February 2015

                                                                                                       
 
Second graders are learning all about Familia y Mascotas (Family & Pets)! We have been doing this through games, songs, books, surveys and acting out. Students should feel comfortable naming their immediate family members and common pets in Spanish. We try to practice doing this in phrases, such as Yo tengo (I have) and Yo soy (I am). Please visit the Hilltop Spanish Grade 2 website for more practice as well. We have also been learning the Spanish alphabet! Can your child sing the ABCs to you? As part of our class routines, we sing the Monthly Macarena and do Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes in Spanish. Ask your child to do this for you at home!

In the beginning half of the year, the first graders have been introduced to different types of pictures:  still life, landscape, portrait, and scene.  During the second trimester, they have been learning about different styles of art:  abstract, textile, indigenous folk art.  And of course, they have been experimenting these styles in their Picasso-esque portraits, Miro-like creatures, heart embroideries, koi nobori’s, and Aboriginal dot paintings.  In doing so, we are learning to appreciate and respect all kinds of art, whether or not we personally like the particular style.  

Since January, fourth graders learned to play and read new pitches on the recorder and treble clef staff: High C, High D, and Low D in addition to the pitches of G A B and E from the beginning of the year.  They have earned two more recorder karate belts - green and purple - for reading and playing songs from treble clef with these pitches: Good King Wenceslas or Seashell for green and Goodnight Ladies or Old MacDonald for purple.  To tie in with their Native America social studies unit, fourth graders learned what a powwow is and why the drum is an important part of it.  They watched three video segments of a traditional powwwow: Wacipi Powwow - Celebration of Life, Regalia and Dance, and Dancing is for Everyone.  While these video segments were from a powwow in the West, the Lenni-Lenape tribe also participates in powwows in the East.  The 2015 Lenni-Lenapi powwow is scheduled for June 14-15, 2015!  Powwows are an important event for Native Americans where they share and pass down their cultural and musical traditions.  Lastly, the fourth graders will experience a drum circle, which has some similarities to a powwow, in the next week. For a basic idea of what a drum circle is, check out this definition/description: Drum Circle

Kindergarteners have been busy in the library!  We have been reading and identifying BIOGRAPHY books, fiction books and reading Dewey call numbers! Ask your kindergartener to share our BIOGRAPHY CHANT with you. Coming Soon...CELEBRATE SEUSS! We will celebrate Dr. Seuss' life and literature through books, activities, and songs.

Physical Education: It sure has been an icy, snowy winter. With days off and delayed openings,the classes are continuing to work on their volleyball skills. They are all developing into some good Volleyball players.  The Big Beach ball will be coming out for the younger grades to use.  They will work together as a class  to keep it up as many times as they can.  Did your son or daughter come home all excited last week. We have been training for the 7 minute challenge and it went off last week with 90% of the Hilltop students grade 1st-4th making it without walking. They signed a chart which is hanging on the gym wall.   In April, I hope to do a ‘ Go For The Gold”.  This is a 10 min jog without walking.  If they walk after 8 mins, they get a Silver certificate, and if they do less than that they will receive a bronze certificate.  Everyone tries their best.

Jump rope for Heart will be done in school with the 3rd graders on February 13th.  They are really looking forward to this event.  Last year we raised over 5,500.00 Hope Spring arrives soon.  Mrs. Morales

                                                                                                        
 

First Graders have been busy in the library!  We have been reading and identifying NONFICTION books, and will soon begin our BIOGRAPHY unit!  In the technology lab students have been using our new PEBBLEGO online database.  Students are becoming experts at logging in, and locating and recording information. They are now on to PowerPoint to share their research through a digital presentation.

www.pebblego.com 

 Second grade art program focuses on learning and utilizing the elements of art:  color, line, shape, texture and space.  January’s focus has been COLOR.  The students are not only learning about primary and secondary colors, but also use those colors to create tertiary colors.  They have been introduced to complementary and analogous colors as well as creating tints and shades.  They can also group warm, cool, and neutral colors.  Some of these concepts have been used and displayed in their current project: Pine Tree Paintings:  Winter Landscape.     

Kindergarten students are developing their sense of and ability to recognize and perform steady beat accurately.  They are working combining expressive qualities (tempo: fast/slow, dynamics: loud/quiet, melody: higher pitches/lower pitches) when singing short songs. They are also listening to music so that they can analyze what instruments are playing, who is singing (voice quality), and explain/describe how we know what instruments are playing and/or who is singing.

