MARCH 2019
NJ Tiered Systems of Support-Early Reading Grant
River Edge was fortunate to be selected as one of only two Bergen County Districts to participate in the New Jersey Tiered Systems of Support - Early Reading Grant (NJTSS-ER). The NJTSS-ER is a framework of academic and behavioral supports and interventions to improve student achievement. The focus of this three-year grant project will be on improving reading achievement in Kindergarten through Grade 3. Our District is receiving intensive support from the state, through coaching and high-quality professional development, which will help enhance differentiation in the classroom. All work for this project is aligned with and builds upon existing screening, assessment, and intervention systems in our schools.
Roosevelt Family Meeting
Roosevelt School held a "Family Meeting" on Thursday, February 28th. Roosevelt Family Meetings are held throughout the school year. The entire school comes together to celebrate positive contributions students and/or staff have made to the Roosevelt Community. Teachers fill out a form to nominate a student or a fellow colleague. The person nominating an individual shares a story on why the person has earned the Roosevelt Pride award. At the meeting, their "story" is shared with students, staff, and the parents of those that are being celebrated. At the end of the story, Mr. Henzel reveala the name, and that individual receives a Roosevelt Pride Pin, a certificate, and their name is memorialized on the Roosevelt Pride Tree that is painted in the hallway. It is a very special and moving celebration.
Pictured below are from the Family meeting on 2/28
Pictured below are from the Family meeting on 2/28
March Math-ness in River Edge Schools
Madness in March? Math CREATE students make math fun for all!
Most people have heard of March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament with its brackets of fun or anguish, depending on who you pick and how well your teams do each round. At River Edge Schools, Mrs. Hafers and her Math CREATE classes put on their own version of madness, called March MATHness. The pun is intentional, to tie into the NCAA excitement, but the fun is all home grown. Centered around Pi Day, celebrated on March 14th (3/14, because the first digits of Pi are 3.14), it’s a month long celebration of math fun. These students are not only good at math, but they really enjoy spreading their love of this subject and making math fun and enjoyable for the entire school.
Grade 5 Math CREATE is responsible for the day to day activities, which include reading a daily math fun fact at the end of every day over the school loudspeaker. The 5th graders also sponsor the Weekly Math Contest questions that are available for all students to solve. The puzzles are all original - designed, developed and tested by the Math CREATE students. The puzzles are not only fun to do, they require logical thinking and reasoning from the problem solver, and higher order thinking from the problem designer. In our first year, the puzzles were hung out by the front office, and participants returned answers on little slips of paper. In subsequent years, the technology coaches taught a lesson on how to build a Google Form, and students then created their puzzles in Forms. Not only did this allow us to electronically post and share the puzzle each week, but it automatically collected all responses into a Google Sheet. Each puzzle must have answer key as well and the links to all are posted on the school’s March MATHness website, located on the Student Technology Playbook.
The idea behind the puzzles is to encourage all students to try their hand at a fun, engaging math question. The best outcome is that they learn a new puzzle that they like and continue to work and enjoy it! The Google Sheets allow CREATE students keep track of the student participation and calculate rates for each class. They’re happy when students get the correct answer, but more thrilled with seeing how many students tried their puzzle. At the end of the month, the winning classroom is awarded the “Pi Plate” to keep in their room as a trophy all year. As their last project for the month, the students assembled math jokes and any extra puzzles they created into a March Math Magazine that is distributed to all the teachers online. It also includes all the daily math fun facts in case students missed hearing them. The CREATE students also found plenty of corny math jokes and cartoons which are so entertaining.
Now in its 5th year, the 6th grade Math CREATE students have the fun responsibility to plan, design and host the annual Family Math Carnival. The night is a family event open to the entire school where kids, their parents and siblings can come and try out some new games, logic puzzles and various math stations. Again, the theme here is to share how much fun math can be and encourage everyone to explore and try something new. The CREATE students decide exactly what stations and games there will be and they write all the directions, signs and flyers advertising the event. Lastly, they act as hosts that night, teaching and showing visitors their particular math station. We’ve continued the tradition from the first year of having a multi-cultural game section, which mirrors our school theme and is also just a fun way to explore games that perhaps our students play with their parents or grandparents at home. Some of these games have been around for centuries.
