Smith News

April 17, 2020

Achieving Excellence One Student at a Time

Welcome Back!

I sincerely hope that you all had a great Spring Break. While many of us were not able to get away, I hope that you were able to rest, recharge your batteries, and enjoy the time together (maybe too much time together right now??)

I would like to thank all members of the Smith Community for supporting our teachers and students through these times. The overwhelming support has been much needed in these crazy times. Special thank you to the PTO and the RPEF for their continued support of our Smith community as well!

As it seems like we are going to be online learning for at least the near future please take a read of this interesting article. This article can give you some strategies to help your students get the most out of their e-learning experience:

Tips for Digital At-Home Learning

Stay Healthy and Stay Safe!

Andrew Herre, Principal

In the Classroom & Around School

#TeachingforUnderstanding #ProfileofARamseyGraduate #EnhancingtheStudentExperience

Featured Bloxels Arcade Game!

We’re super proud of 8th Grader, Jonathan Varghese, for having his video game, “Bacteria vs. Virus” featured in the Bloxels Arcade! Congrats, Jonathan! We encourage all to play his game at http://arcade.bloxels.co/90495838 or search 90495838 in-app.

World Cultures CoSpaces VR

Alex Goldfarb is working on his prototype for a 3D Model Map in CoSpaces VR. He has put a lot of time, effort and detail into this project and we can't wait to see the finished product. Great job, Alex!

Compare/Contrast Charts

Mrs. Fischer and her students had fun creating compare/contrast charts on Google Meet to deepen our understanding of characters & explore how traits can change based on events and realizations, often changing who the character is entirely.

Grand Prize for Sora Video

Students Andrew Barrett, Monet Wright, Lola Callahan-Santos, Ford Durden and Sebastian Vigorito raced around the halls the week before schools closed to capture video footage for a promotional video to help launch our digital reading platform, Sora. The video, "The Vanishing at Smith School," was entered into a nationwide School Stars Campaign, hosted by parent company, Rakuten OverDrive and was selected as the GRAND PRIZE winner with a prize of $2500 in Overdrive Marketplace credit! Congratulations to all!

Wellness Wednesday

Each week, we ask our students to submit photos and videos to show what they're doing to stay happy and healthy. Here are a few of this week's submissions!

" We decided to make this a family project and with the help of my mom and dad I gathered pictures from the Ramsey Strong page, my moms Facebook account, and from some of Ramsey’s Instagram pages to make the video. It was a fun project for me and my family to do that day and I hope it brightened the day of everyone who watched it especially the workers and volunteers. We aren’t part of a Ramsey business but I was inspired by all of the pictures and how everyone came together to help out the community." -Lauren Culleny

"We made a functioning Catapult. Roughly 3 feet by 8 feet." -Roake Durden

"My dad bought a crepe maker, so I made crepes for my family one night for dinner. There was cheese sauce, chicken, and broccoli in the dinner crepes and chocolate, caramel and whipped cream in the dessert ones. It wasn’t as good as our originally planned vacation, but at least it was something." -Allison Vardi

Check out Lola's Lego Tank time lapse video!

Fab Fit Fun Club

Ms. Roscoe and the FabFitFun Club are getting it done! The club uses Padlet to share the WOD (workout of the day). You can still join! Email to broscoe@ramsey.k12.nj.us Here she is doing her amazing Simone Biles Handstand Challenge!

Community Service Club

Let's spread some cheer and thanks to all the people working hard to keep us safe and well. Please take some time to create something to brighten the day of and say thank you to those who are working so hard during this difficult time.

"This piece is a representation of our world. In a big place of grey, in the middle there is one small dot of brightness. This brightness spreads, and the dots get bigger and bigger as it spreads. The dots represent hope. If we have a little hope and joy, it can spread and get larger and larger, until the hope and joy covers up the grey, or the bad." -Emily Kenny

Smith Scoop

Smith Scoop is coming back with "The Quarantined Edition!" Send your artwork, photos, stories, poetry and anything you'd like to publish to bcsengeto@ramsey.k12.nj.us

Spring Break Enrichment Offerings

While many of us had to cancel our Spring Break plans, Ramsey Schools put together a week of Enrichment courses to help keep our students active and engaged during their "stay-cations." Smith School staff offered seven of our own courses, highlighted below!

