Fourth graders have continued their recorder playing from the Spring and reviewed G A B and E finger positions. They are able to read and play songs with the pitches in treble clef notation. They have earned two recorder karate belts this Fall - white and yellow - for reading and playing: Gently Sleep (white) and French Song and Tommy Tiddlemouse (yellow). Soon, they will play Doggie, Doggie or Star Light to earn their orange belts. Our rhythm focus since September has been time signatures and note values. Students recognize, read, describe, and perform music with time signatures of 4/4, 2 /4, and 3/ 4. They can also write measures of rhythms with the correct number of beats when given one of the previously mentioned time signatures.
All students in K-4 have begun preparing songs for our annual holiday concerts at Hilltop. The theme this year is Holiday Time...the Most Wonderful Time. Visit Hilltop Holiday Concerts 2015 for more information.
In the month of November, the children will be working on all different things. My fourth graders will be working together with their class to come up with an exercise “brain break” that the children in the school can do in their classroom. They will also be learning how to do the Virginia Reel. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades will be learning many different dances like the Cotton Eye Joe, the Macarena and the Y M C A .
Ask your child if they have had an opportunity to do some JUST DANCE in their gym class, and then have them show you some moves. Children love to move their bodies to music. Enjoy your Turkey Day, don’t forget to take a nice walk after you eat. It’s healthy for the whole family.
Library & Technology:
In kindergarten and first grade we have been exploring literature and songs about gratitude. Students shared and wrote about the many things they are grateful for. These young readers have also been listening for and identifying the problem, soltion, setting, and genre. They are becoming reading detective experts as they explain problems and solutions using text evidence. Our first graders extended their writing into the technology lab and created TERRIFIC THANKFUL SENTENCES. Students have become quite efficient at using Microsoft Word, changing letter color, font and size, as well as inserting and resizing images. Second graders remain quite busy with our graphing unit. They have collected bat and candy data, and have constructed both bar graphs and pie charts. We will be embarking on our STATE RESEARCH UNIT at the end of the month, and will certainly incorporate some POPULATION graphing into our projects! In Fourth Grade we completed our review of the Dewey Decimal system, identifying genres, and locating books to meet our literary interests. Students used web 2.0 applications to create "Dewey Word Clouds" reflecting the subject matter that they found in their assigned Dewey section.
Spanish: Kindergarten students are learning all about colors and shapes! Can your child tell you what el circulo rojo (the red circle) means? First grade students are working on a “Yo Soy Especial/I am Special” rainbow activity using colors to show they are unique. Second graders are learning all about “Mi Familia/My Family” and talking about the size of their family, names of family members and more! Third and fourth grade students are having fun learning to describe themselves and others using adjectives and verbs… and physical descriptions too, such as hair and eye color. Please be sure to check the Spanish website for extra practice at home!