The gym is being filled with balls being volleyed all over the place. Our unit this month is Volleyball.  The fourth graders are improving on their skills to get ready for the blue and gold volleyball game against teachers and students.  Skills being taught are Setting, Serving and bumping.  For the younger children, a big beach ball is used, as they try to keep it up for as many times as they can.  This is a sport that not many children have an opportunity to play because their are no organized town teams.  We have some really good volleyball players. I have seen alot of growth in them from 1st grade to 4th.
Third grade students just finished up their first unit in Spanish class, “Yo Soy Especial/I am Special.” They did a fabuloso job on their class presentations and just finished reflecting on what they learned. They will be bringing home a “Stamp Sheet” next week… please ask your child to share it with you and see if they can show off their Spanish! They might be able to tell you their birthday, adjectives to describe themselves or even describe their hair and eyes to you! We will be starting our second unit, “Mi Vida Loca/My Crazy Life,” next week. Students will learn to tell time as well as practice phrases and sentences in Spanish to speak about their daily schedule, classes, activities and people in their lives.  

In this first marking period, the first graders reviewed the names of and played a wide variety of classroom percussion instruments: rhythm sticks, hand drums, lollipop drums, triangles, glockenspiels, woodblocks, guiros, xylophones, maracas, boomwhackers, tambourines, and rain sticks. Ask them about the unusual instruments - whistle tubes and thunder tubes  - that we used in The Weather Song.  They used  the instruments listed above to highlight texts of poems (called soundscapes) and to accompany songs with a steady beat.  

First graders listened to and identified dynamics (levels of loudness) of short music excerpts with English and Italian terms (piano = quiet, mezzo-forte = medium loud, forte = loud).  They experienced  and verbally identified tempo (speed) of short music selections with English and Italian terms (adagio = slow; moderato = medium; allegro = fast).  

First graders can identify a series of pitches as “mostly high” (not loud) or “mostly low” (not quiet).  They can tell which pitch of 2 pitches is the higher (or lower) one.  We played this game to hone our pitch skills: Piggies High/Low Pitch Game.

They also sang quite a bit as we learned holiday and winter songs for our annual holiday concert on Friday, December 19, 2014.  Click on this link if you need the holiday concert information: Hilltop Holiday Concerts. Happy Holidays!  

OUR HILLTOPERS ARE WORKING HARD ON THEIR EYE-HAND COORDINATION. WE ARE ALL FOCUSING ON USING OUR FINGERTIPS TO DRIBBLE A BALL.  THE FOURTH GRADERS ARE PREPARING TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY AGAINST EACH OTHER IN A 3 ON 3 BASKETBALL GAME. THE YOUNGER GRADES ARE LEARNING HOW TO DRIBBLE, PASS AND EVEN SHOT AT DIFFERENT LEVEL BASKETS.

I ENCOURAGE THE CLASSES TO WORK ON STRETCHING THEIR BODIES INSIDE IF THE WEATHER IS TOO COLD OR RAINY OUT.  I HAVE TOLD THEM TO DO SIT UPS DURING A COMMERCIAL WHEN THEY ARE WATCHING TV. FOR A MOVIE, PICK OUT A WORD THAT EVERYTIME YOU HEAR IT,DO 10 SITUPS, OR EVEN PUSH UPS.

WE WILL BE READY FOR A LITTLE VOLLEYBALL WHEN WE GET BACK FROM WINTER BREAK

I WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY HOLIDAY FROM YOUR P.E. DEPT.

2nd Graders have begun their state research! We started off with the book How To Make An Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman.  Then students used the USA Map to locate the state of their choice and their capital city.  Students then learned about the United States Census, and navigated to www.census.gov to locate their state's population.  We also have a better understanding of URLs ending in .com , .gov, and .edu.  Students also located and recorded information from the www.factmonster.com website, and will soon be creating digital presentations. 

As the first marking period comes to an end, the Hilltop students are bringing home their art folders.  Please keep the artworks at home, but sign and return the art folders.  We need it for more artworks to come.  Thank you for your support and happy holidays!