Math Counts Competition For All! with Mr. Sirota, Math Instructional Coach

Come on and get Mathy! Students competed in an online math competition where the goal was to get ‘em right and get ‘em quick!

Fitness Workshop for Middle School Students (Grades 6-8) with Mr. Blacido, Wellness Teacher

Students learned each fitness component and then participated in a live fitness class!

Choose Your Own Adventure With a Twist for Middle School Students with Ms. Rejent, ELA Instructional Coach

Description: Students were dropped into the middle of an action-packed read aloud. Reading led to writing as we built our own ending of this action-packed story.

Game Design for Upper Elementary Students (Grades 4-5) with Mr. Kalman, Digital Design Teacher

Students were introduced to game design with Bloxels and Scratch. Students designed their own video games using these easy-to-navigate tools and will continue to have access to Scratch and Bloxels (for the rest of the school year) to continue designing video games.

Computer Science for Middle School Students with Mr. Kalman, Digital Design Teacher

Students started using an introductory programming course on CodeHS with the text-based coding language Javascript. Students were also given lots of coding resources to use on their own throughout the rest of spring break and beyond. Below is a collage of some of the work students created with their new tools.

Vlog Your Spring Break with Mrs. Wohlrab, Media Specialist

Students learned how to document their days during “Social Distancing” with a video log. Students learned how to brainstorm and construct a log entry and practiced navigating We Video. Here's an example of Maddy's finished product!

Creative Writing Workshop with Ms. Buonforte, Multimedia Production Teacher

Once upon a time...Students learned how to bring a story to life using figurative language that paints a picture, and keeps readers on the edge of their seat!

Mrs. Christine Davis

Supervisor of K-8 Education and Student Welfare

RPEF: Volunteer to Make a Difference

During times like these, what comes sharply into focus is the tremendous impact that volunteers make on their community. Thanks to those who generously donate their time and talent, Ramsey schools are able to offer programs that enhance the educational experience for our students.

The Ramsey Public Education Foundation (RPEF) provides grants that make special events and programs possible throughout the Ramsey School District. Here at Smith School, that includes providing grants to support the annual production of the immensely popular school musical. It also funds the Smith School Character Education program, which offers students a wide variety of clubs to join, including Gizmos & Gadgets, Morning Madness Soccer, Smith Scoop, a literary digital school magazine, that establish supportive relationships between our teachers and students. The RPEF also makes district-wide grants, smaller Innovative Educator grants to teachers, and they award scholarships at RHS each year.

Each spring, the RPEF seeks out community members to join its Board of Trustees so that they can continue to enrich the experience that students have in each of the Ramsey schools. For more information, on how to join the RPEF, please visit the RPEF website, where you can find the trustee application. Applications will be accepted until April 30th.

We are tremendously grateful to the RPEF community of volunteers who work to enrich, enhance, and make extraordinary the quality of education in the Ramsey Public Schools.

From the Desk of the Instructional Coaches

Courtney Rejent - Humanities Instructional Coach

Scott Sirota - Mathematics Instructional Coach

Ways We Can Provide Support

1. Answer questions you might have about instruction or curriculum

2. Provide ways to support your child's learning at home

3. Share helpful resources to assist you in teaching and learning


We are here to provide any help or support that you might need as we navigate these unchartered waters. Please feel free to reach out with questions, comments, or feedback.

If you need assistance from one of our instructional coaches, please contact:

(Humanities) Courtney Rejent - crejent@ramsey.k12.nj.us

(Math) Scott Sirota - ssirota@ramsey.k12.nj.us

Digital Resources

Summer Reading gets an early start with Sora by Overdrive! New titles have been released for unlimited/simultaneous use from now through July 31! Check them out on our Sora App!

Teacher Feature!

Mr. Truppi shares that he "hasn't been doing much." Well, that is certainly up for debate. Watch as he takes us on a tour of the many, many, many projects he has completed over the past few weeks!

Peer Leadership

We will be starting the application process for Peer Leadership for next year. Next week, 7th graders will receive an email about the applications!