NOVEMBER SPECIALIST S NEWSLETTER Art with Mrs. Lewis This month students are challenged to think in new ways as they experiment through art. Many of these projects are connected to subjects students are studying in the classroom. Students address some of the following questions associated with their art projects: First Grade - Cuckoo Clocks Students are creating cuckoo clocks with hands that move and pop-out cuckoo birds. What elements of an alpine chalet would you like to include in your painted clock structure? Why do alpine chalets have steep roof lines? How can you carve texture lines into your paint? How can you make your pom-pom bird pop out of the clock and appear cuckoo? How can we use this clock to tell time? How many ways can you incorporate movement into your design? Kindergarten - Trees in Different Dimensions Students create two-dimensional collages of trees and then three-dimensional sculpture collages. What is the difference between a two-dimensional image and a three-dimensional sculpture? What is similar between your structure and a tree s structure? What would happen if a tree grew from a thin trunk line to a thick twig line? How can you identify textures in your environment? Do you use these same words to identify textures in your tree sculpture?
Second Grade - Owl Moon Students are painting an owl in flight in an evening sky. How many different perspectives (owl eye view, human view, fox view ) can we find in Jan Yolen s illustrations for Owl Moon? How will you illustrate an owl s flight on a snowy night? Will you focus on the owl or on the landscape? What point of view will you use? Third Grade Sand Paper Batik In science students are experimenting with how temperature can change the characteristics of certain materials. In art we will see if heat will transfer wax designs from sand paper to fabric. We will also read a story about Adinkra cloth from Ghana, The Talking Cloth by Rhonda Mitchell. What do you think will happen when we iron your sandpaper crayon design onto a square of muslin fabric? Will it transfer accurately or enlarge or shrink? Why? What do you think will happen when we paint the fabric with watercolor? Will it enlarge or shrink? How does watercolor react to the crayon you have directly drawn on fabric? How might it react to the transferred sandpaper design?
Fourth Grade - Birch Trees Students will paint images of birch trees while experimenting with watercolor techniques. What is the easiest way to preserve the white of your watercolor paper as you paint a landscape with birch trees? How can overlapping, change in size, and adding more blue to your colors create depth in your image? How does time of day and time of year affect the colors you choose and atmosphere you create in your painting? Fifth Grade Venetian Carnival Masks Students are continuing to construct masks with tagboard forms attached to the shallow relief plaster face. In the next few weeks they will transform the mask with puff paint, metallic color, filigree patterning, and accessories such as feathers, fabric, pom-poms, and beads. How can the mask demonstrate a feeling of both celebration and mystery, in the style of Renaissance Venetian carnival masks? How can you use detail to emphasize these qualities?
Music with Mr. Hopkins Things have been really cooking in general music so far! Students are settling in well to classroom routines and are ready to try new things! Students understand that although we have fun and play in music class, play helps us to learn real musical concepts that they can take with them to instrumental music and can use to foster a life-long appreciation of the musical arts! In other news, many of the classes will be able to enjoy a Halloween-inspired musical activity over the next couple of weeks! In Kindergarten, we are identifying, moving to, and singing musical opposites such as fast and slow or loud and soft. We also exploring a greater theme about music: music tells stories! Students have recently learned a story song about The Old Gray Cat, which has helped students to make logical choices about loud and soft and fast and slow in performance. Groups of students were able to perform the song for each other while other students practiced what it means to be a good audience. We have also started to explore the myriad of classroom instruments at our disposal and have used these instruments to echo rhythms from the many songs we have learned. We are also working on understanding that all beats are NOT created equal, that certain beats receive greater emphasis than others. And of course, we are continuing to have fun learning silly songs and finger play games, many of which I m sure you learned when you were your son s or daughter s age. In first grade, we are going into some depth with musical opposites such as loud and soft or fast and slow or high and low. We have also almost finished our introduction to classroom instruments this year. During this process, we have used these instruments to keep the beat of some pretty cool songs and musical compositions. Ask your student to name some of the instruments he or she has used so far this year! In the coming few weeks, students will have their first experience with solfege, a method by which students will eventually be able to read music at-sight! Second graders have been hard at work preparing for their field trip to Strathmore Hall to see the National Philharmonic Orchestra perform! We have learned about a wide variety of classroom instruments and will be learning about orchestral instruments by watching videos that show how these instruments are played. We will classify these instruments into four major families: string, percussion, woodwind, and brass. We will also discuss appropriate audience etiquette. We will learn choreography to The Berry-Picker Song which is excerpted from The Little Train to Caipira by 20th century composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, a piece that the National Philharmonic orchestra will perform for our students! In the coming few weeks, we will also be focusing on being able to keep the beat of a song while performing sequences of choreography. In third grade, we have had lots of fun learning a dance from the Middle East! We have also been using our Orff instruments (classroom xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiels) to create melodic ostinatos (repeated patterns) to a beautiful Negro spiritual called Over My Head. They probably have this song and the accompanying pattern stuck over their heads, so ask your
