KES Related Arts Update
Third Quarter News from Art, PE, Music, Library, and STEM
PE - Mrs. Spinosa
Hooray for KES Physical Education!
It has been a great several months. Over the past several months, along with our “regular” curriculum, we have participated in many special events.
In December we had our “Jingle Bell Jaunt”. We were able to collect over 4,000 food items. For a school as small as ours to collect this amount of food it is truly amazing. The students ran their best trying to get additional laps to gain additional food. Both 68 hours of hunger and the St. Vincent Food Pantry were very appreciative of our children. They were amazed!
In the fall we collected data on each student with their Fitness Challenges. Students are challenged in 5 areas: Pacer Run (aerobic endurance), Push-Ups (upper body strength), Sit and Reach (Flexibility), Curl-Ups (abdominal strength), and Trunk Lift (core strength). This is a self-driven challenge. Students know their scores from past years, set goals and try to better themselves. We will be doing challenges again in May!
In February we took part in the American Heart Association’s Jump Rope for Heart. What a great hour! Lots of music, lots of laughter, lots of exercise and most of all a great feeling from helping others! Once again our students amazed all of us. As a school we raised over $5,000.00 for the AHA. A job well done!
In March we were able to get golf Pro, Jim Blalock from the First Tee golf program (Sagamore Golf Club). We spent 2 days working on our swing and being able to get the balls to the targets. Most importantly we developed an excitement for the game of golf. Ask your kids if they want to golf this summer. The First Tee is a great way to start kids in golf! Thanks PTO for the experience!
April brings us to our annual Cup Stacking Competition. The kids are practicing and they eye hand coordination is amazing. This competition will sure be an exciting one!
© Morning Activities are going strong. It is a great way to start a day of learning. Soon morning activities will be outside… more info will be sent home.
© Jump rope athletes are working hard to get ready for our Jamboree in Conway. We will be showing our best skills on June 4th.
Coming up, Field Day!! Watch for information… It’s a great day.
Library - Mrs. Eastwood
In February, we hosted a Flat Stanley character from Nebraska! He came with a letter asking our students about where we live, so many classes had the opportunity to write back, and tell his school about Kensington and New Hampshire. February was also a time for students to learn about book reviews! We read several review written by other students about books, determine what should be included in a good review, then worked together to write reviews for books we have read giving the students a chance to summarize concisely, describe some interesting parts of a story but not give too much away, as well as rating and recommending it, and deciding what kind of readers would enjoy the book. This helped prepare the students for participating in our KES Readers' Gallery at Family Reading Night. We also prepared for our author visit with Marty Kelley by reading a few of his books!
In March, we celebrated Read Across America and Dr. Seuss' birthday with a week of fun reading activities! A major highlight was our special visit for all the students during the day from Marty Kelley to tell us about how to fail successfully, and his evening visit to show us about his brand new book. Then students learned about some of the many awards books can win each year including the Caldecott (picture book) and the Newbery (chapter book) awards. This year, a picture book won both, called Last Stop on Market Street. Several classes learned about the history of St. Patrick's Day while practicing their listening and note-taking skills. We also explored online sources of information and our encyclopedias with the older students as they discovered some famous people. The younger students explored the world of folktales, fables, and fairy tales!
All students continue to practice appropriate use of our library space and materials. They take good care of our books and many help keep our space comfortable and inviting for everyone. They have especially enjoyed some of the new seating that has arrived!
Great Stone Face Voting for grades 4 and 5 occurs in April. Lots of animal and habitat studies are coming up as well as a look at the upcoming summer Olympics!
Visit our Library webpage, catalog, and resources!
Music - Mrs. Vallone
We had already started “traveling” to Finland when the third quarter began. All six grades learned two folk songs, sung not in English, but in Finnish. They were Hama Hama Haakki and Jaakko Kulta which translated is Eensy Weensy Spider and Brother John. The 4th and 5th graders also played an arrangement of Finlandia on their recorders at our Cultural Passport Celebration on Thursday, January 28th.
During the third quarter, the Kindergartners have continued to do a lot of singing, moving to music, and playing classroom instruments. We talked about high and low with a song called “Snowman Joe”, and learned traditional children’s songs and rhymes such as ”Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” and “Humpty Dumpty.”
The first graders celebrated their 100th day of school with a song, and have learned songs using the pitches so, mi, and la, which we also identified and jumped to on our staff mat. For traditional songs, we learned “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”, and we also played many singing games and practiced doing a four-beat rhythm canon.
Second graders learned quite a few Valentine’s Day songs, and we also learned a few songs/games related to the Underground Railroad such as “Follow the Drinking Gourd” and “Run Children Run.” We jumped to the pitches of so, mi, la, re, and do on the staff matt, and did an activity called Body Director on the mallet instruments where they had to either play hands together, hands separately, or in a glissando, but had to watch the conductor (me) to stay together.
Third graders focused on reading quarter notes, eighth notes, and half notes, and their corresponding rests. We also talked about and moved to a few different tempo markings, and learned “Fifty Nifty United States”, always a favorite. We also started studying the different orchestral families, and we started learning to play the recorder. Very exciting day!
Fourth graders studied Pete Seeger, and started learning the music to our play, “Shake It Up With Shakespeare.” We continued to dance to the music of the New England Dancing Masters which is fun because they usually sing to accompany their dancing. We did use the Smart Board in the library and watched a video on the process of making a violin.
Fifth graders focused on learning the dialogue and music for their musical, and also learned a fairly difficult recorder arrangement of a piece by Tielman Susato (c. 1500-1562) called Renaissance Dance. We also studied the tradition and music of Carnival in New Orleans and did the limbo. Both 4th and 5th graders performed their music on Wednesday, April 6th, and I was very proud of all of the students.
singing Home for time capsule
Singing for time Capsule
Finnish Kanteles
Art - Mrs. Beauchemin
We have had a very exciting group of discoveries in Art this term. Your students are continually amazing me with their excitement, creativity, and giving nature!
