GRAND AVENUE SPECIALS
December 2018
SPECIALS DEPARTMENTS
Music-Katie Lavigne and Glenn Schuster
Physical Education-Jacob Breunig, Eric Scheunemann and Josh Sheard
Email: contact@saukprairieschools.org
Website: www.saukprairieschools.org
ART
WHAT WE'VE BEEN WORKING ON:
Fifth Grade: During November, fifth grade artists were creating mugs in the style of the "Face Jugs" that were first made in the early 1800's by slave potters and others in the Edgefield district of South Carolina. The slave potters "turned" jugs and cups on the potter's wheel, and then modeled them into grotesque faces. Fifth grade artists hand built a mug and then attached a face molded out of clay. Many student artists enjoy the freedom to create any type of face; cute, funny, ugly, etc. The mugs will be glazed and can be used to enjoy a cup of tea, or cocoa..
For this special project fourth grade artists are painting birch tree forests with watercolor paint. Through this process they learned a variety of watercolor techniques and how to make neutral colors by mixing complementary colors.
Music - Mrs. LaVigne
Mrs. LaVigne's music classes spent November singing patriotic songs, songs of gratefulness, and learning about the instrument families. December seems short, and will include some more Broadway; holiday songs celebrating Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Las posadas; and a brief piano recital for those interested in performing for their class!
MUSIC - MR. SCHUSTER
Our Third Graders have been singing songs about Thanksgiving. We have learned a song called “The Indian Stick Song” which has an activity we use in keeping the steady beat. We have listened to “Night on Bald Mountain” by Modest Mussorgsky as well as learning a few facts about his life. We also continue to learn some music symbols and names of notes.
Our Fifth Graders sang in a sing along for our Veteran’s assembly on November 9th and since been working on our music for our December Concert coming up on December 10th.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Highlights:
- Other than a few students/classes who missed a test or two we have officially Finished our First Round of Fitness Testing!
- We combined our fitness testing with some fun activities. Ask your child about Battleship, Scooter Scatter, or Temple of Doom. We also did some fun Thanksgiving activities called Turkeys in the Haystack or Winner Winner Turkey Dinner!
What We've Been Working On:
- We have been focusing on our assessing our overall fitness. Our goal is for students to recognize their areas of strength and weakness and know how to work to improve their fitness. The areas of fitness we focus on are listed below with the assessment we use to monitor that area.
- Cardiovascular Endurance - Pacer Test
- Flexibility - Sit and Reach Test
- Muscular Strength - Push-up Test
- Muscular Endurance - Curl-up Test
- Recovery Heart Rate - Heart Rate Monitor Reports
- Pre-Exercise Heart Rate - Heart Rate Monitor Reports
Below is included, with permission, a picture of a student's heart rate during the Pacer Test. You can see how we started class with an instant activity and then had the students lay down and get their heart rate as low as possible. Then this student counted for their partner as they did the Pacer Test and then you can see their heart rate increase as they started the Pacer. Once they stopped you can see how their heart rate recovered quickly. Healthy hearts recover quickly and have low pre-exercise heart rates.
What's Coming Up:
- We are starting to work on our Jump Rope skills. We include this unit because it works on improving our footwork, is a good cardiovascular endurance activity, and it builds bone density. Students work individually during this unit through a progression of jumping skills.
- The week before winter break we will have the annual Winter Wonderland Stations set up in the gym!