Curriculum Updates

Music/Performing Arts 

PK/K – We continued our practice for the virtual Holiday performance. After a few practices, we felt ready to make our recording. We then began to learn about The Nutcracker Ballet! We learned about what a Ballet is and learned about the composer for The Nutcracker. Then we started reading the book The Nutcracker Ballet! We finished class by watching some scenes from a production of The Nutcracker Ballet!

1/2 – We continued our practice for the virtual Holiday performance. After a few practices, we felt ready to make our recording. We then began to learn about The Nutcracker Ballet! We learned about what a Ballet is and learned about the composer for The Nutcracker. Then we started reading the book The Nutcracker Ballet! We finished class by watching some scenes from a production of The Nutcracker Ballet!

3/4 – We continued our practice for the virtual Holiday performance. After a few practices, we felt ready to make our recording. We then began to learn about The Nutcracker Ballet! We learned about what a Ballet is and learned about the composer for The Nutcracker. Then we started reading the book The Nutcracker Ballet! We finished class by watching some scenes from a production of The Nutcracker Ballet!

5/6 – We continued our practice for the virtual Holiday performance. After a few practices, we felt ready to make our recording. We then began to learn about The Nutcracker Ballet! We learned about what a Ballet is and learned about the composer for The Nutcracker. We talked about motifs which are repeated themes throughout a piece of music to represent a person, place, or idea. Sometimes they even represent the relationship between two characters! Then we listened to the Overture to The Nutcracker ballet and we found the four motifs that are in the overture to represent The Nutcracker, The Mouse King, Clara, and Herr Drosselmeier (Clara’s Godfather). We finished class by watching some scenes from a production of The Nutcracker Ballet!

7/8 – We continued our practice for the virtual Holiday performance. After a few practices, we felt ready to make our recording. We then began to learn about The Nutcracker Ballet! We learned about what a Ballet is and learned about the composer for The Nutcracker. We talked about motifs which are repeated themes throughout a piece of music to represent a person, place, or idea. Sometimes they even represent the relationship between two characters! Then we listened to the Overture to The Nutcracker ballet and we found the four motifs that are in the overture to represent The Nutcracker, The Mouse King, Clara, and Herr Drosselmeier (Clara’s Godfather). We finished class by watching some scenes from a production of The Nutcracker Ballet!

Art from PK/K

3/4 ELA – This past week students continued reading excerpts from My Librarian is a Camel, focusing on the main idea of a section, identifying two details, and providing evidence of those details.  Students have also been researching a country of their choice and developing a two-sided bookmark which depicts what they have learned.

5/6 ELA – Students have been researching a natural disaster of their choice that has occurred in 2020.  They are focusing on the cause of the natural disaster, factors that affected the event, damage caused by the disaster, and what multinational organizations provided assistance during and after the disaster.

7/8 ELA – Students continue reading and analyzing The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  and related poems and stories that were written during the same era.

Art from 1/2

3/4 Super Studies

This week, the students practiced correctly labeling all 50 of the United States on a map. This is new to most of them, so it is taking a lot of hard work. We labeled and colored maps on paper, practiced with an interactive map at seterra.com, and played The Scrambled States of America. Some students have struggled with the challenge, but are persevering!

5/6 Super Studies

After the students presented slideshows on what they thought was the most dangerous kind of storm, they voted and decided that hurricanes are the most dangerous. Then we spent some time studying hurricane data and writing stories imagining what it would be like to experience a hurricane. Then we shifted our weather focus to something more relevant to our lives right now—snow! We read Snowflake Bentley and learned about the structure of a snowflake.

7/8 Super Studies

Now that the students have learned about their endocrine systems and how hormones control body functions, we have started studying the biology of human reproduction and how different body systems work to keep our species going. Next week, students will be studying the phases of fetal development.

Art from 3/4

3rd-grade math – We continued working on telling time and started working on weight using kilograms and grams.

4th-grade math – We continued on our work with multiplying numbers by 10, 100, and 1000 and finding patterns.  We also spent some time working with weights using kilograms and grams and learning the difference.

6th grade – We continued our work with ratios.  We have ONE more lesson on ratios and then a test!  We are looking forward to a new topic 🙂

7th grade – This week we combined our two seventh grade classes.  I think this will work out better for everyone involved.  They continue their work with integers.

8th-grade group A is continuing their work geometry looking at dilations.  Group B is working on rotations, angles created by a transversal through parallel lines, and the angle sum of triangles.

Art from 5/6

This week, kindergarten and first grade worked on reading books at their level. They worked on spelling and reading sight words, and common spelling patterns such as oy: boy, toy. Second graders continued practicing writing like third graders, responding to our read-aloud stories by answering questions on paper. In their answers, they must restate the question, and write in complete sentences. They also worked on spelling sight words and writing and reading vowel teams such as oa, ow, and ae. Second-grade mathematicians are working on the strategy of doubling numbers and doubling plus one.

Art from 7/8

December

12/18                               Pajama Day

12:00         Dismissal

12/21                            Workshop Day/No School for Students

12/22-1/3                     Holiday—No School

January

1/4–1/8                            Remote Learning

1/11                                 Return to In Person Learning

1/12           6:00 PM        School Board Meeting

1/18                                Holiday/No School