The third graders have been practicing and applying the principles of art:  contrast and emphasis, balance and unity, rhythm,pattern and movement.  This month, they have learned that 1) the visual rhythm is the repetition of lines, shapes and colors and 2) how to create a movement in a picture using the visual rhythm.  We have started by listening and identifying  “rhythm”(repetition of beats) in a piece of music and have correlated that concept to understanding what a “visual rhythm” is in an artwork.  By discussing and comparing Op Art artworks of Bridget Riley and the Fishing Boat prints of Hokusai, the third graders have shown me that they have understood what visual rhythm is.  We are currently creating a beautiful winter landscape using the birch trees to create the visual rhythm.  

Second grade musicians have been working on identifying, arranging, reading, and performing rhythm patterns with eighth notes, quarter notes, and quarter rests.  They can successfully recognize, read, and perform these rhythms in the many songs we’ve sung in class over the past year: Bee, Bee Bumblebee; Rain, Rain, Go Away; Naughty Kitty Cat; Hot Cross Buns; Bounce High, Bounce Low; and Snail, Snail.  They have also been developing the ability to accompany songs and poems on pitched percussion instruments with rhythmic ostinato.  Here are some examples of their rhythm patterns.

                

Lastly, they have been preparing holiday and winter selections for their upcoming holiday concert on Friday, December 19.  Here is the link for the holiday concert information: http://www.mendhamboro.org/Page/3124

Phys Ed: WOW! its getting cold, what can you do outside when its cold? a nice brisk walk, or perhaps a ride on your bike, shooting around in your driveway, or even kicking a ball in the back yard with mom,dad, or even a friend.  It is important to keep exercised.  Inside the gym, the hilltop boys and girls are keeping exercised.  They just finished playing some fun Halloween games which focused on their eye-hand coordination, dodging, aiming and reinforcing cooperation  and sportsmanship.  I am looking forward to bringing Dance their way in November.  With technology and the big screen in the gym, the children will be doing some Wii  Just Dance moves.  

Kindergarten, First and Second grade students are having fun learning about their body parts in Spanish class! Cabeza, Hombros, Rodillas y Pies (Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes), putting together Sr. Papa (Mr. Potato Head) and Simon Dice (Simon Says) are just some of the activities we have done in class recently to practice body parts. Challenge your child to tell you a body part to touch (Toca…)! Don’t forget to visit the Spanish website and practice 

Quizlet together at home: http://quizlet.com/_ygr7c

Finally, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, what is your child thankful for? Ask them to share this with you in Spanish, as we did an activity with this in class as well! Doy gracias por… (I am thankful for)

iFeliz Dia de Accion de Gracias!

3rd Graders have been listening to The Get Rich Quick Club by Dan Gutman
We, the members of the Get Rich Quick Club, in order to form a more perfect summer, vow that we will figure out a way to make a million dollarsby September. We agree that neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night will prevent us from achieving our stated goal, till death do us part.  Gina Tumolo and her Get Rich Quick Club are determined to make their summer pay off. They're going to make a pact and hatch a scheme, and their small-town life will never be the same again.

Mrs. LeMay has been "book-talking" and "book-trailering" books by the bushel!  This excites readers to experience a diverse range of literature.  

In technology class students recently reviewed graphing using Microsoft Excel.
Students gathered data from their classmates, entered data into a spreadsheets, created a graph, and inserted legends, titles and artwork.  We will be heading back to keyboard practice next week, as well as an introduction to using the Online Public Access Catalog system to locate literary resources. 

November is a very short school month, and before we know it, it’s going to be December!  All of our Hilltop students have been busy making their holiday program props ready for the holiday concert in December.  It’s been fun but surreal to think about and getting ready for the winter holidays already.  

Along with the holiday program props, our fourth grade artists have started a new unit:  Art of the Face.  In this unit, they will be learning about different styles of art that pertains to a human face, and try to create and experiment with three particular styles:  realistic, abstract, and symbolic.  They have started with a history of portraiture that discussed few essential questions:  one, what makes Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci so famou, and two, how is Mona Lisa different from an abstract portrait, such Dora Maar by Pablo Picasso?  Then, they were given a handheld mirror to observe their own image and to draw a realistic self- portrait.  The lesson has focused on learning  about facial proportions and drawing basic shapes of the facial features.  

From the Gym: 

October has begun, the fall temperatures have arrived.  Its a great time to get out and ride a bike, or even take a walk as a family and look at all the colored leaves on the trees

Gym News:   The 2nd and 3rd graders scored many goals as they worked on their kicking skills in class.  All children were given an opportunity to be a goalie if they choose to.  Challenges were given to those who wanted it, and a cone was placed farther away to see if they could still score.    

