PK/K, and 1/2 – This week in music classes we really got to work on learning our songs for our virtual spring concert. We started working on learning the first verse for our song “Dip and Sway” and started working on the Chorus for our song “One Small Voice”. We did such a good job humming inside that we went outside at the end of class so that we could sing the first verse of “Dip and Sway” out loud!
3/4 and 5/6 – We watched the movie Angst during Performing arts class this week.
7/8 – This week we talked about how for the next few weeks we will be splitting our time in class between working on our media project to finish learning about the music of the holocaust. For this project, students will be choosing a poem from the ones that I posted in their google classroom. They will then create music whether they use an instrument like piano or guitar and record themselves playing or create music on garage band. They need to have at least 16 bars or one minute of music, enough to cover their whole poem. Then they will choose images that match the theme and tone of their poem and they will create videos using iMovie. The other half of class we will be working on a show choir show of Choral Highlights from the movie The Greatest Showman!
Puffins Puppet People
Curriculum Updates
ELA
3/4 ELA: This week during basic ELA, we started to read the RazKid book: Anansi and the Watermelon. Students also worked online using their own RazKids account.
During the regular ELA class, we started to read The Iroquois which is a non-fiction text. We are learning how to find the main idea and supporting details in order to begin to take notes and annotate independently. This is a skill that continues through 8th grade, so it is not expected that students at this level will master it.
5/6 ELA: I am so proud of our students!!! They have worked collaboratively in class and online in zoom breakout rooms to put together their plays on Gilgamesh. Each pair or triad has spent the time wisely and worked really hard at creating a great production.
7/8 ELA: Students began reading To Kill a Mockingbird – annotating, taking notes, and responding thoughtfully to questions. We always have some great classroom discussions. I am so pleased with how the 8th graders are starting to look and act more like 9th graders!
Pre-K/K and 1/2 Free Watercolor
Curriculum Updates
Math
3rd grade – This week we looked at understanding parentheses and their functions. We also looked at using the distributive property for multiplication and division.
4th grade – This week we continued our work with division. We worked with problems with zero in the dividend or a zero in the quotient. We also looked at interpreting division word problems as either finding the number of groups or the size of the groups.
5th grade – We finished up a unit on algebraic thinking and started working on fractions.
6th grade – Students started a new unit with rational numbers. They are really understanding the meaning of positive and negative numbers which is vital to algebra. I am proud of the work they did this week.
7th grade – This week the students worked on writing equivalent expressions, collecting like terms and rational numbers, and understanding expressions.
8th grade a – This week the students worked with simultaneous equations, finding the solution to a system of equations by graphing and the characterization of parallel lines.
8th-grade b – This week the students worked with slope and seeing what they can determine from where the line is on the graph.
8th-grade c – This week he worked on linear equations with two variables including graphing. He also looked at horizontal and vertical lines from linear equations.
Art
Puffins—we made pipe cleaner and button bracelets on Monday and puppet people on a stick.
PK/K—the children made two wet-on-wet watercolor pieces to celebrate spring and the leprechaun’s rainbow
1/2–students created two watercolor pieces to celebrate the leprechaun’s rainbow and a freebie to explore our deepening skill with watercolor.
3/4–we began to envision the symbols we will weave into a wampum belt. In ELA, they worked with Mrs. Thoner to understand how the Haudenosaunee wampum belt can tell a story through these symbols. We create our looms this week. This picture shows what the final product may look like.
5/6–these kiddos feverishly finished everything for their Gilgamesh skits for a big ELA assignment.
7/8–Students were given an 8×10 canvas this week and brought their forethought ideas to it. These pieces will adorn the upper grades hallway for years to come. Sorry, no pictures.
Curriculum Updates
Pre-K and K
Pre-K and K students have received Gingerbread babies that were “captured” in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Virginia, Alaska, New Hampshire, Vermont, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. We enjoyed a zoom call with Ms. Julie’s parents in South Carolina to hear more about the wildlife that the Gingerbread baby saw on their visit to Bluffton. In literacy, students are demonstrating mastery of letter sounds and creating lots of great “inventive spelling” words. Frog and Toad All Year was our favorite read-aloud this week; it sparked great conversations about friendship, feeling grumpy and happy, and identifying times we have felt more like Frog or Toad. Students enjoyed finding small bags of treasure from the leprechaun on Wednesday, but our favorite activity this week was mixing our own sensory putty out of cornstarch and baby lotion…. apologies and many thanks to Mr. Bowden for getting our classroom sparkling again!
1/2 Art
Curriculum Updates
First and Second Grade
The first-grade mathematicians continue to work on adding and subtraction strategies. They also learned how to make bar graphs. They discovered Sum Dog, a fun math game. In literacy, the first graders were challenged by higher levels of spelling and reading sight words and becoming automatic in their letter-sound blends as parts of words. The second-grade mathematicians worked on word problems and learned about the RDW process, Read, Draw and write to help break down word problems into steps to help in the solution. The second grade also played Sum Dog. In literacy, second graders have also stepped up to a bigger challenge in more difficult spelling patterns, such as “igh” in night, light, and sight. They have also been answering questions in response to stories read aloud to them. Some common questions are: who is the main character? What does the main character want? What is the problem in the story, and how was the problem solved? These are all questions focusing on practicing major reading skills for their reading level.
Calendar
March
3/22—3/26 Parent/Teacher Conferences
April
4/2 Coffee Social via Zoom
4/15 Town Public Hearing and Information Night at 6PM in school gym
