October 2023

Dear Friends,

Welcome to Fall at Northville CSD! 

Early October is a time when we embrace the last bits of warm weather and welcome the new season. Our PTO sponsored our ice cream truck; our elementary classrooms and art classes highlight fall themes. 

This month's newsletter includes academics, art, and extracurricular activities for elementary, middle, and high school students. I am working on capturing more of these experiences each month to give you a feel for the incredible work happening across the grades.

Thank you so much for filling out our 2023-24 Community and Staff Survey. If you haven't done so already, please share your feedback! Complete the survey here. The survey will remain open through November. I will share a summary of the results in December. 

Fall Writing: Ms. Clapper's, Ms. Field's, Ms. Pratt's, and Ms. Flickinger's 2nd-grade classes shared their Room on the Broom writing. 

If you are looking for things to do this fall, Ms. Karpoy's 3rd graders wrote about ideas that might spark your interest! Other 3rd graders wrote about living in pumpkins, and others wrote to convince trees not to drop their leaves. Why do trees drop their leaves in the fall... find out here.

Art: Enjoy Ms. Sedon's narration of fall student artwork. I am always so moved by the beauty of the pieces created by some of our youngest students. Next month, we will highlight the art of Ms. Jackson's students and her photography class!

Spooky Spectacular Family Night: Ms. Reidell shared that over fifty children attended the Spooky Spectacular Family Night in October. Children enjoyed making a creepy spider snack and listening to Halloween stories read by drama club members dressed as characters such as Snow White and Rapunzel. Following the stories and snacks, families showed off their dance moves in the gym.

Fire Trucks & Emergency Vehicles: Many thanks to Ms. McKnight for "orchestrating" this event for our students! 

Hydroponics: Ms. Harris' students are creating hydroponic presentations to share with our younger students. They are producing comics, videos, and other multimedia productions. Below is an example.

Spanish Field Trip: Professora Thomarie's students enjoyed a meal and art on a recent field trip. Students tried the drinks, horchata, Agua de Jamaica, and Chile Rellenos. They saw El Greco, Picasso, Rafael, Seaurat, Renoir, Degas, Rubens, Rembrandt and more. The museum is based on the Gardner Museum in Boston and houses quite a collection! What a day! 

Biology: Jamie Dickinson - A Day in the Life of the Hudson River. Each fall, environmental education centers team with school classes along the Hudson River to create a day-in-the-life picture of the river from Lake Placid to New York Harbor. The event began in 2003 with a modest 300 student participants and has grown until, in our most recent events, we involved over 5000 students and individual participants ~ 90 sites from the New York Bight up to Peebles Island on the Hudson River and into the Mohawk watershed, a major Hudson River tributary. Each site gathers data on the Hudson and shares its results, gaining a better understanding of this historic and vital estuary system. We teamed with Middelburgh and Mayfield Schools to sample the Schoharie Creek and added our findings to the database.

Chemistry: Ms. Lazinski's Regents Chemistry students have been preparing for National Chemistry Week and invited our elementary classes to participate in hands-on activities. Students rotated around the new Chemistry lab (210). They participated in 5 activities, including making slime and lava lamps, seeing self-inflating balloons, tie-dying index cards, and creating artwork with milk and food coloring. There were 4 thirty minute sessions. The video below includes an overview by Ms. Lazinski followed by pics and video clips of students -- about 6 minutes.

FarmBots: An excellent collaboration between Mr. Clapper, who envisioned bringing FarmBots to our Outdoor Learning Center and future Greenhouse, and Mr. Hoffman for bringing this technology to life with his students. Student Isaac Derstine gives us a glimpse into how the FarmBot works in the video below. This is another project that shows the essential collaborations that are happening across grade levels at Northville CSD. If you'd like to learn more about FarmBots, visit this link.

Library of Congress Magazine: Shared by Mr. Ratti - We often discuss extending our work beyond the classroom walls. The amount of work that everyone does outside of school here at NCS is truly impressive, but I'd like to take a moment to recognize one of our colleagues who is now a featured teacher in a national publication. During the summer of 2022, we sent a team of teachers to the Library of Congress to explore "Teaching with Primary Sources." Gina, Tim, and Lisa each came back with a different perspective on how and why this is important to integrate into our practices, and we were fortunate to hear from them during last year's symposium. However, I am excited to announce that Lisa Suders is now being featured in the Library of Congress Magazine, sent out to sites throughout the country!! I could go on for days about how exciting and impressive this is, but look at the LoC Magazine pages 14-19 to see Lisa's work and references to NCS!! Rock on, Lisa!! See the September/October 2023 Issue here - starting on page 12.

Sports! We are so proud of our soccer teams. Our athletes had a fantastic season. This was our first year to enjoy night games under the lights! Thank you, too, to all of those who contributed to the great food that was available at our games. Basketball is just around the corner. Our facilities staff is giving our indoor snack booth a much-needed facelift.

From Mr. Karbowsky, Athletic Director: Thank you so much to everyone who helped at this year's Pinkout Soccer games. Between the admission collected during the week and a donation from Clear Image for $675.00 from the Pinkout apparel store, we made a total donation of $2,881.00 to the American Cancer Society. I really appreciate the help of the people who volunteered time to work the admission tables, and thank you to Clear Image for helping us raise money for this important cause. Thank you so much!  

And that's a wrap for the October Newsletter. Please enjoy the quiet times with family and friends. Curl up with a good book and a warm beverage.

If you would like to meet with me in person or virtually, just email or call to schedule a time during the school day or after your work day. 

Be sure to visit our website to keep up with district news: https://www.northvillecsd.org/.

Dr. Sarah A. Chauncey, DPS-IM 
Superintendent of Schools
schauncey@northvillecsd.org
Work: 518-863-7000 x4120
Cell: 845-304-8791