School News

Riverhead

The Riverhead Central School District’s kindergarten through fourth-grade classes will participate in a Global Play Day on Wednesday, February 6.

A third-grade team at Roanoke Elementary School brought up the initiative with the hope it would inspire families to plan for more unstructured play time during non-school hours, while also developing students’ social and imaginative skills.

Throughout the day, the students will have the opportunity to step away from their studies and simply play. Students will be encouraged to play with toys, board games, and art supplies that they bring to school.

Fourth graders at Phillips Avenue Elementary School are making efforts to reduce their environmental waste.

After watching a PBS documentary on the effect plastics have on the environment, the students were inspired to send letters to the district’s administrators, including Keith Graham, the food services manager. The students wrote about their concern over the single-use plastic items and asked for cardboard juice boxes and compostable utensils. The district agreed to work with suppliers to bring in more environmentally friendly juice containers, and students took it upon themselves to begin using reusable flatware and straws during their school meals.

Westhampton Beach

Westhampton Beach Middle School students recently fabricated their dream bedrooms inside a shoebox as part of a class project.

Students in Katie Rafferty’s family and consumer sciences class used their interior design skills and a variety of materials to design model bedrooms in shoeboxes compete with small-scale beds, shelving, rugs, and wall décor. The project focused on design concepts, including the use of warm and cool colors, and encouraged creativity, brainstorming, and problem solving.

Several students from Westhampton Beach High School participated in the filming of a public service announcement sponsored by the Southampton Town Opioid Addiction and Recovery Committee.

Maddie Donahue, Valerie Fink, Natalie Gosnell, Mackenzie Jenkins, and Alex Slover participated in the announcement, which also features all five East End town police chiefs. The announcement, which warns against the lethal dangers of fentanyl, will air on local government channels and be provided to schools and other community groups.

Westhampton Beach Elementary School students now have new, larger-than-life games to play with for indoor recess. The large-scale games include Jenga and chess, as well as other popular board games. Students can access the new games in the school’s small gym during recess.

Westhampton Beach Middle School students recently created to-scale items as part of a lesson on scale measurements. The students in Jennifer Hinrichs’s pre-algebra class used various materials to make large-than-life colored pencil boxes, iPhones, artificial sweetener packets, and MacBooks.

Springs

Registration for the Springs School’s prekindergarten program at the Eleanor Whitmore Childhood Center in East Hampton for this fall will be open from February 4 through March 18.

Parents interested in enrolling their children in the program must complete a registration packet, available in the main office of the Springs School Mondays through Fridays from 8 AM to 3 PM. The lottery for enrollment is tentatively scheduled for March 25. Children who are four years of age on or before December 1 are eligible to attend.

The child’s birth certificate, immunization records, and the parent’s proof of residence in the Springs district must be provided. A complete registration packet is required to be eligible for the lottery. For more
information, call 631-324-0144.

The Lego League teams at Springs held a bake sale fundraiser for the Cancer Research Institute last week. The students raised nearly $900 from the sale.

Third graders are holding their annual “Souper Bowl” food drive. Students can bring in a can of soup and place it in either the “Patriots” or “Rams” box, depending on which team they think will win the Super Bowl. After the game, the soup will be donated to the Springs Food Pantry.

Springs students have also been learning about technology through hands-on projects. Third graders in the “STEAM” program are making battery-operated robots, while fourth graders have been designing their own games using Makey Makey, a website from which they can connect daily used objects to their Chromebooks. The students are also making a classroom on their Chromebooks, using the program Scratch. Fifth-grade students have been working with the computer design program Tinkercat to learn about virtual reality.

The second-grade class recently had a “jungle adventure” theme for reading and writing non-fiction. Teachers transformed the classrooms into jungles with stuffed animals and hanging vines. Students researched animals found in the jungle to make informational pamphlets.

Tuckahoe

Students sampled kale and garlic pesto over baked pita chips as part of the “Farm to School” taste testing. Melissa Mapes, Farm to School coordinator, and Marta Blanco, a nutritionist from Cornell Cooperative Extension, helped with the event, which promotes student wellness and nutrition for children.

Hampton Bays

Students in the Hampton Bays Elementary School participated in an hour-long dance-a-thon on January 16. Sponsored by the school’s community service club, K-Kids, the dance-a-thon raised $800 for the Hampton Bays Kiwanis Club’s fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Students raised the funds through pledges they procured from family and friends prior to the event.

Montauk

The Montauk Public School will have a variety show on Friday, February 1 at 6 PM.

Student art is on display at Guild Hall in East Hampton as part of the Student Art Festival, which runs through February 24.

Report cards will be sent home on Thursday, January 31.

Submitted by local schools