Smith Intermediate School
Newsletter, May 2022
Upcoming Events:
Principal's Message
Thank you to all the families who came to our Art Show and Open House. We appreciate your interest and support. Our next school event will be our Spring Concert to be held at the high school auditorium on May 25.
Teacher/Staff Appreciation Week is May 2-6. Please consider taking a moment to give a shout out to your child's teachers. Something as simple as a personal email or note is always appreciated. Better yet, have your child write a message.
Special thanks to our Smith PTO for providing a staff luncheon during the Appreciation Week.
News from the Nurse
School Nurses’ Day is May 11!
Reminders:
Attendance calls, and emails go to the Main Office.
Update all phone numbers and health concerns.
Pack a change of clothes for spills or accidents.
Please keep your children home if they are sick!
All children who are sent home, must have proof of a negative PCR Covid test or an alternate diagnosis from a Doctor.
Quadrant Registration for Covid testing at school enter “Cortland Enlarged City Schools” Clarifi COVID-19
If your child has a positive result from a rapid test, report it on the Cortland County Health Dept. website and to the school nurse. Isolate for 5 days and wear a mask for the next 5 days.
Dress Code Reminder
As warmer weather approaches and everyone is eager to shed their winter clothing, please be certain that your child's summer apparel adheres to our District Dress Code.
Please keep in mind that we go out daily for recess. It is important for children to have safe footwear for running and playing; flip flops and sandals are not allowed at recess.
A few dress code reminders:
shorts, skirts, and skorts must be mid-thigh or longer
no beach shoes
no strapless tops, spaghetti strap tops or muscle shirts
no excessively revealing clothing, including backless tops or see through items.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
Music News
“Ukulele-Mania” is the best word I can use to describe our learning in the music classroom for the past month! Both third and fourth graders have been learning some basics about this fun instrument.
We started with exploring the instrument and learning the names of the different parts of it, how to hold it, how to take care of it, and how it creates its different high and low sounds. Students learned how to create sound through either plucking or strumming with their right hand. We quickly jumped into learning a couple of open string songs. These are fairly simple, because they only involve using one hand. Most students have been able to quickly master those.
Third graders are now learning about what a chord is and learning their first chord. Playing chords involves the use of both hands.
Fourth graders are currently working on switching between their first two chords and are about to add a third chord to their repertoire. Fourth graders are also working on some single string songs, which also has them using their left hand fingers on the fretboard.
Ukuleles are great little instruments that come in many different shapes and sizes. They can be a lifelong instrument and enjoyed by both children and adults. They are fairly easy for children to play once they have learned and understand some basics. Ukuleles are somewhat affordable depending on what kind you buy and where you purchase them from. There are a lot of ways for kids to learn how to play new songs on their own, and we will be exploring those as the year continues. Ask your child about what he/she has been playing on his/her ukulele in school!
Spring Concert
The warmer weather and springlike weather are starting to move in, and it is a good reminder that our Spring Concert is not all that far away. All of our Smith School ensembles are rehearsing and preparing for this upcoming event, which will be on Wednesday, May 25th. The Band, Orchestra, Choruses (3rd and 4th grade) and the Music Maniacs will all be performing in this concert.
Our concert will once again be in the Cortland High School Auditorium, and will have similar timing as we had for our Winter Concert. Look for more detailed information to be sent out on this concert a little later in May.
New from the Art Studio
Thanks to all who attended the Art Show, what a great turn out! We appreciate you taking the time to check out our Smith artist’s work! It’s been quite a year with COVID and students needing to quarantine, so, we didn’t have the quantity of work that we’ve had pre-COVID, particularly 3D work, but hope you enjoyed what you saw! The students work hard to create meaningful and personal work!
We spent the beginning of the year working on personalizing our sketchbooks, which each student has. We all decorated the covers with our “artsy” names and the 4th graders created a collage from magazines which adorns the inside of the front cover - “a picture tells a story” - of visual images to describe who “we” are! ;0)
Some of the classes celebrated Earth Day in art on Friday. They had many inspiring ideas about how we need to take better care of our planet, as it takes all of our efforts to do so, since we’re all in this together! We all agreed that Earth Day should be every day!
Here are some images from 3-Morse/Elliot-Birdsall’s class who went outside during art class and created Andy Goldsworthy inspired Nature Art - installation art - which is temporary. They had a blast - it was awesome watching them find items from nature and working collaboratively to create such personal art - they were amazed at what they did, too!
Library News
4th Grade students have done a great job in creating a book talk presentation and sharing it with their classmates. Students had a chance to express what they like about their books using details they have read to explain to others what the story is about. After this, students learn about the tools that we can use for research and using information ethically.
3rd Grade students finish up learning how to use the library catalog and call numbers to locate books. With this, they will be able to find new books in the library that relate to the subjects that they like to read about. We will continue this work by researching different sections of the nonfiction area to see what sort of subjects each area has to offer.
Makerspace continues with coding our dash robots. Students learn more about how to create programs and useful conditionals to help make things easier when crafting their code such as loops and if/when statements.
PE News
Positivity Project (P2)
Smith Intermediate students have been busy learning about the Positivity Project's Other People Matter Mindset (OPM), and the character strengths that help us develop and maintain positive relationships with others. Last month we learned about; Humor; OPM- Identifying and Appreciating the Good in Others; Fairness; Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence. This month we will focus on; Purpose; Leadership; and Other People Mindset.
You can learn your character strengths by taking the quiz at: https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths.