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Tech Support

If you are experiencing technical difficulties, please email your questions and concerns to the following address. Please include your child's name and grade in your email. For elementary students, please also include the name of your child's teacher.

The computer teacher from your building will troubleshoot your situation and email you back as soon as possible.

Thank you.

sestechsupport@islipufsd.org





Celebrating Sherwood’s Young Writers

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Islip’s Maud S. Sherwood Elementary School recently held its second writing celebration of the year. During the workshop, students learned the importance of having a growth mindset, how to focus on “process over product,” and shared their work with classmates, teachers, support staff, special area teachers, literacy coaches, administrators and even the school nurse.

“We are very proud of all students from grades 2 through 5, and were thrilled to have fifth grade parents join us for our celebration,” Principal Briana James said. “We are truly a community of readers and writers, and these special writing celebrations are a great way to show it.”

Date Added: 3/21/2024

CRES Fifth Grader Kelly Pitt Wins Second Consecutive Hoops Contest

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Fourth- and fifth-grade students from Commack Road Elementary School and Maud S. Sherwood Elementary School recently competed in the 38th annual Town of Islip Sharp Shooter Basketball Contest. The Sharp Shooter program, sponsored by the Islip Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs since 1993, challenges local students to score as many baskets as possible in one minute. The fourth and fifth grade students that score the most points in each of their respective grades make it to the final round.

Commack Road’s in-school winners, guided by physical education teacher Carrie Rittberg, were fourth graders Erin Lella and Colin Moon and fifth graders athletes Jaxon Gerena and Kelly Pitt, while Makenzy Covelli, Emma Myles-McAnally, Tanner Oswald and Matteo Spallina were the second-place finishers.

At Sherwood, guided by physical education teacher Jeff Atlas, the winners were fourth graders Tyler Bucaro and Kenley Simonetti and fifth graders Michael Monahan and Milania Paiz.

All eight of the first-place winners represented Islip in the townwide Sharp Shooter competition, held on March 2 at East Islip High School. At the event, Pitt put on a remarkable hoops performance, scoring 32 points to make her the overall winner for fifth-grade girls. It was Pitt’s second consecutive Sharp Shooter victory, as she won in 2023 as a fourth grader, breaking an event record. Town officials searched previous records dating back to the late 1990s and could not find another player who achieved this amazing accomplishment.

“Winning back-to-back is a phenomenal feat,” CRES physical education teacher Carrie Rittberg said. “Kelly outscored the second-place participant by eight points and was able to secure her lead and be crowned the Sharp Shooter champion. Our participants did an amazing job competing against the fourth and fifth grade student winners from each of the elementary schools in the Town of Islip, and we are so proud of our athletes and all of their hard work and dedication.”

Date Added: 3/20/2024

Sherwood Students Learn Confidence Through Circus Project

The National Circus Project once again visited Islip’s Maud S. Sherwood Elementary School nce Through Circus Project thumbnail256006
The National Circus Project once again visited Islip’s Maud S. Sherwood Elementary School for a five-day residency during gym classes, teaching students circus tricks, skills, and acts which encourage patience, self-discipline, and perseverance; promote confidence; build character; and encourage both team work and individuality. The program was sponsored by the school’s PTA and funded by last year’s Sherwood Booster-thon.    

Over the duration of the school week, each Sherwood student in grades 2 through 5 participated in 80 minutes of “circus training” under the guidance of specially-trained circus staff, learning to balance feathers and other objects such as hockey sticks, walk on stilts, juggle, spin plates, spin a diabolo, manipulate flower sticks, twirl hula hoops, and create comedy acts as clowns. Fifth graders practiced every single day, and more than once on some days, creating great memories while preparing for a culminating circus show for their friends and families.

“During the five intensive days of training, it was truly incredible to see the confidence of our students grow as they persevered through a new challenging yet supportive experience,” Principal Briana James said. “Overall, it was a great week of growth and development for the children and their hard work really paid off.”

KidOYO Offers Islip Students a K-12 Journey Through the World of Coding

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For the last two years, Islip’s schools have been implementing kidOYO, an exciting, robust, Manorville-based platform for coding and computer science that focuses on building students’ real-world skills through projects and games.

“KidOYO is definitely in alignment with our superintendent Dr. Dennis O’Hara’s vision for giving our students the best opportunities to shape their future,” said Dr. Chad Walerstein, Islip’s director of technology, innovation and information systems. “It really provides kids with tremendous opportunities in the areas of coding, computer science, logic and critical thinking. This will undoubtedly have a profound effect on their life trajectories, because regardless of what profession they seek out after high school and college, coding is everywhere. It’s in business, finance, computer science and engineering, and it’s becoming more and more normal for graduates to need to have this kind of knowledge. Even beyond direct knowledge of coding, the tenets that kidOYO promotes really function to enhance systematic thought and problem-solving skills, as well as social skills like communication and collaboration.”

