Your Donations in Action

Ossining MATTERS-funded programs for the 2007 – 2008 school year are well underway throughout the district. You can read more about each of these programs in our second annual newsletter (see link above).

Dance Dance Revolution
Claremont, AMD, and OHS

Mr. Maliniak’s students have fun working out with DDR.
Photos by Robert Maliniak

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) has kids moving and grooving at Claremont!  Thanks to a grant from Ossining MATTERS, students are getting great exercise through the integration of video games and dance.

Here’s how it works:  Two students play the game at the same time. They stand on dance mats in front of the video display, choose a specific song, and then move their feet to the patterns of the arrows that appear on the screen.  They score points while keeping the beat of the music.  Alongside, the other students in the class execute the same movements on practice pads without scoring points electronically.  Students move to higher levels the more they practice and participate.  The game provides a fun and challenging workout, and the system is flexible, allowing for use at beginner through advanced levels, from grades four through twelve.

AMD will be using the equipment next, with OHS to have a turn either late this spring or early next fall.
--------------------------------------------
Kids Make Books for Kids
Claremont School

Students in Laura Myerson’s class study information about Nicaragua and begin planning their stories and illustrations. 
Photos by Nancy Scorcia

Claremont students have begun working on the books they’re creating this year for students in Nicaragua, through the Kids Make Books for Kids program. Before making their books, they learn about the destination country and its culture. They then choose their topic, and create picture books with simple English words and sentences. Kids Make Books for Kids is sponsored by Kids to Kids International, a Yorktown-based organization with a mission to “provide an opportunity for communications between young people of different cultures through student-created picture books.” The program is in its fifth year at Claremont School, though this is the first time materials, laminating, and binding have been paid for by a grant from Ossining MATTERS.
------------------------------------------

Multicultural Storytelling
Park School

In January, actors Felix Pitre and Queen Nur, from Theatreworks USA, spent a week at Park School thanks to a grant from Ossining MATTERS. They visited each first-grade classroom three times, demonstrating storytelling techniques and helping the students develop their own stories to tell. At the end of the week, they performed in an assembly, holding students and teachers spellbound with their dramatic and involving presentations. Queen Nur’s “Sweet Potato Pie and Such,” incorporating African-American traditions, was a huge hit with students. Felix Pitre’s use of both Spanish and English words in his “Stories and Songs of Latin America” encouraged native Spanish speakers to see their language as an asset, and entranced everyone. The final component of their residency was a teacher training session.

Queen Nur’s gestures and expressions had Park students hanging on her every word		Students practice adding their own touches to a story.

Photos by Elisabeth Gilbert

Discover Dinosaurs and Fossils
Brookside School

Last November and December, Brookside students became paleontologists for a day, participating in hands-on activities that helped them learn about extinct creatures from the Mesozoic era.  The “Discover Dinosaurs and Fossils” workshop, funded by a grant from Ossining MATTERS, generated tremendous excitement among the students, who thoroughly enjoyed touching and seeing real and replica fossils, and working with life-size dinosaur footprints. At the conclusion of the program, the students used reference books to write reports on the prehistoric age.

Brookside’s Library became an archaeological dig site, where fascinated students worked with tools to find replica fossils .

.
Scientists hard at work	Proud paleontologists display their work.

Photos by Debbie Lenaghan

See more of Your Donations in Action