Technology Campus Chronicle

Dear OSES Families,

We hope everyone enjoys their three-day weekend. Monday is Presidents Day. From time to time, someone will ask me who my favorite president is. Honestly, I have never had that one special connection to any of them. I find Theodore Roosevelt the most interesting; however, that’s based upon his life as an explorer, mostly after his terms in office.

I think a similar question, that I could answer much easier, would be who my favorite teacher was. That answer would be Dr. Matthew Clavin. He set high expectations and was the most practical teacher I had. He gave me sound advice both academically and personally. No matter how hard you tried, he never gave a 100 because that meant perfect (although I did receive a lot of 96s, 97s, etc.). His classes taught me how to learn, not just what I needed to learn. In his class, I learned how to read a book at a high academic level: read it once, read it again and highlight it, and then finally transfer my notes to notecards in a way I could easily reference them. Dr. Clavin was one of my teachers in my graduate program. Sometimes it takes a while for that influential person to come along and inspire you.

I can name every teacher I had in elementary school: Ms. Thiebaud, Ms. Hand, Ms. Duncan, Ms. Montgomery, Ms. Stokes, and Ms. Drake. I remember loving them all and special moments in each of their classes. Just because they are not my “favorite” doesn’t mean they weren’t caring, motherly, organized, and providing a safe learning environment for me and my classmates.

Who was your favorite teacher?

Michael Singleton

Due to supply issues at the OCPS level, we do not know if hot or cold lunch will be served. Please be prepared to have either lunch until further notice.

Breakfast and Lunch will be FREE for the 2024-2025 school year

If your child has food allergies and will require a special meal from OCPS please click on the link below to fill out the special diet order form

Special Diets for Food Allergies - Orange County Public Schools (ocps.net)

This week, students participated in the third Drop Everything and Write (DEAW) activity. This activity allows students to practice writing from the planning to the publishing stages in a single sitting. It enables teachers to observe the writing growth of our students throughout the year. The statewide BEST Writing assessment will take place on Tuesday, April 1st, for Grades 4-6—see the calendar below.

Currently, our students are celebrating Black History Month during Social Studies. Grade levels are reading books, creating dioramas, videos, and posters to represent different people and movements throughout history. Additionally, students can check out books from the library about famous African Americans or books written by African American authors to earn badges on our new reading program, Beanstack, for the February Black History Month Challenge.

The STEM Fair is coming up next month. Students are practicing the scientific method while researching testable questions. Students are working individually or as a class for our primary grades. OSES is still looking for volunteers to serve as judges.

Lastly, teachers participated in our OSES Second Annual Rock-Paper-Scissors competition today, vying to win the most beads. Our Valentine’s Day winner is Ms. Patsilevas, who earned 23 necklaces. Congrats, Ms. Patsilevas! Ms. Coy came in second with 16, followed by Ms. Masuoka with 11, and Ms. Nickerson with 10. Wishing everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Contact Cayce Carter at Cayce.Carter@orlandoscience.org with any questions.

It has been an excellent week at OSES! in Social Studies we are learning about American holidays such as Valentine's Day! In ELA we are learning about using proper punctuation in writing and who is the main character in our stories. In Math we are learning all about our tens and ones. In Science we are focusing our time on perfecting our Science project for the Science fair! We are so excited to see what is next for us!

What a fantastic past Literacy Week we've had! Our class had a blast at Camp Read-A-Lot under the stars, where we had a great time “Stop Dropping and Reading.” The cozy atmosphere made reading extra fun! We also enjoyed a special Book Tasting event where we got to sample different genres of books. It was so exciting to explore new types of stories! We can't wait to keep reading and learning together!

Happy Valentine's Day to All!

1st grade reminders and upcoming events:

Wednesday, February 19 - 1st grade STEM Rotations – volunteers needed

Friday, February 21 – Field Trip to Orlando Family Stage – a bag lunch is needed

Wednesday, February 26th – Black History Projects are due – Students should turn in their papers, diorama, and video presentation.

If you have any questions or need a box for your diorama, please contact your child’s teacher. We thank you for your continued support!

Hello Second Grade Families!

Our classroom has been buzzing with exciting learning! Here’s a peek at what we’re up to:

In Math, we’re exploring how to solve problems with coins and dollar bills. Students are practicing counting money, making change, and understanding the value of different coins and bills.

In Social Studies, we’re diving into how and why communities grow or shrink. We’re learning what causes a community to change and discussing how things like jobs, transportation, and resources impact growth.

In Reading, we’re mastering the use of commas! We’re practicing identifying and using commas in series of nouns and verbs, both in sentences and in our writing. We’re also focusing on historical fiction, identifying chronological order in texts, and discussing how this helps us understand the author’s purpose. We’ll respond to stories through both drawing and writing to explore the text even further.

In Science, we’re predicting and describing the patterns of the seasons. We’re learning how the seasons change throughout the year and how these changes impact the environment around us. Students are observing the different characteristics of each season, like the weather, the length of the days, and the way plants and animals adapt to these changes.

In Writing, we’re learning how to ask questions based on what we read, helping us develop higher-level thinking and focus on the main idea of a text.

We are so proud of how much everyone is learning!

