Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a nice holiday break with your families. I’m sure the students enjoyed the extra 2 day bonus. My own children certainly did!

The last week in December was a busy one at East Hill. We had our 4^th and 5^th grade concert assembly on Monday, the evening concert on Thursday, and holiday parties on Thursday as well. The 5th grade orchestra also played for students waiting in the lunch line on Thursday.Teaching assistants in two of our first grade classrooms provided hand-made hats for all of the students (see pictures below.) Lastly, our 5^th graders put together another edition of the Junior Wildcat Times. Click here to read it.

The math words of the day for this week are order of operations (M), fraction (T), numerator (W), denominator (Th), and equivalent fraction (F).

I hope to see you at the PTA meeting tonight. It will be held at 6:30 in the library. Enjoy the rest of the week!

- Lisa

Happy Holidays!

It's hard to believe there are just four more days left of school before the holiday break! 

Our 4th and 5th grade concert that was scheduled to be held tonight in the West Genesee High School Auditorium has been moved to this Thursday, 12/19 at 7:00 p.m. I hope you will be able to join us. We had a great preview of the performance today.

Holiday parties are also scheduled for this Thursday at 2:15. Please remember that siblings should be kept at home and that food in the nut-free classrooms comes with a label on it so that it can be checked by our teachers and/or nurse.

Last week the second grade presented the character education traits of compassion and caring for the school. They acted out a story and sent the message that we need to be caring and compassionate to all of the people in our lives. I thought it was a nice message to send, especially at this time of year. Speaking of being compassionate, thank you to everyone who contributed to the PTA's community giving project this year. People were very generous.

Our math words for the week are least (M), commutative property (T), associative property (W), distributive property (Th), partial products (F), compose (Th, 1/2), and decompose (F, 1/3). 

I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year!

- Lisa

Two Weeks to Go!

It’s hard to believe that there’s just two short weeks until the holiday recess. We have a lot going on at East Hill during these two weeks. The PTA Holiday Shop for students will run tomorrow and Wednesday (12/10 and 12/11). If you selected a gift tag from the community giving tree, please make sure your gift is brought in by Thursday. There are a few tags left on the tree if you are still interested. The gifts should be gift-wrapped with a tag securely fastened onto the gift. Thank you to everyone who participated in this wonderful project. Thank you also to everyone who contributed non-perishable food items to our Red Cross food drive.

Our next CODE assembly is this Thursday. These assemblies run 20-30 minutes in duration and focus on bullying as well as a variety of developmentally appropriate topics for each grade level. Officer Diane Brand does a wonderful job working with the individual grade levels.

Our 4^th and 5^th grade orchestra and chorus concert is next Monday night at the high school. The concert begins at 7:00 p.m.

Holiday parties will be held in the classrooms on Thursday, December 19^th at 2:15. Only those parents who have been designated as helpers by the room parents should be in the classrooms. It is very important in the peanut-free rooms that all treats are store-bought and contain a label that can be checked by our teachers and/or our school nurse.

Thank you to all of you that came out for our Math Night last Thursday during this busy month. We had a great turnout and received a lot of positive feedback. The draft parent guides that were handed out can be accessed here for grade 3, here for grade 4, and here for grade 5. There are also links to these guides found on the West Genesee homepage in the parent resource section. As soon as I have K-2 completed I will let you know!

Our math words of the day for this week are cubed or cubed number (M), exponent (T), sort (W), classify (Th), and greatest (F).

Have a great week!

- Lisa

Happy December!

I hope you were all able to enjoy a nice Thanksgiving holiday with your family. With the exception of a minor mishap with one of our turkeys, I think it was one of our best family Thanksgivings on record. (I’m sure the smoke smell will dissipate soon and those turkey stains on the ceiling are nothing that a little ceiling paint won’t take care of!)

In case you happened to buy an extra turkey because you just couldn’t resist the 48¢ per pound sale, here are some different ways to cook the turkey, according to kindergarteners in Mrs. Augello’s class:

First you take the turkey out of the fridge and put lots of salt and pepper on it. Then you put the stuffing into the turkey. Turn on the oven to 5 degrees and cook the turkey quickly!

First you run and chase the turkey and when you catch it, you put it on the stove for 5 hours. Next put stuffing in it and serve it to grandma and papa and your family.

First you go to the store like Target and buy a turkey and bring it to Uncle Tim’s house to cook it. Next, put it in the oven for 10 minutes to make it soft. Finally, it’s time for dinner!

According to the kindergarteners, turkeys are to be cooked anywhere between five minutes and twenty hours, and don’t forget to put sprinkles on top!

I hope you are able to join us at our math night this Thursday night. As I indicated previously, the purpose of this night is to give you information, resources, and strategies to better help your child at home with math. It is not a night to discuss the pros and cons of the Common Core. Parents of students in grades K-2 will meet in the library for a presentation by Michele Gipe, our district math coach, and me, from 6:00 – 6:30. Those parents will then go to different classrooms for break-out sessions from 6:30 – 7:00. Then, from 6:30 – 7:00, parents of students in grades 3-5 will meet in the library with me and Michele, and will attend the break-out sessions by grade level from 7:00 – 7:30. This night is for parents only. If you have any questions about this night, please let me know.

I also hope you are able to join us at tonight’s PTA meeting. It starts at 6:30 and is held in the library.

The math words for the week are remainder (M), more (T), fewer (W), mental math (Th), and squared or square number (F). Have a great first week of December!

- Lisa

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!