A Very Specials Newsletter
February
What's happening in Art
5th grade- Clay face vessels
4th grade- Printmaking
3rd grade- Chinese New Year Dragons
2nd grade- Collage Pasta Pots
1st grade- Chinese New Year Dragon Puppets
Kinder- Chinese New Year Dragon Puppets
**There's an awesome book on MyOn called "Max Celebrates Chinese New Year!" Share it with your students!
What's Happening in Music
This month in Cougar Academy we are celebrating Black History Month with the music of Motown! We are singing and dancing to the hits of the Jackson 5, Temptations, Stevie Wonder and more! (Check out some of the videos below for a fun brain break!) In honor Valentine’s Day we will also be singing about love and friendship.
In February, all music classes will be singing and playing some fun Valentine’s themed music and games. We are also singing some African American Spirituals. In addition to that here’s the breakdown by grade:
Kindergarten:
· Reinforcing letters, days of the week, months of the year and season through music.
· Begin preparation for the Kindergarten program in April!
1st Grade:
· Gross motor skills to the steady beat
· Reading music on their first two-line staff
2nd Grade:
· Introduction of the Mi-Re-Do pattern in music
· Begin using instruments to enhance singing and support musicality
3rd Grade:
· Introduction of sixteenth notes. We are connecting rhythm to fractions and whole numbers as we discover the relationship between various rhythm durations
· Discovering form in music. We are looking for patterns and for in music and showing them through singing and moving together.
4th & 5th Grade:
· Experiencing music from other cultures (Ghana, France)
· Creating, reading and performing rhythmic patterns to supplement music.
What's Happening in the Library!
-Visits to the library this month will include age appropriate discussions about internet safety. We will cover topics like Digital Citizenship, Copyright, and cyber bullying during library lessons.
This topic is too important to cover in 1 month of lessons in the library! Make sure you are talking about it with students in class and at home. Our digital world and everything that comes with it won't be going away any time soon.
-Spanish Book Fair, take two, was a much better success with more than $1000.00 in sales. Hopefully we sold enough product and the company will allow us to do it again next year!
-With the Spanish Book Fair, Internet Safety lessons, and 4th grade's Camp Write A Lot, we won't be able to have Makerspace time in the library. Check out the link below for ideas you can do in the classroom or at home.
What's Happening in P.E!
After the Stars Hockey unit we had some time to work on our math skills. The students played pyramid battle which helped us work on concepts such as greater than less than, addition, subtraction, and multiplication.
JUMP ROPE FOR HEART IS HERE!!!
All month long the students will be learning the importance of developing heart-healthy habits, how being physically active can be fun, and will be raising funds to support cardiovascular research as well as education that will help save lives in their community.
Please encourage the students to raise money for a great cause. Our goal this year is $4,500!! WE CAN DO IT!!
Our school is joining thousands of others to wipe out heart disease through Jump Rope For Heart. JRFH Donate Today: www.heart.org/jump
Dates to Know
No Board Game Club on Feb. 2
Board game club is open for 3rd-5th grade students. Please see Mrs. Wiggins if you have a student interested in attending.