Another Great Week at East Hill!

What a week it was at East Hill! First of all, I am thrilled to report that the changes to our parking lot are complete! I will be sending home a letter, complete with a drawing, to explain the changes that have been made. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we have entered into an agreement with the Town of Camillus to let us use the ski hill parking lot for drop-off and pick-up. You can now pull right into the ski hill parking lot, alleviating the need to drive around the circle. The area between the ski hill and the entrance on Blackmore will be two-way. Because it will be two-way, there will be no parking on the circle opposite the school as we will need to be sure that vehicles can easily fit past each other in that area. Additional parking spaces have also been created for the staff in the back of the building. I appreciate your taking note of the new traffic pattern and obeying the posted signs. This new system is sure to make things safer for our children while at the same time making it easier for parents to get in and out of the school. Please let me know if you have any questions about the new traffic pattern.

Our PARP (Parents as Reading Partners) Reading Celebration concluded on Friday with a visit from Jan Reynolds. Several families attended the family night presentation on Thursday night and she entertained and educated our students with two assemblies on Friday. What an amazing person she is! She is also quite the adventurer and photographer. An order form was sent home on Friday in case you are interested in purchasing any of her books. Several students were randomly selected to have lunch with her on Friday. She really enjoyed sitting with the students and answering their questions. Thank you to our PTA for making her visit possible, and also for providing our students with bookmarks, “parp”sicles, and an abundance of guest readers over the past two weeks. Thank you also to our new librarian, Maureen Gridley, who did a super job preparing our students for her visit.

Another exciting thing that happened last week was the publishing of our first ever fifth grade newspaper, The Junior Wildcat Times. The idea for the newspaper came from Clara Soltys and Kaylei Walker (see picture below.) Students did a great job writing articles and meeting the deadlines. They can’t wait to start work on the December edition!

Parent conferences are next Monday and Tuesday, November 25^th and 26^th. Dismissal will be at 11:30 on these two days. There will not be any school Wednesday – Friday, November 27^th to 29^th.

The math words of the week are equation (M), expression (T), division (W), quotient (Th), dividend (F), divisor (next Monday), and inverse operation (next Tuesday.)

I will most likely not be sending out a blog next week as it is only a two day week. If I don’t see you between now and then, have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends!

-          Lisa

Reading Around the World at East Hill

Our PARP (Parents as Reading Partners) Reading Celebration kicked off last Monday with an assembly that taught the school audience about several of the places that Jan Reynolds, our visiting author, has visited and explored (see pictures below.) The theme this year is Reading Around the World. We are anxious to meet Jan in person this week. She will be here Thursday night for a family night presentation at 7:00 p.m., and will meet with all of the students on Friday. Please join us on Thursday night!

Anthony, Christian, and Mrs. Tuttle showcased Africa.

Mr. Meaney and Emma highlighted South America.

Mrs. Deegan, Cameron, and Rebecca focused on Northern Europe. 

Thank you to all of the guest readers who have volunteered their time to come in to the classrooms and read. They students love having their moms, dads, big brothers, big sisters, grandmas and grandpas coming to read.

Don’t forget to get out and vote today on the capital project. The vote is held at the High School from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m.

Report cards will be sent home this Friday. Please make sure you have a scheduled conference time with your child’s teacher. If you have forgotten when that time is, please contact the teacher.

The math words of the week are product (T), multiple (W), array (Th), and number sentence (F). Please make sure you have Thursday, December 5^th on your calendar for the East Hill parent math night.

Have a great week. I hope to see you either at the polls today (I’ll be working from 1:00 – 3:00) or on Thursday night at 7:00 as we welcome Jan Reynolds to East Hill!

-          Lisa

Happy November!

It was nice to have that extra hour of sleep this weekend to recover from last week’s Halloween festivities. Although the weather didn’t cooperate, we didn’t let it rain on our parade. Our students paraded throughout the classrooms in the school, down the hallways, and around the perimeter of the gym giving everyone the opportunity to see the wonderful costumes. Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered in the classrooms helping to put on costumes and providing fun parties for the students.

Our PARP (Parents as Reading Partners) two-week celebration begins today. We will have a kick-off ceremony this morning that has been planned by our Reading Celebration committee. Your child will be bringing home some information today regarding these two weeks which will feature guest readers, DEAR, an author visit, teacher switch and read day, television blackout, and more!

Work is being done in our parking lot to make arrival and dismissal safer for all of us at East Hill. We are adding roughy 10 more parking spots in the back for our staff. In addition, we have entered into an agreement with the town that will let parents park in the ski hill parking lot when they are dropping off students, picking up students, or visiting during the day. Once the paving at the ski hill is complete, there won’t be any parking on the circle opposite the school, and the area between the ski hill and the entrance on Blackmore will be two-way. I’m excited about these improvements and very thankful to the town as well as our buildings and grounds crew and district administrators for making this possible.

Speaking of drop-off and dismissal, we are noticing that more and more students are being dropped off too early to school. Please know that our school does not open until 9:00 and therefore there is no supervision for the students until 9:00. If they eat breakfast at school they are allowed to enter the building at 8:50, otherwise they need to wait outside, unsupervised. We do, however, have a YMCA before and after school program if you are interested. To get more information about the program, please call Liz Horne at 474-6851, ext. 315.

Congratulations to Andrew Bush, Ella Watts, Arianna Nguyen, Anton Kudrytski, and Abigial Ray who will be representing East Hill this Thursday in the District Spelling Bee which will be held at Camillus Middle School Thursday morning. These students received the top scores on the written test which made them eligible to participate in the bee. Good luck spellers!

This week’s math words of the day are: addend (M), sum (T), difference (W), multiplication (Th), and factor (F).

I hope you are able to join us tonight for our PTA meeting where Dr. Brown will discuss the upcoming capital project. The meeting begins at 6:30 in the library. Have a great first week of November!