At the earliest levels at Wing Elementary School, students begin with the Color by Code program, an app within kidOYO that teaches them the principles of coding. From basic coding such as directional and multi-step algorithms, they move up to another coding language called Hatch, which is essentially a derivative of the Scratch coding language. A form of block coding, Hatch allows students to literally drag and drop blocks to produce an outcome. The Maze Code game within the platform, which most students go through at the earlier levels, gets progressively more difficult and forces the students to utilize repetition and conditional code such as “If this, then that.” Wing students work with kidOYO for a minimum of once a week for the entire year.

Slightly older students are guided through kidOYO by Islip’s STEAM teachers and technology teacher assistants, Beth Fazio and Robert Going at Commack Road Elementary School and Kenneth Bailey and Fred Stroh at Maud S. Sherwood Elementary School. In the middle school, kidOYO is taught by librarian Kathy Ryder as well as implemented in technology classes. At the high school, kidOYO is utilized in a different, course-specific way. High school classes using the platform include AP computer science, video game design, coding and computer programming with Java.

“The nice thing about the platform is that it takes kids from the most basic thing, like Color by Code, all the way through to all of the coding languages that are used in business today such as Python, which some of the high school students are using,” Dr. Walerstein said. “It’s kind of a one-stop shop, if you will.”

Another important aspect of the kidOYO program is providing a challenge for students with a competitive streak, who can participate in Hackathon coding competitions against other Long Island schools in four divisions: high school, seventh and eighth grades, sixth grade and upper elementary school. Each team can have no more than eight members, and at each level, students are required to meet different specific coding benchmarks.

“The Hackathons get progressively more difficult to the point where, when the students are in high school, they have to know a little bit of everything,” Dr. Walerstein said.

Students receive badges for achieving different levels of competency, which serve as micro-credentials as they advance through the program, and kidOYO teachers are able to accurately assess student progress in coding, assisted by the company itself. Teachers can also pursue professional development through kidOYO, obtaining badges of their own and becoming certified as kidOYO certified educators.  

“A teacher doesn’t necessarily have to be a master of coding to utilize it,” Dr. Walerstein said. “Mentors at kidOYO look at every single project. Once a student submits an assignment or project, mentors at kidOYO will offer suggestions, praise their work or even ask them questions. For example, there was a student who submitted something recently in the high school, and one of the mentors at kidOYO actually contacted the teacher and asked it the student used original code, because the mentor was stunned at the level of what the student accomplished.”

The program’s flexibility is one of its greatest strengths.

“So much of this can be self-driven,” Dr. Walerstein said. “Students have access to all of these different apps. If they want to go onto Hatch, all they have to do is open it up and they can go ahead and create and submit projects on their own.”

"I love trying to figure things out when I’m doing the challenges in Hatch,” sixth grader Caden Tarello said.

“Coding definitely reorients the students’ thinking processes,” Ryder said. “They learn how important precision is in their input. Our students love working through the challenges to earn badges and exploring the work of their fellow coders, and I can literally see that students relax and their shoulders come to rest when they know we are going to work in Hatch and kidOYO.”

Date Added: 3/1/2024
 

Monster Doll Field Trip Proves a Demonstration of Student Mentorship

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A heartwarming collaboration between Islip High School and Maud S. Sherwood Elementary School recently unfolded during a special monster doll field trip. The Sherwood students and their teacher, Melissa Trocchio-Cohen, had previously unleashed their creativity by sketching imagined monster dolls on paper. These whimsical drawings served as the foundation for the collaboration between the two schools.

Ali Catalano’s fashion class students at the high school, equipped with expert hand-sewing skills, were entrusted with the task of bringing these imaginative creatures to life. With great care and attention to detail, the fashion students meticulously transformed the two-dimensional sketches into three-dimensional dolls. They carefully selected fabrics, matched colors and skillfully sewed each doll’s components together. The result was a collection of vibrant and unique monster dolls that far exceeded the expectations of the elementary students.

The day of the field trip was filled with excitement and anticipation as the high schoolers traveled to Sherwood to deliver the finished products. As they arrived, they were greeted with enthusiastic cheers and smiles from the younger students. The Sherwood students eagerly received their completed monster dolls, marveling at the attention to detail and the transformation from paper to fabric.

“This collaborative effort went beyond the mere act of sewing,” Catalano said. “It was a powerful demonstration of mentorship and inspiration. The high school students served as role models, sharing their knowledge and expertise with the younger students. They provided guidance, encouragement and a valuable lesson in teamwork.”


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