As a reminder, our field trip to Sea World is on Thursday, April 3rd. Permission slips are due by February 24th! If you are available to chaperone, please sign-up! The more chaperones we get, the better 😊

Dear Families,

We’ve had a busy and exciting start to the year! Here’s a peek into what we’ve been working on in each subject this month:

Math – Regrouping

In math, we’ve been focusing on regrouping (also known as carrying or borrowing). This concept is essential for mastering addition and subtraction, especially when working with larger numbers.

Reading – Text Structures

In reading, we’ve been studying text structures to help students better understand and analyze different types of texts. We’ve explored various structures such as cause and effect, compare and contrast, chronological order, and problem and solution.

Science – Forms of Energy & Refraction

In science, we’ve been wrapping up our unit on forms of energy. Students have been learning about the different types of energy, including kinetic, potential, thermal, and sound energy, and how they are present in our everyday lives. We’re also diving into refraction, the bending of light as it passes through different materials, which has sparked some exciting hands-on experiments.

Social Studies – Regions Unit

In social studies, we are finishing up our unit on regions. We’ve been exploring the geographical, cultural, and economic characteristics of different regions across the country.

Looking Ahead

We are so proud of the hard work and growth our students have shown so far. As we move into the next month, we’ll continue to build on these concepts while introducing new ones!

Reminder- 3rd Grade Field Trips are scheduled for Wednesday, February 19th.

This week my 4th graders are working on a Black History Month Project in addition to the regularly scheduled curriculum.

For the project we are discussing how “STEAM is Black History”. The students are researching about Black figures from the past and today that have contributed to Science, Technology, Arts, and Math (STEAM).

As the students continue to research different Black figures we are adding their names to our door.

We started the year off busy, learning and having fun along the way. We went to the Marine Science Center, which was an amazing experience, and we had so much fun reading to our friends in first grade.

This month, we have been working on writing informational essays and took DEAW #3. We have also been focusing on improving our grammar and practicing different writing skills to make our essays even stronger.

In reading, we are working on text structures, author’s craft, and central idea. We are also reading poetry and working on improving our understanding of figurative language.

We are very excited to be learning how to use Beanstack and making the most of it by sharing all the books we’ve read and tracking our hours of reading.

We are also researching Black women in STEM for a project, which has been really interesting. Very soon, we will start our novel study and read Out of My Mindby Sharon Draper, and we can’t wait to start reading.

This week in PE, students tested their endurance with the PACER test. This fun yet challenging activity pushes you to keep up with the sound of a beep as you run back and forth. It’s all about doing your best and having fun!

In STEM 6th grade, I started to introduce to my second semester students the curricular program that integrates engineering with elementary science topics. Students explored organisms and recognized how engineering provides for the needs of small animals. They were able to match natural objects from a technology that has the same function (Biology Meets Technology). These allow them to understand a species' unique characteristic (What makes an animal special) or traits that can be used by engineers to create/ build technology out of it.

We also started to do some fun STEM challenges (Balance your bucket, craft-stick bridge, paper tower, popsi-cup etc.) that employ creativity and careful thinking to solve problems even troubleshooting and learn from failures.

This week, we focused on testing different materials and their properties before building a prototype or a model. Each student will need to understand the importance of “WHY” we are using these materials and what is it for. In Science, we learned about how animal’s characteristics help them to respond to the changing environment-Adaptations.

Next week, students will make use of their EDP (Engineering Design Process) skills in solving and building a model to solve an organism's problem.

There’s no better way to wrap up DNA & head into the Human Body then becoming a CSI Mobile Lab Tech Intern. My sixth graders had no idea that they would be walking into a crime scene classroom transformation and begin applying their knowledge about DNA. During their “internship” this week they will be testing and typing blood samples, investigating hair samples, linen samples, fingerprints, and handwriting. The best part is that the victim and suspects have familiar faces, however, they can’t be the sixth-grade teachers and staff here at OSS since they have different names and backgrounds & some look “slightly” different in their photos. . It was a great surprise for my kiddos and it’s already been a fun start to this week!

Dear Orlando Science Elementary School Parents,

We are thrilled to celebrate our mini mathletes who participated in the Mathleague.org Elementary February Qualifying Round at Heathrow Elementary School on Saturday, February 8th!

Our young mathematicians tackled challenging problems with determination and perseverance, showcasing their love for math and problem-solving. We are incredibly proud of all our students who took on this challenge and represented our school with excellence.

A special thank you to our dedicated sponsors and coaches for guiding and preparing these talented students for future success. This competition brought together over 150 bright students from the Central Florida region, and we are excited to recognize the outstanding achievements of our Orlando Science Elementary mathletes:

🏆 3rd Grade

• Aarav Jindal – 7th place
• Aadhavan Parthiban – 8th place
• Aadit Dixit – 9th place

🏆 4th Grade

• Kanika Sharma – 7th place

🏆 5th Grade

• Dhruv Tejomurthula – 5th place
• Atisha Jain – 10th place

We are so proud of each of our students and can’t wait to see them continue to shine in upcoming math competitions. Keep up the amazing work, and let’s continue to inspire a love for mathematics!

Go Orcas!

In order to help keep our families informed of the latest legislative updates regarding their student's education, a Parent Rights Resources page has been added to the school website.

Recent updates include:

• Internet Safety
• District Health Care Services
• Special Magistrate

The mission of Orlando Science Elementary School (OSES) is to provide a well-rounded education with special emphasis in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), while using research-based and innovative instructional methods in a stimulating learning environment. OSES is committed to the social-emotional learning and character development of all students.