KES Related Arts Update
First Quarter News 2016
Cultural Passport Celebration
Food, drink, entertainment, student displays, bon fire and more!
Thursday, Jan 26, 2017, 06:00 PM
Kensington Elementary School, Amesbury Road, Kensington, NH, United States
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
Art - Mrs. Beauchemin
The second all community project has been aided by all of your efforts! On Dot Week we decided to start a giant dotty bottle cap mural. The students have been collecting, grouping, and placing the caps in pleasing arrangements on a large foam board. They are coming up with color relationships and color complements that will make their part of the mural pop. With the help of parent volunteers, the caps are getting hot glued in place permanently. It is a great example of the use of recyclables in art, and a community group effort at its best. Thank you for all of your help at home collecting caps for the dotty cap art mural!
We have enjoyed getting to know this awesome, new group of Kindergartners! They are a hard working group of students that enjoy creativity, and go with the class flow quite beautifully. They just finished creating some scary Halloween creatures, a still life painting, and pumpkins and fences, and will be moving into leaf art, and some Native American projects. The first graders are hard at work on their illustrations of their own cover for their very own plan for a new "Magic School Bus" Adventure. Mrs. Frizzle will be so delighted! Our Second Grade came up with some hauntingly crazy creatures for school decorations, and are now working on an detailed illustration of a tree, and all that a tree gives to us. The third grade painted our beautiful maple tree "en plein air." They had a great time painting outside, and observing all the colors in the bark and leaves. They will be moving into creating a three dimensional, healthy Thanksgiving dinner. Our fourth graders just finished their very detailed illustrations of a haunted tale, and will be learning the value scale from pure white to black as they work on a Native American portrait. Our Fifth graders are working together beautifully on a Clay Animation Project which takes a great deal of creative energy and time. Presently they are finishing the clay figures, and are beginning the set designs. The excitement builds as they begin to digitally produce their animation after our Cultural Passport Program projects are complete in the late winter. There is lots of fun ahead for all grade levels. Thank you for your donations and help!
It is always a joy working with your children. They come in excited, happy, and ready to experience something new! The twinkle in their eyes, and the bounce in their steps are contagious!
Library - Mrs. Eastwood
This first quarter, grades 1-3 reviewed what they know about caring for our library and it's materials and each class developed a project to share that knowledge with our newest friends. We hope to share these projects with our little friends very soon. We worked with slides, imovie, and chatterkids to create our projects.
Our newest friends in Kindergarten have amazed me with their quick learning about some of the things we do in library.
All grades K-3 are working through our Ladybug Award books. We read one each week, learn about the parts of the book, discuss the story, and form opinions that we record for later. The third graders have taken it a step further and developed a list of criteria for good picture books by which they evaluate each story and give each one a rating. After all ten have been read, we will vote for our favorite!
Grade 4 and 5 are busy with projects as well! While learning about library resources, grade 5 is learning about character traits as part of a year-long project. Grade 4 has been hard at work with the annual Dot day ceiling tile project. Watch for news of the unveiling coming soon! Both classes have been challenged to read at least 5 Great Stone Face books by April at which time, we will vote on our favorite. There are 13 books that can also be found at the Kensington Public Library. They know how to use our catalog system to place holds on the books they want to read. The hardest part is waiting your turn! Keep reading!
You can keep up with us and see the resources we use by going to my website. Take a moment to explore our newest online resource, The Encyclopedia Britannica!
Music - Mrs. Vallone
It was such fun to come back to KES and hear children singing again!
We started the year in K-3 with songs welcoming the children back to school, and getting-to-know-you singing games. Examples are: Hello Everybody, Welcome to Music, Gilly Gilly, How Do You Do-Ti, I Will Sing Hello Around the World, and Jump In Jump Out. The kindergarteners have learned about using their voices in different ways; speaking voices, shouting voices, whispering voices, and singing voices. We have spoken fingerplays and played games like Hap Palmer’s Toss the Beanbag. In first grade we talked about louds and softs, and played games like Hickety Pickety Honey Cup, Mary Wore a Red Dress, and a favorite, Cuckoo. Second graders reviewed the Kodaly hand signals for so, mi, and la, and played singing games like Mrs. Macaroni and Acka Lacka Tacka Lacka. The singing games are intended to make sure the children are comfortable with their singing voices, and to instill in them the idea that singing is a joyful experience. Third graders learned some folk dances such as Jump Shamador from Jamaica, and Alabama Gal. They also listened to “In the Hall of Mountain King" from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 by Edvard Grieg.