The 6th graders also run the Pi Digits Contest for the school. This is an annual tradition held around the country and world. Many years ago, mathematicians chose March 14th (3/14) as a day to celebrate math. As Pi is such an interesting and somewhat mysterious math concept, Pi Day began to be celebrated each year on March 14th. It’s become customary for students to challenge themselves by trying to memorize as many digits of Pi as they can. We’ve been amazed each year at the students from both schools who walk in that day and can recite over 100 digits of Pi. For the past 4 years, we’ve had students memorize over 200 digits and this year, one of our 4th graders orally recited 1400 digits of Pi. Anyone who attempts this feat is rewarded with a Pi Digits pencil or a water tattoo of Pi, as their reward.
Please check out our March MATHness webpage https://sites.google.com/riveredgeschools.org/chs-march-mathness/home which has information about the Carnival and Pi Digits contest and all the weekly contest questions. We hope that everyone enjoyed March MATHness this year and we look forward to sharing our favorite month with you next year!
Most people have heard of March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament with its brackets of fun or anguish, depending on who you pick and how well your teams do each round. At River Edge Schools, Mrs. Hafers and her Math CREATE classes put on their own version of madness, called March MATHness. The pun is intentional, to tie into the NCAA excitement, but the fun is all home grown. Centered around Pi Day, celebrated on March 14th (3/14, because the first digits of Pi are 3.14), it’s a month long celebration of math fun. These students are not only good at math, but they really enjoy spreading their love of this subject and making math fun and enjoyable for the entire school.
Grade 5 Math CREATE is responsible for the day to day activities, which include reading a daily math fun fact at the end of every day over the school loudspeaker. The 5th graders also sponsor the Weekly Math Contest questions that are available for all students to solve. The puzzles are all original - designed, developed and tested by the Math CREATE students. The puzzles are not only fun to do, they require logical thinking and reasoning from the problem solver, and higher order thinking from the problem designer. In our first year, the puzzles were hung out by the front office, and participants returned answers on little slips of paper. In subsequent years, the technology coaches taught a lesson on how to build a Google Form, and students then created their puzzles in Forms. Not only did this allow us to electronically post and share the puzzle each week, but it automatically collected all responses into a Google Sheet. Each puzzle must have answer key as well and the links to all are posted on the school’s March MATHness website, located on the Student Technology Playbook.
The idea behind the puzzles is to encourage all students to try their hand at a fun, engaging math question. The best outcome is that they learn a new puzzle that they like and continue to work and enjoy it! The Google Sheets allow CREATE students keep track of the student participation and calculate rates for each class. They’re happy when students get the correct answer, but more thrilled with seeing how many students tried their puzzle. At the end of the month, the winning classroom is awarded the “Pi Plate” to keep in their room as a trophy all year. As their last project for the month, the students assembled math jokes and any extra puzzles they created into a March Math Magazine that is distributed to all the teachers online. It also includes all the daily math fun facts in case students missed hearing them. The CREATE students also found plenty of corny math jokes and cartoons which are so entertaining.
Now in its 5th year, the 6th grade Math CREATE students have the fun responsibility to plan, design and host the annual Family Math Carnival. The night is a family event open to the entire school where kids, their parents and siblings can come and try out some new games, logic puzzles and various math stations. Again, the theme here is to share how much fun math can be and encourage everyone to explore and try something new. The CREATE students decide exactly what stations and games there will be and they write all the directions, signs and flyers advertising the event. Lastly, they act as hosts that night, teaching and showing visitors their particular math station. We’ve continued the tradition from the first year of having a multi-cultural game section, which mirrors our school theme and is also just a fun way to explore games that perhaps our students play with their parents or grandparents at home. Some of these games have been around for centuries.
The 6th graders also run the Pi Digits Contest for the school. This is an annual tradition held around the country and world. Many years ago, mathematicians chose March 14th (3/14) as a day to celebrate math. As Pi is such an interesting and somewhat mysterious math concept, Pi Day began to be celebrated each year on March 14th. It’s become customary for students to challenge themselves by trying to memorize as many digits of Pi as they can. We’ve been amazed each year at the students from both schools who walk in that day and can recite over 100 digits of Pi. For the past 4 years, we’ve had students memorize over 200 digits and this year, one of our 4th graders orally recited 1400 digits of Pi. Anyone who attempts this feat is rewarded with a Pi Digits pencil or a water tattoo of Pi, as their reward.
Please check out our March MATHness webpage https://sites.google.com/riveredgeschools.org/chs-march-mathness/home which has information about the Carnival and Pi Digits contest and all the weekly contest questions. We hope that everyone enjoyed March MATHness this year and we look forward to sharing our favorite month with you next year!