student(s) to sing it for you! Starting next week, we will begin our study of meter (or time signature). Meter describes how beats are grouped together in a piece of music. Most of the music you hear on the radio is made out of groups of four beats. However, we have been introduced to music that is grouped into three beats and two beats as well. Students will be able to identify the meter of a piece by looking at the music (with the meter symbol removed) or by kinesthetically engaging with a recorded performance. Fourth graders are continuing to expand their knowledge of solfege (sight-singing) as they locate Do, Re, and Mi in written music. They have become quite proficient in singing these pitches in a variety of different keys when shown the hand-signs for each pitch! They are well on their way to being able to read a normal melody at-sight! We are also finishing our unit on conducting: students can now conduct accurately in a meter of 4 and a meter of 3. We are also working hard on composing and performing our own rhythmic ostinatos (repeated patterns) to sung pieces, such as a neat African children s play song called Sansa Kroma. Our big fifth graders have been digging deep mentally to analyze and dissect a wide variety of musical listening examples for music elements such as timbre (tone color), dynamics (volume), articulation, tempo (speed), mood, and instrumentation. We have been keeping music listening diaries to help us to record what we learn and organize our thoughts. We are now working on performing choral accompaniments on our Orff instruments (xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels) to a great old, folksy Negro spiritual we have learned called I Saw the Light. Chords are simply two or more musical notes played simultaneously. For students who are not piano players, this is a great introduction to keyboard playing, because the layout of the pitches on the Orff instruments is identical to that of the piano!
Instrumental Music with Dr. Hunt As we get into the routine of weekly instruction we are encountering the usual issues of children forgetting to bring instruments and parents having the hassle and stress of having to drop the instruments by the school, sometimes too late for instruction. The best way to make sure your child has her or his instrument in school on the day of instruction is to set the instrument out with books and backpacks the night before. This will avoid last minute forgetfulness. Also, you can set an alarm on your phone to remind you to set out the instrument the night before music classes. What a pleasure it is to watch your children grow in music. Those that are practicing are really doing well. Please help your child by setting, and sticking to a regular schedule of three or more practice sessions each week. The two most important days to practice are the evening after the school music class and the day before the class. Physical Education with Mr. House Healthy Feet! As the warmer weather begins to give way to colder, chillier days, P.E. classes will continue to enjoy the fall weather outdoors whenever possible, but throughout the colder, winter months more opportunities for indoor activities will abound. Therefore, utilizing the gymnasium and caring for the floor requires that students wear proper P.E. shoes, which are sneakers of most varieties. For safety reasons, you should avoid sending your child to P.E. wearing fashion statement sneakers such as the ones in which the heel of the shoe is elevated at a greater height than the usual cross trainers. The elevated-heel varieties are responsible for thousands of sprained and broken ankles, nationally. Closed toe sneakers protect the feet and keep them healthy for indoor activities such as soccer, floor hockey, and more. In addition you should also avoid skateboarding sneakers in which the front of the sole possesses the same elevation as the back of the sole of the shoe. Shoes with this type of design also cause ankles to roll unexpectedly. No boots or shoes of other varieties will be allowed in the gym so if your child doesn t want to wear sneakers during the day they should keep an extra pair of sneakers in their classroom cubby.
P.E. Activities for Fall and Early Winter K-2 students participate in indoor activities which include many skill building activities from learning to run faster to throwing and kicking a ball properly. In addition, a variety of exercises such as jumping rope, pull-ups and chin-ups, and an array of exercises and calisthenics are taught. Exciting games like Capture the Flag, Pirates Treasure, and Gophers in the Garden round out the good times with a great cardio workout! Grades 3-5 have been playing games such as Capture the Flag, Safety Bases, Touchdown Tag, Snatch the Flag, and a survival games known as Carnivore! When outdoor P.E. is not possible due to inclement weather, grades 3-5 play modified, indoor versions of soccer, Olympic team handball, floor hockey, cricket, and lacrosse. In addition, fun, fitness-related and skill-building activities are taught. Photos Needed! Please send in photos for the P.E. bulletin board outside the gym! I would love to post photos of students participating in their favorite physical activity. More than one photo is fine and if they want to write a brief (one sentence) description of that activity that is also good, as well, but not required... Happy Holidays!