KES Art, Music and PE!
Third Quarter 2021
PE is Powerful Education!
My name is Ryan Stramel and I am the long term PE Substitute teacher at KES! My goal is to have the students moving around as much as possible. We learn different movement patterns, locomotor skills, and manipulative skills, as well as different sports and activities students can participate in anywhere. I have a big passion for sports and exercise, so any way I can help students progress and learn something new gives me so much joy!
To start off class all of the students begin showing off their locomotor skills which gets our hearts pumping and our blood flowing. We then move on to our manipulative skill for the majority of the lesson. All grade levels have participated in throwing and catching, soccer, invasion games, short handled racket skills, floor hockey, and next week playing a version of Quidditch! At the end of class we focus on stretching out our hard-worked muscles to relax ourselves so we can go back to class energized, but ready to learn.
As well as moving around, an important part of PE is learning about our bodies! While we stretch, students are learning the names of those same muscles. We talk a lot about our hearts because the most important part of PE is moving so we can strengthen our heart muscles. With the Kids Heart Challenge coming up in the two weeks after April vacation, we will be focusing a lot more on our hearts and different aspects of our health. This will be our first big event and the second event, the students will be participating in a carnival themed field day closer to the end of the school year!
It is so important to keep our kids moving and exercising. I hear so many stories of all the different activities and sports you let your kids do at home, thank you for your continued support! I am so lucky to be a part of the KES community and to be able to do what I love with your kids!
Artists at Work! This Crazy Year is Creating a New Bloom in Creativity!
We are so amazed at the creativity that has sprouted during this year of "a different way to look at everything!" You should all be very proud of your students as they have powered through individualized art supplies and classroom zooms! They have displayed fantastic cooperation, and have been creating beautifully! I have been blown away by their spirit and willingness to overcome the challenges of this year to express themselves, and amaze! I am also so excited to see them create with art and architecture with the sticks and branches in our woods. They are very busy arranging and rearranging to improve their architectural projects. I will never forget this opportunity to see our amazing students rise above!
All of our students worked on two school wide art projects this year. Kindness rocks were inscribed with uplifting sayings and beautiful artwork. We were so happy to see so many different kind messages and happy drawings to cheer people in this world. The kindness rocks have made their way out into the world from Maine to Florida! The lucky person that comes across a KES Kindness Rock is bound to have a bit more joy and sunshine in their day.
The second school wide art project involved creating personal 2020 Memory Boxes. The students painted the outside of their boxes with feeling and care, and filled the inside with thoughts and memories that they and their family members have had during this very unusual year.
All of the students were introduced to the art and lives of a variety of artists; Robert Delaunay (Abstract Concentric Circles,) Andy Warhol (Pop Art,) Frida Kahlo (Surrealism and Magic Realism,) Currier and Ives (Printmakers,) Grant Wood (Regional Art of America,) Mary Cassatt (Impressionist,) and Norman Rockwell (Illustrator.)
Kindergarten through Second Grade have been becoming more familiar with the Elements of Art ( Line, Shape, Color, Value, Form and Texture.) In the Fall they studied the style and art of Paul Klee, and created two pieces of art that were related to his love of shapes and color. They created some beautiful pieces of art celebrating Paul Klee's vibrant work! One was a city scape, and the other a Portrait of a Person.
The younger grades have also been studying the primary colors, and the mixing of secondary colors. The students had great fun learning about the rainbow, ROY G BIV, how light bends and reflects through water and prisms to create a rainbow, and the use of their paints and cray pas to invent a lot of crazy colors. Recently these students studied the folk art of Heather Galler, and created beautiful still life patterned pictures of flowers in a vase! This Spring we plan to begin our Cultural Passport to Spain by drawing and playing with the abstract fun scapes of Joan Miro.
The Third through Fifth Graders have been studying the Principles of Design that go into the creation of a good composition in art: contrast, balance, unity, rhythm and repetition, pattern and emphasis. They have been creating index sized art cards or a larger individual piece of artwork to help them understand how each Principle of Design is used in a composition.
This Spring the Third graders worked very hard on designing a pattern with multiple repetitions, and the use of patterns on an animal in foam printmaking. As part of their study of art of the Native American Tribes, the third graders studied and created art in the stylized form of the Tlingit and Haida peoples, sculpted spirit Kachinas of the Hopi people, and have drawn sacred sand painting circles of the Navajo people. The Third graders seem to always enjoy this study of Native American cultures a great deal. We will soon be studying two more artists, one famous for his impressionistic style, Vincent Van Gogh, and the other artists, Salvador Dali and Picasso, will be experienced at the beginning of our year long Cultural Passport to Spain.
The Fourth and Fifth Graders did an awesome job on drawing and designing a Hampton Beach Sand Sculpture Contest. We had a lot of very creative ideas that we could share with the world renown sand sculptors in the future. The students enjoyed trying out printmaking by creating a chosen drawing with patterns, drawing it on foam and printing with that foam plate and markers on paper cards. The whole class seemed to get into the study of Celtic Art, the scribes, the "Book of Kells," Celtic knots, and illumination. The students were given the choice of creating either a Celtic animal or Illuminating a capital letter using the style, detail and the intricate drawing of Celtic Knots. We are currently studying perspective in art, and are working on a One Point Perspective as one looks skyward through the buildings in a major city. As we go into the spring and the beginning of our year long Cultural Passport to Spain, we will be learning more about two Spanish Artists, Picasso and his "Three Musicians," and Salvador Dali and his bizarre dream like images.
