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HCS Essential Arts Newsletter - 5-8
Art
5th and 6th Grade
Students’ focus was on Cubism. They learned that Cubism art is about images broken into shapes and can sometimes look like a broken mirror. They have created drawings of a person animal or creature using Cubism techniques and oil pastels to add color. Students’ projects were inspired by Cubism art and style. They used layers of cardboard to construct a person, place or an object and added color with paint.
7th and 8th Grade
Students learned about printmaking and marbleizing paper. The unit consisted of marbleizing paper using shaving cream. Students carefully carved into square erasers with a pencil making a small design or image and stamped on top of the marbelized paper using stamp pads. They also carved images into styrofoam and linoleum. They rolled printing ink on the images they have created and printed their designs on paper.
Physical Education
5th Grade: Units covered so far: Cooperative Activities, Chasing and Fleeing Games, Overhand throw, Halloween Unit, Parachute Games, Omnikin “Big Ball” Games.
6th Grade: The 6th grade started off the year focusing on a variety of fitness and cooperative activities. Students then practiced their throwing and catching skills with frisbees playing Kan Jam, Team Tip it, and Ultimate.
8th Grade: Units covered so far: Tchoukball, Pickleball, Speedball, Floor Hockey, Fitness Testing
General Music
5th Grade- Viewing of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” has been completed. We continue our individual learning on keyboards and music theory folders. Our composers of the month were Joseph Haydn, Sergi Prokofiev and Jerry Bock
-6th Grade -We just completed a unit on the Periods of Music. This included world history along with several composers of the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Contemporary eras. Students worked in groups to create a WeVideo presentation of one selected period of music.. Next up for the 6th grade is the viewing of the musical “West Side Side.”
Instrumental Music
The Advanced Band performed Halloween Songs at lunches in costumes!
-13 HCS advanced musicians are auditioning for the District III (Chittenden County) band on Sat. Nov 2, 2019 at Colchester Middle School 9:00-12:00 am.
-District III Jazz Festival is on Friday Nov 8th at Brown’s River Middle School. Four HCS students were selected to perform. They will be rehearsing all day with a 6:30 concert.
-Mark your calendars for upcoming HCS Band Concerts:
Friday Nov 8, 2019 6:30 District III Jazz Band (4 selected students at Camel’s Hump School)
Thurs Jan 23, 2020 --5:30 Beginner and Intermediate Bands -7:00 Advanced and Jazz Bands
Fri/Sat Jan 31 & feb 1, 2020 District III Music Festival (9 selected students)
Tues March 10, 2020 Small Ensemble Concert (Advanced Band students only)
Tues May 12, 2020 7:00 CVSD Jazz Festival -Jazz Band at CVU auditorium
Weds June 3, 2020 -5:30 Beginner and Intermediate Bands -7:00 Advanced and Jazz Bands
Choral Music
In Chorus (5-6 and 7-8), we are enjoying getting to know one another and learning how to listen well to the singing around us, so we can blend. We jumped right in to the repertoire for our concerts. In addition, we are all trying our hand at the ukulele! Mark your calendars for the Coffeehouse on February 20, 2020 at 6pm. Our end of year concert is on May 20, 2020.
Library
Library classes this fall have focused on supporting 5th graders’ independent reading both in school and outside of school. They have been introduced to some of this year’s Vermont DCF award list books through book trailers. Students in grades 4th-8th that read and/or listen to at least 5 of the books on the list will be eligible to vote for their favorite in the spring.
https://libraries.vermont.gov/sites/libraries/files/DCFChecklist19-20.pdf
Fifth graders have also been introduced to many books with a bullying theme. They have also learned about what marginalizing people means and listened to book talks about titles in which one or more characters are marginalized. See some of the titles for the bullying/marginalizing theme below:
French
5th grade: Students have been working on descriptive adjectives and designing a booklet in which they described a variety of characters. They have also learned about food and they have designed menus to use in their upcoming restaurant skits
6th grade: students researched about the importance of learning another language and created a speech bubble representing the benefits of second language learning. They have been learning about classroom objects and designed a backpack using vocabulary words from the unit to label their objects and shared their final products with their classmates.
7th grade: Students learned about different greetings and introduction expressions as well as ways to invite someone, accept and refuse invitations. They have engaged in role play activities to demonstrate their understanding of content and cultural expressions and gestures. They have also researched about monuments in Paris and created artifacts related to their monument. They have shared their learning with their classmates.
8th grade: Students have been focusing on the use of the past tense. They have created videos about their summer vacation and used a variety of expressions to communicate their ideas in French. Students have also researched about a city in France with a focus on what could someone see, hear, smell, taste and touch in that city. Besides a digital presentation, students created an artifact or a painting about an aspect of the city and a number of students made food from their city and shared it with the class.
7th & 8th grade students had the opportunity to attend Isango the Magic Flute ensemble at the Flynn. An amazing opera performance inspired by Mozart’s masterpiece that brings old theater into modern time while representing African cultures. Students participated in a pre-performance workshop guided by an artist from the Flynn. Students were introduced to a variety of movements, dance steps and musical rhythms in preparation for the show.
Students reflected on the performance by engaging in post-performances activities. They have designed cover art albums that represent different aspects of performance.
Spanish
Across all levels students learned about the Mexican tradition the Day of the Dead. Videos, hands on projects and face painted were their favorite activities.
5th-grade: Students are learning about the Spanish speaking countries and their capitals. They used a website and maps in Spanish to get the information. Currently they are working on a project about traditional dances in the Spansh speaking world. For the Day of the Dead they created masks and some of them decorated our Altar. Face painting is always part of the Celebration.
6th-grade: Students designed bubble speeches to share their ideas about the importance and benefits of learning another language. Throughout the school year students will research about a particular Spanishsp speaking country and will complete different hands on projects. They hand draw the country map and created a slideshow about interesting destinations. They researched the basic elements of the Day of the Dead tradition and designed cards with this information. Every class we start singing the popular song La Bamba.
7th-grade: Students are learning about greetings, introductions, different courtesy expressions and social gestures from the Spanish world. They created skits and presented them in class. They also researched about the origins of the Day of the Dead celebration and created themed posters about this ancient tradition.
8th-grade: To celebrate the Hispanic Month, students watched two documentaries and reflected about the Hispanic presence in the life and culture of the USA, and made posters to share their thoughts. For the Day of the Dead celebration they built an Altar to honor the lives of Bob Ross and Cameron Boyce. They wrote fictional stories based on this tradition and presented them in decorated Calacas. After watching Coco, students are deepening in the discovery of this ancient Mesoamerican tradition and Mexican folk culture.
Sonny Sammut
Art-K-1st
Rebecca Gove
Art 2-4
Cindi Stanley
Physical Education
Chris Shackett
Physical Education
Cindy Fay
Instrumental Music (5th-8th)
Danielle Sertz
General (K-4) and Choral Music (5-8)
Corinna Stanley
Librarian
Zalfa Kasti
French teacher
Ainaka Luna
Spanish teacher