Haynesfield Happenings!
January 14, 2025
Important Dates
JANUARY
Thursday, 1/16:
Parent Learning Night grades 3-5 @ 6pm
Monday, 1/20:
Schools Closed-Martin Luther King Day
Monday, 1/27-Friday, 1/31:
School Board Appreciation Week
Friday, 1/31:
Club Day
FEBRUARY
Monday 2/3-Friday, 2/7:
Jump Rope for Heart
Thursday, 2/6:
Parent Teacher Conferences
3:30-6:30pm
Friday, 2/7:
Dress up Day/Wear Maroon and White
Thursday, 2/13:
Valentine's Day Parties
(more information to come)
Friday, 2/14:
Teacher Inservice Day/Schools Closed
Flex Learning Day for preregistered students
Monday, 2/17:
Schools Closed
Thursday, 2/20:
Club Day (3-5)
Reading Buddies Party (K-2)@6pm
PTA @ 4pm in Library
Tuesday, 2/25:
Spring Pictures
Friday, 2/28:
Benchmarks begin (1-5)
Attention 3rd Grade Families
Upcoming Lockdown Drill
A Word from Special Area
Library
Happy January! Happy 2025! Our older students are learning to define measurable and achievable goals to improve something or to learn something new. What a great time for all of us to look at some measurable goals we would like reach in the next few months. For example, maybe your family wants to replace some screen time with increased reading time. Jumping into reading 20 minutes a day can be a challenge for families to add to their schedule, so start with small steps. Aim for 10 minutes each day the first few weeks, and add a few minutes every week. Here are some suggestions:
Keep copies of picture books, joke books, poetry, or short stories in the seat pocket of the car. When you are driving somewhere for 10 or 15 minutes, have the students reach for a book rather than for an electronic device. Older siblings can read to younger siblings. Print off a 100’s chart and let the kids color in a square for each minute they read. Provide a small reward when they reach 100 minutes in 2 weeks.
Consider a magazine subscription for your student. Magazines are colorful, informative, and fun. Some of our favorites are Ranger Rick (junior or regular), Your Big Back Yard, Nat Geo for Kids or Little Kids, Sports Illustrated for Kids, and Zoobooks. Happy Reading!
Mrs. Egeler
Music
Happy New Year from Music! I am so looking forward to making 2025 a year full of fun, learning, and kindness! Students closed out last year with concerts and projects and as always, I am so proud of their accomplishments and effort in my class. This quarter we have some exciting things coming up.
In 4th and 5th grade we will begin to be more technology driven as we bring our laptops to class and explore Quaver on our own. We will have our own login and avatar and complete class challenges and group work from our seat. We will also soon begin our unit on instruments which is one of our favorite ones where we identify and listen to woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings...but also explore some unusual instruments that are really fun.
In 2nd and 3rd grade we are preparing for our informance! It's our last one of the year. The informance will take place on Thursday, March 6th. Look for a letter to come home soon and more information to be posted to Canvas hopefully by the end of this week. I'm so thrilled for you to hear how hard this group of students have been working!
In PreK-1st grade we are continuing to learn basic elements of music such as loud/soft, fast/slow, and high/low (dynamics, tempo and pitch). We will also be starting an instruments unit soon that has tons of great songs.
The school year is truly flying by, and I am looking forward to so many things coming up. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at deelm@btcs.org
Art
Happy New Year from the Art Room!
We are getting back in the groove of things in our art lessons:
PK has added a new station to our Thursdays: K’nex! The kids are having a great time building free-form sculptures and imagined architecture. Monday PK is continuing regular lessons; this past Monday, we made Silly Sculptures from clay, pipe cleaners and beads.
Kindergarten is getting ready to do our first portrait lesson. They will draw the basic features of a face, then choose other features to add. We will be using some historical royal portraits to inspire our work, so there may be some crown-wearing kings and queens in our artworks :) Kinders also continue to explore different media to build artistic confidence and hands-on experience.
First grade just finished a “value” project where they used different shades of blue paper, plus black and white to create arctic landscapes. Value, along with line, color, shape, texture, space, and form are the Elements of Art, on which our first grade lessons are based. Next we are making Dale Chihuly inspired sculptures from clay, pipe cleaners and beads focusing on the element “form”.
Second grade is continuing on one of our favorite units of the year; paper mache insects! So far we have looked at lots of examples of different insects and each student made a sketch of which type (real or imagined) they plan to make. Now we are moving on to adding the first layer of paper mache, and will soon begin adding colored paper, paint, wings, antennae, mandibles, and eyes! This unit helps students understand multi-step building processes while allowing for individual creativity and lots of hands-on learning. Every bug turns out unique and beautiful!
Third grade students are branching off of their recent maps and compass roses to vikings. Our first project in this theme is designing a viking figure (think paper doll or action figure). We looked at traditional viking clothing and compared that to the costume designs in Pixar’s How to Train Your Dragon for inspiration. Next we will work together to create a paper mache longship for our viking figures to ride on. Future viking-themed art will include longship drawings and foil repousse medallions.
Fourth graders are wrapping up their coat of arms projects and beginning self-portraits. They are learning the realistic proportions of the human face and will look at artworks by Frida Kahlo and Salvador Dali and may bring in a little Surrealism and collage.
Fifth grade is continuing on their portrait unit, in which they will create three self (or pet) portraits in different media (drawing, painting, collage). They are considering how choices in media, color, setting, clothing, facial expression, scale and artistic style influence the outcome of their artwork.
For more information about the projects we’re doing in art, be sure to check under “Modules” in Canvas.
Looking forward to more great things in the art room in 2025!
~Mrs. Keen
PTA
Membership Drive: Calling all parents, teachers and friends! We’d like your help to grow the PTA community at Haynesfield this month. Join today!
See flyer below.