and wrote the multiplication fact and repeated the addition sentence to math the array.  

Students are Hungry for Multiplication Facts!

Students in Mrs. Kerin's 3rd grade class utilize their time wisely by incorporating snack into a visual understanding of multiplication facts.  Students are able to restore the calories their minds are burning as they learn this foundational math skill. 

Dayton Avenue School Examines Standard Based Grading

 

Faculty and staff at Dayton Avenue School are examining the work Rick Wormeli and Robert Marzano have completed on Standard Based Grading.  One aspect of their research examines the use of retakes and redos for full credit.  Boys and girls from Mrs. Montreuil and Mr. Dippel's classes took on a challenging quiz on evaluating expressions.  Some of the students were disappointed in their grades and wanted a chance to redo their work.  The students were given their quizzes and were able to see which problems they did correctly, and which ones needed a closer look.  With calculators in hand and pure determination, the classes took on these expressions once more.  The results were amazing!!!  Boys and girls in both classes increased their quiz grades by 30 to 80 points!    And to top it off, the students were able to see where they went wrong on the first try, and jotted down their mistakes next to the new (and improved) answer.  These students were able to take advantage of the situation and did some amazing learning in the process.  It was a win-win situation.  Congratulations Hammerheads...to a job well done!

Where in the World is Sammy Seagull?

 Students in Mrs. VanTronk, Mrs. Orlando, and Ms. Lucia's class are examining cultures and destinations far away as part of the 3rd grade social studies curriculum.  With the help of Sammy The Seagull who took off earlier this year from Dayton Avenue School.  You see, Sammy is navigating the globe and corresponding with our 3rd grade students.  This is a great way to engage students in the world around them as they receive postcards and learn about geography and culture from across the globe.

 

Yet Another Student Earns Principal's Helper

Students at Dayton Avenue School continue to demonstrate Safe, Honest, Accountable, Respectful, Kind, and Successful behavior through our Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS) system.  Congratulations to Andrew Hawthorne.  Keep up the good work. 

Dayton’s Fifth Graders Visit the Tundra

Dayton Avenue’s fifth graders spent the afternoon among polar bears on one of the coldest places on the planet—Churchill, Manitoba in Canada.  Visitors can only get to Churchill by plane or train, as there are no roads into the town. However, our students lucked out and traveled to Churchill virtually. No luggage required!

Students entered the Library Media Center at 2:30 pm with their plane tickets to Cananda in hand and headed straight into the video conferencing area for the next hour with Mrs. Marone and Mrs. Zambelli. Through the Mondopad, the students connected with a live expert panel broadcasting from the tundra! Classrooms from around the world connected to the event made up of a science coordinator from the Churchill Northern Studies Center working in Arctic science, the principal of the school in Churchill as well as a few teachers and employees of the parks and conservation. 

During the live-streaming event, the panel answered the questions fifth grade teachers Mrs. Lukas and Mrs. Chiavola brainstormed in the classroom with their students. The panel also answered questions Mrs. Marone typed into the live chat as Dayton streamed the video. Students from Dayton asked about the wildlife in Churchill to the power outages to the culture on why someone would want to live on the tundra. One student even wanted to know if a polar bear ever got into the school!

Students learned that before trick-or-treating on Halloween in Churchill, a helicopter scouts the area to look for polar bears in the community as well as patrol vehicles. The town has a polar bear alert line and almost everyone has had an encounter with a polar bear at some point or another. While construction was happening on a part of the school, the principal shared that a polar bear went inside! He even shared how he encountered polar bears while snowmobiling and saw them jump over a fence! Another expert on the panel said he faced a polar bear that was over 1200 pounds who was about 15 years old. Additionally, one teacher shared she saw a mother and cub together only two car lengths away the day before the live-stream.

Other attractions in Churchill are dogsledding, diving with beluga whales and seeing the Northern Lights. The Northern Lights appear about 300 days out of the year, but can only be seen clearly when there is little moisture in the air. Winter is the best time for viewing the lights the science coordinator shared!

However during the winter, some of the town has to drive snow machines around to get from place-to-place as the temperature can be -45 degrees Fahrenheit as well as being very windy. However, it can get warm up to almost 30 degrees Fahrenheit on hot, summer days.

Aside from weather, other animals and wildlife in Churchill include wolves, various types of owls, and even killer whales! The new appearance of killer whales or orcas are being tracked in the Hudson Bay to find out more information such as the impact of that large of a predator.

For more information and to view the recorded videos from the live sessions, visit the site below: http://new.livestream.com/fsd/churchill. 

6th Grade Students Participate In Team Building Field Trip to Sunken Meadow

Grade six students participated in the Outdoor Environmental Education Field Trip to Sunken Meadow State Park.  Students had an opportunity to conduct a number of science experiments as well as complete team building Project Adventure activities.  This is a great way for students to get to know one another during the Association for Middle Level Education's Month of the Young Adolescent.