In this month the children will be focusing on the mile run for 3rd grade and a 1/2 mile run for 2nd. Sit ups for 1 minute will also be scored for each student.  If your child wakes up one morning and says their stomach hurts, ask them if they did sit up in gym class, and ask them if it is their stomach muscles that hurt.  For some they will feel it when they get out of bed.  

Halloween is just around the corner.  There will be some fun activities planned in the gym for the students to do.  

Enjoy October.

From the Music Room: 

Third grade musicians have been learning what melody, unison, ostinato, and harmony mean.  Ask them if they can describe each vocabulary word.  Hints: 1) If they sing Ickle Ockle from music class, they are singing a melody.  2) If they sing Ickle Ockle with a group of people, they are singing in unison.  3) If they sing Swimming in the Sea, they are singing an ostinato. If they sing Ickle Ockle while others sing Swimming in the Sea, they are singing in harmony.  

They have also learned about Johann Sebastian Bach and listened to an organist play Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565 ( Toccata and Fugue in D Minor video ) on the organ. This is a great piece for Halloween!  It is powerful and mysterious!  

Other classical pieces that evoke the spirit of Halloween are:

1. Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King
2. Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5 n G Minor
3. Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain
4. Camille-Saens’ Dance Macabre

So if you decorate your house for Halloween and want some spooky tunes to broadcast as trick or treaters come by, try these classical pieces on for size.  For more, see Classical Music for Halloween and Classical Music for Halloween 2.

From the Spanish Room: 

First graders have been learning and reviewing their colors in Spanish as they talk about “manzanas,” or apples! This was a fun unit for them in their own classrooms, and they enjoyed drawing about them & sharing which kind they liked or disliked. Students enjoyed playing “Adonde esta la manzana?/Where is the apple?” in which they had to find who had the apple, asking and responding only in Spanish… as well as using their manners of course (por favor- please, gracias- thank you)!

We always start off class with our weekly routines in which students greet a friend in Spanish, say the date and then vote on how the class is feeling and the weather that day. Can your child tell you how they are feeling in Spanish? Can they ask you how you are feeling? (¿Cómo estás?) We also do fun movement and stretching activities to count from 1-15.

Please be sure to check the Hilltop Spanish website for information on what we are doing in class and how you can practice at home! Together, you can go onto “Quizlet” and practice topics such as colors, numbers and feelings through flashcards and games… and listen to a native Spanish speaker say each word! Since first graders only come to Spanish class once a week, please encourage your child to practice at home as well. Thank you for your support!

From the Library Media Center: 

In Kindergarten and 1st grade we have been discussing and reviewing genre, author, illustrator, publisher, setting, character, and theme.  In 3rd and 4th grades we are reading the hilarious novel, The Get Rich Quick Club by Dan Gutman. 

3rd and 4th grade students have begun their keyboarding practice! 
We have reviewed proper body positioning, hand placement and the responsibility of each finger!  Students have been the Alemna Typing Method and Dance Mat Typing.  In 2nd and 3rd grade I recently introduced/reviewed Microsoft Excel. Students collected "Favorite Halloween Candy" and "Are Bats Cute or Creepy?" data from their classmates, entered their data in a spreadsheet, inserted charts and graphs, and customized the pats and pieces of their graphs.





From the Art Room: 

Kindergarteners have been gradually introduced to using tools and materials in the artroom.  

For one, they have been introduced to painting.  Although some students have painting experience at home, painting in the art room requires a great deal of organization.  The routines for distribution and cleanup of materials have to be established so that painting can  eventually become an independent activity with shared responsibility.  The students have been fantastic and so quick to learn how to paint properly in the art room.  For another, kindergarteners have been cutting and pasting.  Using the scissors and glue sticks all come with rules for safety in the art room.  And the students have been very respectful in following the safety rules.  

We have been talking and practicing some important concepts in art, such as overlapping to create the illusion of space and using and recognizing geometric and organic shapes around us.  Other learning objectives have been using facial expressions to show feelings and learning to mix and blend two colors go produce a third color.  So when they bring home their paintings of pumpkins and the collages of bats, please encourage them to talk about the process and how they created those artworks.  We are going to have a wonderful year of art!