Art

All grades will be using tempera paints soon to make paintings. We have smocks available but recommend that students do not wear any special clothing on their art day.

Music

Mr. Andert’s Classes:

• Kindergarten - Students are learning to read music on a two-line staff. They are focusing on the notes sol and mi.  Students are also learning the songs “This Land is Your Land” and “Ted the Turkey.”
• 1st Grade - Students are learning a piece called “Red, Yellow, Orange and Brown” about the leaves turning colors and falling. They will create their own movements, sing a song with the notes do, re, mi, sol and la (pentatonic scale), and learn to play a simple accompaniment on the xylophone. They are excited to play the instruments!
• 2nd Grade - Students are learning the song “Thank You Soldiers” in honor of Veterans Day. 2nd Graders are also learning the speech piece “A Turkey Named Bert.” Each class is creating their own movements for the piece. 
• 3rd Grade - Students are starting a unit on note names of the treble clef staff. A few key concepts they are learning include: the music staff, treble clef, the musical alphabet (A - G), and identifying the notes on the treble clef staff. Students are learning a Thanksgiving themed song called, “The Gobble Song.”
• 4th Grade - Students just finished a xylophone unit. They learned the West African song “Funga Alafia.” Students learned three xylophone parts and then chose their favorite one to perform. They sounded amazing! They are now starting a note reading unit where they will identify the nine notes of the treble clef staff. 
• 5th Grade - The fifth graders finished their xylophone unit last week. They performed a piece called “Ding, Dong.” They learned two parts (some learned three) and chose their favorite to perform. We performed for their homeroom teachers and office staff. The classes sounded amazing.  

LTC

In LTC all students have started working on their projects for this semester (1st Q and 2ndQ)

At the beginning of this quarter your child will make his/her own copy of the grade level ELECTRONIC NOTEBOOK in Spanish- the link is in each student's schoology account in my LTC COURSE. This document will be related to the semester project and your child will have the opportunity to: 1) review what is covered in class. 2) do some assignments in class  and share with me work 3) organize the end of semester (2ndQ) presentation.

Please ask your kid about his/her grade level project.  

2 ANIMALS AND FEATURES 

3 INSECTS AND HABITATS

4 METEOROLOGISTS

5 CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN

6 THE PLANET IS MY HOME

Physical Education

In PE students are working on Throwing and Catching skills and will participate in activities and games that reinforce those skills. (Below is a list of games they may play)

• K-3 (Flip Hoop, Pin Elimination, Next up)
• Gr. 4-6 We are finishing up our fitness testing for the 1st qtr. Students will be assessed on the Pacer, Push-ups and Curl-ups in the next 2 weeks.  We will continue with throwing and catching activities. (Modified Football Games, Team Handball)

Guidance

Kinder & 1st

This week, the Kimochis® Character named Cloud joined our classroom to teach your child about the feelings happy, sad, and mad. Cloud is the Kimochis® Character who can be moody, so sometimes it is hard for him to get along with his friends. When Cloud is happy, he spreads sunshine everywhere, which makes everyone feel fantastic! But when Cloud feels mad or sad, he might snap or yell. Because he has a hard time controlling his anger, he might do things that hurt feelings, even though he doesn’t mean to. Cloud helps children develop patience, tolerance, and understanding for friends who are still learning how to express upset feelings in positive, healthy ways.

Children who have a temperament like Cloud’s can benefit from learning how to manage upset feelings. This week, your child learned to do the “calm-down breath”: Put your finger to your nose and say, “Smell a flower [breathe in through nose] and blow out the candle [blow out through mouth].” This can help upset feelings get smaller and raise the odds that your child will speak and act in ways that will communicate anger without being hurtful.

2nd & 5th will review the Students Rights and Responsibilities next week as there is no guidance lessons this week. 

3rd grade will cover Listening skills and grades 4 and 6th will start part 1 of the triad of the mandated FCPS Sexual Harassment lessons.  These lessons will occur next week.

The Fish Bowl- Kindergarten, 1st & 2nd grades

• Kinder and 1st grade students began the 2nd quarter by recognizing patterns using a variety of shapes.  They created images and calculated the number of shape blocks needed to complete their models.  
• 2nd graders accepted a STEAM challenge designing and creating a basket to hold 20 unifix cubes using only a paper plate, one piece of copy paper, and some masking tape.  Students followed the steps of the Scientific Method by determining the title, hypothesis, independent variable, dependent variable, and constants.