Brightly colored tablecloths and floral centerpieces helped transform the cafeteria into a café at Northeast Elementary School on May 10. Pre-K students welcomed mothers, grandmothers, aunts, siblings and even a few fathers for the annual Mother’s Day.

Teacher Yvette Carman said that the tea is a long-standing tradition at the school as a way to show appreciation for the parents who do so much to support their children’s educations.

During the morning and afternoon programs, each of the four classes sang a special song for their mothers before a group performance of “Skidamarink.” Children then joined their special guests at the tables for snacks, iced tea and juice. They made gifts including cards, picture frames and artwork. 

Libraries are being reimagined in the district with the adoption of the Makerspace movement to provide students with new opportunities for hands-on discovery.

Park Avenue Memorial Elementary School library Timothy Quinn has introduced a variety of high-tech and low-tech resources that stimulate creativity and support the development of problem-solving abilities. Fiddlestix is a 104-piece building kit of wooden sticks and circular connectors. Little Bits allow students to explore circuitry by putting different elements together to produce light and sound.

Mr. Quinn said that one popular resource is Makey Makey, in which students connect wires between a computer and ordinary objects to make music. They played the piano from scallions and the bongo drums using bananas. 

Makerspace at Park Avenue is based on the UTEC model — using, tinkering, experimenting and creating. Mr. Quinn said his STREAM team, a group of fifth and sixth grade students, used the resources first to help him identify ways to best incorporate them into the library curriculum.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “The Makerspace program is only going to get better because the possibilities are endless. We’re trying to build this space to so students can create something from nothing.”

Northeast Elementary School librarian Tina Smith recently debuted the Makerspace program for kindergartners. She has dedicated a corner of the library to the initiative and filled it with different building materials.

Ms. Smith’s approach to Makerspace is to have students participate in literacy-based, team-building challenges. Recently, kindergartners used recycled materials to build boats that could float in a tub of water. Before constructing, they explored scientific concepts including buoyancy and gravity. 

The idea came from a page that features a beach scene in the Debbie Clement book, “Red, White and Blue.” Although the book features illustrations representing locations all over America, Ms. Smith that page stood out to her because of Amityville’s proximity to the water. 

At Northeast, the Makerspace philosophy is “try and try again,” and Ms. Smith said that mistakes are just a normal part of the learning process. While she has facilitated the first few projects, students will have more independence in completing the challenges once they become familiar with the Makerspace expectations and materials.  

“I would like students to experience their learning, to ask questions, to try,” she said. “I want to encourage them to think, play and create and come up with a lot of different solutions to solve problems.”

The motto “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” was the inspiration behind Earth Day projects at Northeast Elementary School. Students were charged with use old materials to create new products.

Children in pre-K and kindergarten classes expressed their creativity in many different ways, making artwork, games, household items and school supplies. Students made butterflies from use coffee filters and clothes pins, pencil cases from cereal boxes and a birdfeeder from a milk carton. 

A pre-K class created a bowling alley using flattened boxes for the lane, decorated water bottles for the pins and a ball of aluminum foil. Kindergartners made flower pots by cutting water bottles in half and filling them with soil and seeds.

After completing their persuasive writing pieces, kindergartners proudly shared their work.

Spring was the theme at Northeast Elementary School, which hosted a family learning night. There were seasonal literacy, math and science activities. Pre-K and kindergarten students played rhyming games and learned about the different parts of flower, among other activities.

A photo station with spring-themed props was a popular spot. Each child was able to plant a seed in a cup of dirt to bring home and parents also received packets with additional learning resources.