Specials are Spot On

Miss Fausette’s Kindergartners learned about the Chinese New Year. This year’s Chinese zodiac animal is the confident and hard-working Rooster. Children studied Chinese rooster line drawings to look for contours and decorative patterns. Students are creating their own Roster line drawing with contours and patterns. Soon we will add colour.

This month, the preschool and kindergarten students learned and explored the world of CLAY SCULPTURE! We discussed how clay is a natural resource and is found in the ground, and made of a special dirt and water! We smelled the earthy smell of it! We squished, shaped, and carved it! We learned how to control the clay to make it turn into different forms, like a “ball”, a “coil” and a “slab”. Then we finished our clay unit by creating our very own PINCH POTS! Pinch pots are so special, because we have left our finger prints all over it, and shaped it with our little hands. We will get to glaze our pinch pots soon, after they are fired in the KILN! We imagined what we will use our pinch pot’s for in the end, when they are all finished! Some of us will be eating from our pinch pots, or drinking from them, and some are even going to use our pinch pots to hold our special treasures! We are so excited to have our very own clay ceramic cup that we made all by ourselves!

Miss Pinto and Miss Fausette would like to send out a huge thank you to all families who made purchases through our Art to Remember art fundraiser! This fundraiser has helped add very special materials to the art rooms and we are so grateful for your support of our art programs! Information about the delivery date of orders will be announced soon!”

Miss Pinto and Miss Fausette

This month, preschool friends continued to sing their silly song, “A Ram Sam Sam” at various speeds, along with hand motions. They pretended to build dog houses while singing a building song called “Bling, Blang”. Now, they are learning to sing along to the rhyming song, “Down By the Bay”! The preschool students are able to be creative and imaginative through our play-based singing experiences! As the year goes on, they seem to be very comfortable with sharing ideas and opinions about the songs as they participate in music!

During the past month, Kindergarten students worked hard to practice identifying high and low sounds in music. This is the most difficult of the musical contrasts we talk about in Kindergarten music class because students often confuse the words high and low for loud and soft, when in fact these words are referring to high and low pitches. They met two puppet friends, kitty and blue dog (see picture below), who each demonstrated one of the voices (high and low), learned a story about Mr. Wiggle and Mr. Waggle, sang a song about a see saw, and played instruments that made high and low sounds. They also took turns drawing fun squiggly lines on the smart board so that the class could follow the line high and low with their voices. Finally, students learned a song about an elevator and practiced making their bodies go high and low in response to ascending and descending melodic phrases in the song. The picture below shows kindergarten students playing the “elevator game” along with the song. Visit the music room website here for song lyrics!

Mrs. Maldonado

Hi everybody! We hope everyone has been able to take advantage of the mild winter (so far!) by going outside and being active as a family. In January we continued with our ball skills units, still using our hands, moving into our beach ball volleyball section, a big favorite with all the children. There is something fun about playing with beach balls while there is snow on the ground and freezing cold temperatures outside! We focus on hand/eye coordination and various, supportive skills, reaction time, and cooperative lessons as the children gradually move from individual work to partner opportunities, and, at the older grades, team skills and concepts. We do work our way to practicing the various skills using the three, adjustable volleyball nets we are able to set up in the gym, and the children really like the set up and the way they move around the gym and incorporate the nets into our unit. We have enough beach balls (like with all our other units as well) so that every child always has their own ball and is active and working at, or on, something every minute of class. We will continue the beach ball unit until the second week of Feb. for our Pre K/K children.

I know we say this each newsletter, but every class we spend about half our class time working on cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, power, balance/coordination, and strength. The children are great with their warm up routines, and know that as we are working hard on these very important fitness components, that a fun activity is just around the corner for them during the second part of our class!

Thanks for encouraging your child each day as they head off to school and for supporting them at home, especially with the fitness and movement aspects of life, as we all try to instill the values and importance of a healthy and active lifestyle, even starting at this early age.

Take care, and enjoy the rest of the winter, hopefully it brings a lot of snow!

Coach Ruel and Coach Boscarino

During the month of January, with Mrs. Flannery, kindergarten students have been learning about the Caldecott Medal. We learned that the Caldecott Medal is one of the most prestigious awards in children's literature and that it is to recognize outstanding illustrations. We also learned about the award's origins and the man that it was named after (Randolph Caldecott). We took a look at some of the winners from previous years, with special attention to last year's winner, Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick. The students were surprised to learn that Winnie the Pooh is based on a real bear! Students are currently finishing the Caldecott unit by doing an activity based on the book A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip Stead. This year's winners were just announced. If you are curious, you can see them here. Coming to the library soon!

With Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Flannery, PreK/K took part in the following read alouds:

Bear and Bunny by Daniel Pinkwater

Geraldine's Big Snow by Holly Keller

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires

Zigby Dives In by Brian Paterson

A Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer

A Hat for Mrs. Goldman by Michelle Edwards

It feels like Snow by Nancy Cote

Brownie Groundhog and the February Fox by Susan Blackaby

The Thank You Book by Mo Williams

If you have any questions in regards to your child’s library experience. Please don’t hesitate to contact us or locate more information on the library webpage. Also note that this week, February 6-February 10th is Star Read Week. If your child returns their library book this week, they will have the opportunity to take home two books!

Mrs. Flannery and Mrs. Hill

Email: rflannery@easthamptonct.org
Website: www.easthamptonps.org
Location: Memorial School, Smith Street, East Hampton, CT, United States
Phone: 8603654020
Facebook: facebook.com/MemorialElementarySchool
Twitter: @EHPublicSchools