Blair Mill Beagle Brief
From our PAWS to yours...January 10, ,2021
2021 Theme: Simply the BEST...Students, Families, Staff
Principal's Message
Dear Blair Mill Families,
I am hoping that the children enjoyed their SNOW DAY! While we never appreciate the weather interrupting our learning, we hope that families can make the best of it and have some time to drink hot chocolate, have a snowball fight, or build a snowman (like me).
SNOW DAY!
Send us your SNOW DAY pics to display on our lobby TV. Send to jjones@hatboro-horsham.org. The children love seeing themselves on the TV, and WE DO TOO!
ACCEPTANCE WEEK
This upcoming week we will kick off the start our Acceptance Week. This is an opportunity for us to embrace and celebrate the uniqueness of every student at Blair Mill. We will end our week with a service project to support the elderly and those struggling with loss of housing in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's commitment to serving the community.. The children will be doing the projects in their classroom. We are partnering with The Giving Tree for this project.
COVID Update:
We continue to deal with the impact of COVID on our community. A district communication was sent out last week regarding this. We will continue to follow the guidance of the Montgomery County Department of Health and the district’s COVID Health and Safety Plan. If there are any changes to our programming or to health and safety protocols, communication will come from the district. If your child has recently become sick or tested positive, or you or your family have been directly impacted by COVID, please inform our school nurse sclark@hatboro-horsham.org. I would ask that you work with your child’s teacher regarding academics and programming. I have provided an outline below that I shared earlier in the year to give you an idea of how we are supporting students who are quarantined. If you have other questions, you can always reach out directly to me and I will be happy to help you.
Stay safe, happy and healthy!
Dr. Gee
Guidelines for Instruction for Quarantined Students
When a student is absent from school because of a quarantine, we know the circumstances may vary. In some cases, a student may be quarantining and may feel well enough to engage in classwork and assignments. In other cases, the student may be ill and may not feel they can do much at all. To support students in voluntarily keeping up with their classwork, teachers will post classwork, homework, needed resources, and timelines for upcoming projects/assessments on their CANVAS/SeeSaw pages.
Completing work while at home will not be required. Families are encouraged to work with teacher(s) and/or guidance counselors and principals to directly to discuss a student absence and determine the most effective next steps.
Elementary Schools
In the event of an absence at the elementary level, a parent/guardian should contact the classroom teacher to make them aware of their specific situation. The classroom teacher will work with their building principal to determine the most effective way to provide support to the student to keep up with the classroom instruction during an absence due to quarantine. There is a possibility that the student will be able to connect via TEAMS at limited times during the school day. This will vary among grade levels and can be determined in consultation with the teacher and principal.
Support for Extended Absences
Parents/Guardians are highly encouraged to work with their student’s teacher(s), counselor, and grade-level principal in situations where there are extended absences – especially those in which the student is not able to engage in day-to-day tasks and assignments. As situations can vary for students, different accommodations may need to be made.
Alternative Assessments or Assignments – Teachers may elect to provide alternative assessments or assignments as they deem necessary.
If there are any resources (textbooks or other materials) that are not available to a student on-line, they can be provided for at home use. A parent/guardian may make arrangements to pick up materials from the school.
Who doesn't love a good SNOW DAY!
Mrs. Wachs' Snow Day!
Mrs. DeSimone's Snow Day
Mrs. Colantonio's Snow Day!
Spotlight on ART
Mr. Rodebaugh's Amazing ART Program!
Kindergarten - Color Theory
We started studying color theory in kindergarten by mixing our primary colors into secondary colors using objects like toothbrushes, forks and sticks to understand texture. Our finished product was inspired by Author/illustrator Eric Carle. We also created colored chalk pumpkin patches working with the element of value through blending yellow and black chalk to different values of orange chalk to create form.
First Grade - Van Gogh
First Grade jump right into this year by studying Vincent Van Gogh and his use of the brush. We were focusing on how artists show the principle of movement in still pictures. (Using lines, repetition, and color).
Second Grade: Symmetry
Second Grade we started the year by going back and reviewing Symmetry from our studies in first grade by creating a cold wax Batik. We chose to create a butterfly making sure to use up the positive space of the paper. The objective was for the students to have equal parts on both sides of the line of symmetry. We achieved this by drawing on one side and transferring our lines to the other. We substituted cold wax of the crayon for the hot wax usually used in creating real Batiks. The wax lines were created by crumpling the paper and adding black paint as our dye.
Third Grade: Landscapes
Third grade started the year off creating a landscape painting inspired by folk art. This is a non- traditional art style that is self-taught and portrays community and cultural traditions. We branched out and used patterns to create the farmland and made the objects in the background larger then normal when showing the perspective. We are now working on an edition of relief prints from a block created from Styrofoam, Students will be learning how to number, title and sign their print.
Fourth Grade: Painting Techniques
Fourth grade started the year out with a mono-chromatic review painting with tempera paint and then were introduced to techniques that are used by artists when painting. These include masking off with tape and scraping. We used masking tape to keep the paper white where different widths of trees were placed to create a fall perspective. Instead of paint students ripped and wet tissue paper to draw the dye out for the colors of their fall sky. Once dry the tape was removed and the bark was scraped with cardboard and black tempera paint. We are just finishing up on a Pop art James Rizzi Cityscape, showing the whimsical and bright side of a city, by creating buildings shape traditionally, like animals, food and monsters.
Fifth Grade: Tints and Shades and Color Theory
Fifth grade has been working on projects based on review so far this year. We started the year by working with the tints and shades of colors to create a Fall perspective. We then dove back into color theory by designing a graffiti color wheel, with names, words, sports teams and numbers, etc. Students were only given the primary colors and had to mix all their secondaries and intermediates colors. They needed to know complimentary pairs so that they could paint the reverse in each section. Background color where labeled and the compliment in the letter in that section. We have just begun trying to trick the eye by creating a two-dimensional optical illusion look three-dimensional. Students were introduced to the technique of cross hatching to create different values of color in their color pencil work.
Save the Date
January 17th District Closed in Observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's Birthday