The Cultural Passport trip to Finland was a blast and a blaze! The children built Finnish snow lanterns outside, again and again, due to the melting from warm temperatures. With enough rebuilds to have them shine up for our Finnish bonfire blaze. What fun we had! Most classes finished up the study of Finland with work on a 3 dimensional map of the country, and the creation of a Finnish paper star...which we discovered is not that easy to make.
We took a little side trip, as the snow blew, to make certain that we celebrated our own culture with Valentine's Day, and our version of St Patrick's celebrations with lucky leprechaun lands.
We jumped into our study of famous artists from Mark Rothko in the Kindergarten, Grandma Moses in the First Grade, Picasso in the Second Grade, Van Gogh in the third grade, and Mondrian and Joan Miro in the Fourth Grade. The students each learned a little about the lives of these artists and made their version of the painting style that the artist loved. The Fifth Graders have been diligently working on their clay animations which are are just about finished! They never cease to amaze me with the variety and comedic actions in these short animations. The animations will be up on Youtube for all to enjoy.
Lately the entire school has been working hard on a town mural for the side of The Farm's Goat and Pig Barn. The fifth graders made the buildings, the third and second graders painted the background, and the other grades created trees, animals, vehicles, and people to fill in our "townscape!" It is really amazing to see how it all came together. We are hoping to get a few extra copies of the very large mural for town and school use.
Another group school effort helped 100 year old Esther Prescott, teaching principal of Kensington for many years, celebrate her big birthday! We presented her with 100 homemade cards, and a giant card with pictures of her days in the one room school house on the corner of Mouton Ridge and Amesbury Road, and in the KES building that started with four classrooms that exists as our school today. It is so awesome to see the amazing effort that the children poured into the creation of those cards. They certainly did understand just how special it is to make it all the way to 100! Caring can be shown so beautifully through the sharing of one's creativity. Heart of Art Club holds that saying as a cornerstone.
Lastly, we are very happy to be going back to the Currier Museum for an all-school field trip on Wednesday, May 4th! The students will get a chance to make art, talk about art and observe some amazing pieces of sculpture and painting! The special exhibit this time is the polar opposite of John Audubon's Mammal exhibit of last spring's trip. This year we are going to be designing our own innovative sneaker design in our art class, and then observing the innovative designs from all over the world created just for high heels! There is also a smaller travelling exhibit on Shakespeare's potions, which should be quite interesting to our Fifth Grader thespians!
It has been an exciting year so far! I cannot wait to see what is right around the KES corner!
STEM- Mrs. Plourde
Third quarter STEM has been very busy!!
In February, students had a basic introduction to electricity and circuitry. They then made “squishy circuits” out of batteries, play dough and LED lights. Students had to problem solve in order to figure out why their circuit wasn’t working. Many students challenged themselves to include a buzzer or motor in their design. We had some airplanes lighting up, buzzing and with a spinning propeller!
March was a very busy month as it was time to celebrate women’s history. Governor Hassan is encouraging girls in STEM as part of the her Task Force in STEM. Our lessons were inspired by the book “My Name is NOT Isabella”. “In a world of princesses, fairies and mermaids- Isabella makes way for scientists, doctors and astronauts”. In class, students got to experience hands-on what it’s like to be astronauts, doctors and scientists. We were also fortunate to have many guests come into STEM to share their careers and passions with. All of our guests were either women, Kensington residents or both.
Our wonderful guests included:
Roberta Lawson, Veterinarian, Mercy Animal Hospital
Meghan Chan, Director of Technology, Connecting Point Market Group
Hailey LaPoint, Meteorologist, WMUR-TV
Kathy Mahoney, Reactor Engineer, Seabrook Station
Paul Lovvik, Software Architect, Acquai, Inc.
Tim Galitski, Affiliate Professor of the Institute for Systems Biology
Tom Drummond (CEO) and Pete Lawrie (Executive Director) , Orion’s Quest- Active Orion’s Quest (OQ) missions allow students to participate in ongoing space-based research. Students participate in NASA research through analysis of photo or video data from current experiments being conducted by a NASA scientist- OrionsQuest.org
In March, I hosted “STEMgirls” afterschool for 23. Our goal was to experience and fall even more in love with STEM. Our theme this year was space and it was inspired by Christa McCauliffe whose memory was being celebrated as this year is the anniversary of the Challenger’s explosion. Although the time went by too quickly, we were able to make paper circuits of us “reaching for the stars” and explore the Makey-Makey.
Now into April, we are counting down the days until our trip to Fenway to celebrate STEM Education day! The highlight of the day is the egg drop off the Green Monster at 37' 2". A small group of 5th graders will be designing an egg protective device to represent Kensington at the event, however, all students are designing their own egg drop apparatus. In STEM class, all students are currently using the Engineering Design Process to design and build some type of apparatus to protect an egg from a drop of 14' 8". Students will be walking over to Sawyer Park with their class in order to test their designs. They will be dropping it off the deck behind the concession stand in hopes of their egg not cracking. We will then be able to discuss what worked, what didn't work and what any future improvements would be.
Last week, Mrs. Spinosa and I joined STEM and PE classes together to teach STEM in Baseball. Students learned how much science and math truly is in sports!
Sneak Peek into 4th Quarter:
Engineering is Elementary: Designing Oil Spill Cleaners ( Environmental engineering)
SAVE THE DATE:
Monday, May 16 for KES MAKERFEST!!
Kensington Elementary School
Website: kes.sau16.org
Location: 122 Amesbury Road, Kensington, NH, United States
Phone: (603) 772-5705