Technology Campus Chronicle

Dear OSES Families,

This week two of our grades were sent on field trips to Gatorland and Kennedy Space Center. These educational excursions are more than just a break from the classroom; they are invaluable learning experiences that contribute to our students' growth and development in numerous ways including Hands on Learning and Social and Emotional growth.

Field trips provide students with the opportunity to engage in hands-on learning. Whether visiting a science museum, historical site, or nature reserve, students can interact with their environment in ways that are not possible in a traditional classroom setting. This tactile experience helps to solidify concepts and make learning more memorable.

Field trips also foster social and emotional development. Working together in new environments encourages teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills. Additionally, these outings can boost students' confidence as they navigate new experiences and interact with diverse groups of people.

Last but not least, field trips are fun! They break the routine and add excitement to the school year. When students are engaged and enjoying themselves, they are more likely to retain information and develop a lifelong love of learning.

We are committed to providing our students with enriching experiences both inside and outside the classroom. Thank you for your continued support in making these opportunities possible.

Michael Singleton

Principal

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, our 4th and 5th graders completed the FAST PM #2 ELA and Math assessments. Makeups will take place on Monday and Tuesday of next week. After Winter Break in January, all kindergarten through 2nd grade students will take the FAST (Star) assessments. Your child’s homeroom teacher will provide the exact dates and times. Families can find student scores on the Skyward Parent Portal. Please see the link below for more details.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Cayce Carter at Cayce.Carter@orlandoscience.org.

This week in kindergarten has been very busy! In social Studies Ms. Volden’s class has started learning about holidays around the world. So far, we have learned about Las Posadas in Mexico, Christmas in Germany, Christmas and Epiphany in Italy, and Christmas and St. Lucia day in Sweden! On Thursday students learned about the Tonte or barn gnomes. Students were able to create some fun crafts this week including a gingerbread house and coloring their own Tonte gnome. For science kindergarten were working hard on the STEM challenge for quarter 2. In this challenge students tested out two different methods in making fake snow. Thank you to Ms. Whitaker for putting that together!

Next week students will have some more fun winter holiday activities planned. Please look out for the permission slips for these events in your child’s folders!

First Grade had a busy week with STEM door experiments and our Gatorland field trip! Ms. Nickerson's class tested zip lines; Ms. Keene's class experimented with substances that stain our teeth; Ms. Bayno's class discovered how to make rainbows; Ms. Quarterman's class investigated how to lower the freezing temperature of ice; Ms. DiNuzzo's class built go carts to align with their Reading story "Going Places"; and Ms. Vancol's class tested out weathering with rock (candy!). Next week we will have our Winter STEM Rotations on Wednesday, and we welcome volunteers! It's a great time to be a Firstie! 🙂

This week in second grade we are focusing on how we use our environment and how environmental resources are used! We are learning about the different environments people live in, the way the environment affects jobs, and how we use the environment for food, clothing, and shelter. Students could complete hands-on food, clothing, and shelter activity and then complete a replica of it on their computer. There has been great discussion on how we can conserve our resources and keep the land, air, and bodies of water pollution free. We are excited to tie this information into our STEM project next week where students will collaborate and create a wind powered car! How can this wind powered car help us conserve our natural resources?

Third Grade got the opportunity to Kennedy space center, seeing the original mission control for the first successful moon launch, hearing from real life astronauts, participating in a variety of simulator like landing on the Red Planet Mars. They also could take bus tour where they saw the VAB which is the size of the coliseum with room to spare and where Space X refurbishes the rocket launchers.

This week, in the middle of FAST testing, we finished up our Quarter 2 STEM Challenge. This time, we made wind-powered cars. We are also starting to prepare for our STEM Fair Projects – make sure to keep that on your radar as these projects could take a long time to collect data.

We will be beginning our new topic on Multiplication and Division of Fractions and will continue it when we come back from break. Hope you all have a safe and wonderful Winter Break!

This week we will be bust taking out midyear FAST exams for both Reading and Math! When we are not testing, we will be starting our new module on taking care of the planet. Our essential question that we will be answering is, “How can caring for Earth and its living things improve life now and in the future?” We will be reading texts about urban farming, being self-sufficient, and living green. Homerooms will also be working on answering a STEM question and decorating our doors with the answers. Mrs. Kenney’s homeroom will be exploring rainbows and how they are made!

This week in PE, we had a blast playing Steal the Bacon. A beanbag is placed in the middle of the field, and two players race to grab it first. Everyone showed great sportsmanship and quick reflexes! This game keeps everyone moving and makes staying active so much fun.

In sixth-grade math, we have covered integers, rational numbers, percentages, decimals, and coordinate planes. We are currently working on ratios and rates. We have learned a lot and are working hard to finish the semester well. Some fun activities we have done in class are card games that involve adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing integers. We also played a battleship math game to help us understand how to plot in a coordinate plane—a reminder to check your email for math updates on what is happening in math. If you have any questions or concerns, please email me.

Dear All,

On Saturday, December 7th, our elementary campus hosted the annual Central Florida Math Tournament (CFMT), organized by Orlando Science High School’s Mu Alpha Theta Honor Society. This exciting event welcomed 130 4th and 5th graders from across Central Florida for a day of math-filled fun and challenges!

Participants engaged in two thrilling rounds of competition — the Sprint and Problem-Solving rounds — where their creativity and problem-solving skills were put to the test. Between rounds, students enjoyed a delicious pizza lunch and were captivated by our high school robotics team’s incredible presentations. They even got hands-on experience playing with the robots, adding a spark of STEM excitement to the day!

Following the competition, the top students in each grade level were honored during the awards ceremony. We are especially proud to recognize the amazing achievements of our own Orlando Science Elementary students:

4th Grade:
🏅 6th Place: Arjun Bondalapati
🏅 10th Place: Kanika Sharma
🏅 11th Place: Daniel Chai
🏅 14th Place: Sriya Mogali
🏅 15th Place: Adam Ben Nasr

5th Grade:
🏅 8th Place: Serena Lansel
🏅 11th Place: Vidwan Bathula
🏅 13th Place: Steve Avila
🏅 17th Place: Reyna Shah
🏅 20th Place: Advika Pudale

Congratulations to all our students for their outstanding effort and accomplishments! We hope that CFMT inspires these young mathematicians to explore and participate in more math competitions in the future.

CFMT is an annual math contest hosted by Orlando Science High School’s Mu Alpha Theta Honor Society, whose members worked tirelessly to make this event a resounding success. Special thanks to our parent volunteers and the incredible Mu Alpha Theta sponsors — Mr. Akyalcin, Mr. Dadoboev, and Mr. Sekmen — for their dedication and support.

We are already looking forward to next year’s CFMT and hope to see even more of our students participate. Thank you to everyone who made CFMT 2024 an unforgettable event, and we hope all attendees had a fantastic time!

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.