As stated in our handbook, safety is very important, thus, all decisions regarding outside activities are made with safety in mind. The adults supervising outside recess make the final decision to allow play on the hill/field or to shut it down. Students in Pre K -3 must have boots and snow pants if they want to play on the snow banks or hill. They may go in the field as long as they are wearing boots. 4th and 5th grade students may play in the snow without snow pants or boots; however, they will not be able to get dry clothing or shoes from the nurse. We will be going outside as long as the temps, including the wind chill, are at or above 10 degrees.
The Hillsboro Deering Elementary School (HDES) Library thanks the
Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for its three years of
spectacular support. In June 2019, IMLS granted $50,000.00 to the HDES
library to fund STEAM programming. Students in grades 1 through 5
participated in five creative engineering projects from the prestigious
Boston Museum of Science. Students went on to participate in 19 shorter
projects based on books and building. This programming was directed by
elementary school librarian Meg Jones with the support of STEAM
Associates Deanna Neal and Emily Primrose.
The program was a huge success due to the creativity and hard work of the
wonderful students. They were able to complete their building projects in
diverse settings such as the library, or their classrooms, or even at home
during the pandemic thanks to materials kits. When you ask students
today about what they enjoyed about the projects, many students talk
about how fun they were. In their words, they liked learning new things and
are looking forward to more projects. They even have their own ideas for
the future, like creating an origami zoo or city.
Enriching projects like this continue into the future with the book and build
program, where students listen to a book and follow on with a project. In
November 2022, students created 289 Warrior Holiday Cards for troops
who cannot go home over the holidays. This generous grant accelerated
promising practices in our small library, and the learning has been very
agreeable to our students. Thank you to IMLS!