The fourth and fifth graders have started learning their Holiday Musical which will be “Elfis and the Elves Get All Shook Up.” In music class, fourth graders have learned a few recorder pieces, talked about Ragtime music, and listened to “Hoedown” from Rodeo by Aaron Copland. Fifth graders have reviewed meter signatures by conducting and then moving to 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4. Because the music bulletin board was “Welcome Bach”, we learned about J.S. Bach and listened to his Chorale from Cantata 147. We also had fun with a folk dance called Boston Tea Party to coordinate with their study of the American Revolution in class.
All six grades have started learning two songs to sing for the Veteran’s Day assembly which will be on Monday, 11/7 around 8:50. The songs are Land of Liberty by John Jacobson and Rollo Dilworth, and Armed Forces Salute by Cristi Cary Miller and Kathlyn Reynolds. Parents are welcome to come to our assembly. Fifth graders will be playing mallet instruments and recorders, and reciting quotes from American Revolutionary patriots for the Armed Forces Salute.
The year is underway and we are busy making music!
PE - Mrs. Spinosa
Your children are GREAT! We have had a wonderful start to our Physical Education year. Children have been moving in a variety of ways. Soccer and football skills as well as cooperative activities, stations in the gym, scooters, parachute and more. Not only do your children move well, they enjoy moving. That is what KES Physical Education is all about... have fun moving so so you keep moving!
We have also had some interesting health classes. I hope all of you have heard about eating a rainbow. We have discussed the nutritional values to the different kinds of foods. We have understood the importance of eating a variety of foods. Hopefully as children get older that becomes easier. if you are in the school, check out the 4th and 5th grades sugar bulletin board. There is a lot of sugar in those drinks!
Morning Activities are happening! Please consider getting your child to morning activities. There is no better way to start the day than with activity.
***(See the article below)
- Mondays...........pop up tag
- Tuesdays...........jump rope
- Wednesdays.....dodge ball, dancing, walking indoor track
- Thursdays ....... jump rope
- Fridays............. open gym: soccer, basketball, hoops, cups, dancing, walking
***Physical activity can have both immediate and long-term benefits on academic performance. Almost immediately after engaging in physical activity, children are better able to concentrate on classroom tasks, which can enhance learning. Over time, as children engage in developmentally appropriate physical activity, their improved physical fitness can have additional positive effects on academic performance in mathematics, reading, and writing. Recent evidence shows how physical activity’s effects on the brain may create these positive outcomes.
Active Living Research | RESEARCH BRIEF | January 2015
STEM- Mrs. Plourde
Our scientists and engineers have been very busy already this year!!
All grade levels K-5 have had opportunities to practice the Engineering Design Process- *Ask *Imagine * Plan * Create * Improve *
We read the book 21 Elephants which is about a little girl who watches the Brooklyn Bridge being built back in the 1800s. It is her dream to walk across that bridge but her father does not believe it is safe and no one can convince him otherwise. You’ll have to ask your child how the story ends and how it got that title! :) It inspired us to design some bridges of our own and challenge ourselves to make it hold up twenty-one elephants.
Our next project tied literacy into STEM through the use of a fairytale. Students were told the “STEM version” of Jack and the Beanstalk where Jack will need to use a parachute to jump from the top of the beanstalk because the giant thinks he has outsmarted Jack and makes it so Jack is unable to climb back down. Students asked what the problem was, imagined a solution, planned out a great design, created a great parachute and made many improvements along the way. Students tested their parachutes out on the playground, recording many their times through many trials in hopes of their parachute making Jack’s drop slower than the control drop (Jack with no parachute). It was very exciting when they realized that the data in front of them was actual proof of their success!
We have one more Halloween themed activity to finish up and then we will be onto our next journey: CODING!!!
Continuing on board with the Maker Movement, all k-5 students are invited down to the STEM lab for Makers’ Recess weekly and have the opportunity to join Makers’ Club. Right now we have 42 students who are coming to Makers’ Club every single Friday after school. The purpose of this club is to encourage making and creativity in all of our children. Putting into perspective that our school has about only 108 students, that’s a great percentage of our students!! Yay!!
All families should save the date for KES MakerFest- Monday, May 22nd- 6:30-7:30. More details to come soon...
Sneak peek into Quarter 2:
CODING!
Computer Science Week/ Hour of Code
Simple Robotics
1st Grade Engineers
*Create*
21 Elephants
Kensington Elementary School
Website: kes.sau16.org
Location: 122 Amesbury Road, Kensington, NH, United States
Phone: (603) 772-5705