The Fifth Graders had eight awesome entries to the annual Yearbook Cover Contest! The fifth graders that entered the contest worked very hard to create a quality representation of our school. The vote was held, and it was unanimously agreed that all of them will hold a special place of honor in some part of the 2020-2021 KES Yearbook!
As I round up my teaching time at KES, I must say with all of my heart that it has been such a privilege and an honor to teach the students of Kensington for twenty one years. The students come to school with eagerness and excitement to learn, warmth and caring to give, and the awesome love of trying something new and different. The students, parents, volunteers and staff of KES have been remarkable! I have been very fortunate! KES will forever be in my heart as a joyous place to educate and learn. Warmly and Yours Always, Annie Beauchemin
MUSIC at KES
My name is Cheryl Sager and I am the "new" music teacher here at KES. I love being here and hope that each child is enjoying singing, dancing and exploring the various aspects of music with me. Your children have been busy during music exploring the various concepts including listening, movement, rhythm, notation, singing, dancing, playing, reading and performing.
Kindergarten began exploring music notation first with long/short and big/little and meeting Ta Quarter Note and Ti Eighth Note. Since January they have created snowflake patterns, and maple syrup patterns using words to rhythm patterns and are now doing more with Ta and Ti-ti. Our work with steady beat happens through chants, finger plays, songs and using instruments to accompany ourselves. Additionally, each class session starts with movement to a variety of music including classical, Celtic, and folk. The variety of music provides an introduction to different meters. Most of the time Kindergarten students freely move to this music using our whole body and trying to include twirls, skips, jumps, leaps and other fun creative dance movements. Children explored high and low sounds and voices through song, storytelling and following a "snowball" down a "ski slope" with our voices. Currently, we are exploring these many music concepts as we "go on a bear hunt."
Grade 1: What fun we have had. Grade 1 explores the many concepts in music through movement, song and rhythmic play. Starting in January they spent a lot of time hearing and moving to various compositions about snow. Additionally our rhythm, song, instrument play, tempo and notation exploration was connected to a snow and snowflakes theme. In early March students enjoyed songs and movement to traditional Irish folk melodies and clapping rhythm patterns a leprechaun theme while in late March we experienced the music components with a maple syrup theme. This led us into April with a maple syrup poem where students became rhythm detectives to find the rhythm patterns that matched the words of our poem! As we move on and continue with the many concepts of music education we will do so while we learn a bit about cows. So far they have met Bessie the Heifer and Bella Boo and will meet many types of cows as we go. Again students will be detectives as they find rhythms, dance and sing, play instruments and have a lot of fun.
Grade 2: Now these students are my dancers! They were the most amazing snowflakes, moving to the various tempos to our snow music which included classical pieces by Vivaldi, mystical, Russian, Celtic, and various folk songs. Students twirled, leaped, skated, jumped and explored fast and slow movements. They were so creative. Their instrumental rendition of Froggy Gets Dressed was wonderful. As we moved into March the second graders danced a jig and a reel to traditional Irish music. We added scarves which made our being 6 feet apart magical. Throughout this time our rhythm patterns, exploration of tempos, telling a story through music, instrument playing, keeping a steady beat and learning about music of other countries all fell under themes of snow and leprechauns. For much of the remainder of the year second grade will continue to explore these concepts through nature and the things “outside our window.” This has started with Josie, my “pet” spider and the song Rainbow ‘Round Me.
Grade 3: In January we began learning about the musical alphabet and the specific names of lines and spaces of the staff. Without being able to use our recorders, we put these notes and reading the staff onto our Orff instruments. While learning a traditional contra dance to Liz Jane, a traditional folk song, students began learning 3 basic accompaniment forms on the Orff instruments: Level, Broken and Crossover Borduns. The combination of these 3 elements to music education help with steady beat, singing voice, music of other cultures, musical and non-musical movements and even notation. March brought us Mistress Murphy’s Chowder, a comical song that the students just LOVED, and to dancing a traditional Irish line dance to a traditional Irish reel. To keep our distance and to add a bit of flare we added scarves and had a great time. To tie into their study on Native American cultures students learned a translated song about maple sugaring. Traditional instrumentation of native made drums, rattles and moose bells provided accompaniment. Students have also learned 2 other songs. One song, Hi-Yo, is accompanied by rhythm sticks that we made from branches from the woods and decorated with feathers, beads and shells. The other song, Seneca Stomp Dance, is a call and response song done A Capella with special shakers that the girls wear. From here we will begin looking at the immigration story through music while we continue to study rhythmic and melodic notation. We might even get to play those recorders yet!
Grade 4-5: Starting in January we began looking at the instruments of the orchestra. After learning about instrument families we began to explore the brass instruments. Students learned that not all instruments in the “Brass Family” are actually brass and that it really is about how they are played, requiring a mouth piece, a tube and a bell. Each student had to make a “brass” instrument out of found materials. We had some amazing instruments on display that used pool noodles, water bottles, funnels, hose, Wiffle bats, cardboard tubes and duct tape. Each one met the requirements making a sound and some made more than one sound. Next we went on to the String Family where students had a chance to play the Bass, cello and violin. Additionally, students are playing the Ukulele and making a rubber band stringed instrument that must play a song. As the year continues we will explore the woodwinds and the percussion families.
News from the Library!
We are excited to be welcoming students slowly back into the library space to check out books!
Please help your student return books from October and take care of the new ones coming home!!
Mrs. Eastwood is also going into classrooms to help with projects and research when she can.