Primary Newsletter
April 2024
Important Dates for April
April 1st - 5th - Kindergarten students will be tested on IStation....these testing results will be reported to the state.
April 2nd.....Kindergarten Cap and Gown Pictures...there is NOT a make-up day for these pictures.April 8th.....Eclipse Day! Please check with your student's teacher about any special events taking place in their classroom. ALSO...please make sure you return your student's permission slip in order for them to view the eclipse at school.
April 12th....Spring Fing 5pm - 7pm. Watch your student's folder for more details.
April 16th....Kindergarten Zoo Trip (Bryant, Gruenewald, Warnick, Gramling, Cupp, McCorkle, Lavender)
April 17th....Kindergarten Zoo Trip (Sullivan, Matthews, Camp, Turner, Greenway, Butler, Smith)
April 25th....Kindergarten 5 week reports go home.
What's Happening in Special Class....
CAT TIME
Teacher: Jessica Riley
In CAT Time during the month of April, students will learn more about animal habitats and balance by creating suspension towers "trees" and using a variety of materials to build bird nests. They will also learn about gravity and engineering protective containers during an egg drop experiment. Finally, students will practice the skills of originality and creativity by completing image and item transformations.
LIBRARY
Teacher: Dana Gamble
April is National Library Month! Let's challenge ourselves to read more, visit the public libraries or bookstores this month to celebrate National Library Month. Reading to young children is an important way to help them build language skills, expose them to new words and use of language and to learn general information about the world. This month in the Library we will be reading different books about Spring and things that happen in Spring. We will be using the Novel Effect on some of the books to bring some fun music and interactive sounds while listening to the stories.
PE
Teacher: Shane Duncan
I hope everyone had a great Spring Break. In April we are going to start a kicking/soccer unit. We have so many kids that are going to start playing this during the spring and enjoy it. We will work on kicking the ball and stopping it along with other skills.
ART
Teacher: Megan Jones
In art for the month of April we will be finishing up creating our pinch-pot sculptures and transitioning into focusing on how to use perspective to draw what we see. We will create a still-life drawing during class time that we will finish up with watercolor paint. Students will learn how to incorporate different hues of color to show shading and depth.
MUSIC
Teacher: Kari Metheny
April Music classes will have the following music concepts and themes:
We will learn and play with high-low tones (sol-mi).
We will have the theme of springtime throughout our classes.
We will learn and play about timbres of pitched and unpitched instruments.
We will learn and sing our graduation songs.
Counselors Corner
During the end of March and early April, my lessons are focused on teaching students how to self-regulate and self-manage their emotions to the best of their ability. We are learning different methods to calm ourselves down in moments of high stress like doing deep breathing exercises. Teaching mindfulness and self-regulation to students at this age is a crucial part of their emotional development. Please ask your child to demonstrate some of the breathing exercises they have learned. You might specifically ask them to show you their "baby bear breath." :)
Pre-K News for April
Spring is such an amazing time of year! New life and warmer temperatures are all around us. Preschool will be talking about life cycles, plants and insects throughout the month of April. Check your child’s daily folders for detailed information about the upcoming activities specific to your child’s class. Continue to reinforce number recognition, letter recognition, letter sounds, counting, and practice with your child on writing their name at home. Make sure your child uses a capital letter for their first letter and lowercase letters for the rest. These activities will help your child to be successful at school.
Kindergarten News
A Note from our NEW Assistant Principal!!
As you may have heard, we have a new face at Brookland Primary! Please welcome our new Assistant Principal, Andrea Pearson!
Hello! My name is Andrea Pearson and I am so excited to be working at Brookland Primary! I attended Brookland Public Schools as a student (and my dad was a teacher for over 40 years here), so I am a Bearcat through and through! This school year is my 18th year as a member of the Bearcat faculty. I taught Business Technology classes in the Junior and Senior High Buildings for 14 years and have been an administrator for the last 4 years with that time being at the Middle School until this move to the Primary. I have three wonderful kiddos who attend Brookland; they are in the 9th, 6th and 3rd grades. As of this school year, my husband is now also a Bearcat! He is a band director at the Jr./Sr. High. This is the first time our family has all been in the same district! I am excited to get to know the students and the staff at Brookland Primary better and I know we will have a fantastic end to this school year.
A Message from the Principal...
Spring is here and with that comes many changes to our routines and daily activities. Children ages 3-7 thrive with predictable routines, procedures and set schedules. As ballgames begin and the sun sets later each day, I encourage each of you to remember that children need a larger amount of sleep than most adults do. We are heading into the last few weeks of school and our state testing is in full swing this month. You can help your child do their best by keeping them on a set schedule as much as possible. We also ask that you continue to check your child's folder daily and send those changes of clothes as needed!