May Update

Lots of big things happening in May in Music. We continue to celebrate the Tremendous Ten every week – magical things are happening in the music room. The younger grades are exploring dynamics with the Grizzly Bear song and the wonderful book The Bear and The Piano by David Litchfield. We are also spending some time outside with the parachute. We use Comedian’s Gallop by Dimitri Kabalevsky to show form and the parachute to show FUN! We have continued to build our folk dance repertoire with songs from Israel, Russia, Puerto Rico, and France. We added the magical game El florón to the music room this term – it is fantastic for keeping steady beat and concentration. Older grades finished their melodic compositions and are knee-deep in to our Hip Hop Unit – we are learning about this American art form and its four main elements – MC(words,) DJ (music,) Breakdance (physical movement,) and Graffiti (visual.) Students created their own graffiti works which are not posted in our learning space. They are writing their own raps/poems with their homeroom teacher and Ms. Julie. We will have our final assembly of the year on Jun 9th – Mr. Johnston’s class is performing and we hope you can come and join us! Be musical!

Ms. Hilary

· Olympic Hills students overwhelmingly chose Fluffy McWhiskers, Cuteness Explosion by Stephen W. Martin as their favorite Washington Children’s Choice book. The winner for Washington State will be announced June 5.

· Our Kindergarten, First, and Second grade students will be participating in the Book Up Summer Book Fair/Book Giveaway June 13 – 15. Students are so excited to choose 12 new books to bring home for summer reading!

· On June 22, Erika Miller, the children’s librarian at the Lake City Branch of SPL will be presenting to all students about the summer reading program at Seattle Public Libraries.

· All library books are due Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Please help your children find and return their books. Thank you!

Kinder & 1st Grade- Students were playing new instant games/activities. They were also having fun completing different stations. At the end of May, students started Tinkling. Ask your Kinder or 1st Grade student what country Tinkling is from and have them show you the dance steps. You can also ask them to tell you the story around the folk dance. They will be finishing this in June :)

2nd & 3rd Grade- At the beginning of the month, students were finishing up their bike/pedestrian safety unit. Then they jumped into fun instant activities/games. Students are learning how to long jump rope and then having a choice if they want to long jump rope or individual jump rope.

4th Grade- they too finished up their bike/pedestrian safety unit at the beginning of the month. Fourth graders also jumped right into instant activities/games. They are too learning the long jump rope and choosing between long jump ropes with rhymes or individual skill jump ropes.

5th Graders- after they returned from camp, they finished up their floorball unit with round robin tournament. They too jumped into instant activities/games. They also COMPLETED their Physical Education state test, only 10 questions. They are almost at the point of promotion to 6th grade! I can't believe most of them I have seen since Kindergarten. The next check list before they go off to middle school is completing their fitness challenges, which will happen in JUNE!!!

IN JUNE...

• Entire school will be participating in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE in the gym
• Field Day is June 23rd
• The last week of school each classroom will get to vote for their activities :)

Preschool

Students are finishing up their letter sounds work and they are excited to start working on three letter words (CVC words). Students also get to do learning activities using Thumblebooks, Pebblego and Starfall.

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners started to work on their basic reading skills. Students will read/listen to fiction and nonfiction books of interest on Thumblebooks. The rest of the time students will get the opportunity to learn about something they choose.

1st Grade

This Month, first Graders will get to explore and learn on PebbleGo. They will continue to practice and learn some basic typing skills. They will also have time to work on some learning activities of choice. They will get to use Prodigy to practice math and reading skills. Students will also start learning about how a computer works.

2nd Grade

Second Graders are learning how a computer works. They will practice typing using their Typing Club account. They will also get a chance to work on some learning choice activities. Many students choose Prodigy to practice math and reading. Many students are excited to do research and write word documents about something they are learning about.

3-5th Graders

Students are learning how AI works. We are having discussions about how AI (artificial intelligence) can be helpful, but we are also talking about why we have to be very cautious using it as well. They will practice typing using their Typing Club accounts. They will also get a chance to work on many learning activities of choice. Some students are choosing to work on programing Ev3 Lego Mindstorm Robots.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I am always happy to help.

Nuzhat A Mustafa (She/Her)

Computer Lab Teacher

Olympic Hills Elementary School Namustafa@seattleschools.org https://olympichillses.seattleschools.org/academics/computer-lab/

Lots of Art Action in here as usual!

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

Kindergarteners have been putting their tracing, cutting, and gluing skills to use by creating bright and cheery Rainbow Gardens! They are learning about “rainbow order” on the color wheel, and some have chosen to put their flowers in rainbow order. As they finish these pieces, they will be adding leaves, grass, bugs, etc….and will top them off with a little bit of blue splatter paint! Woo-hoo!

1st Graders used Crayola Model Magic air-dry clay to create necklaces! They colored their clay with markers, smooshed it up, rolled it into a ball, flattened into a pancake, and added texture with our texture tools. Now they are putting them on a string and adding beads to complete their pendants. So fun…! And good opportunity to learn skills for ceramics, which they will get to do starting in 3rd grade.

2nd Graders made awesome Collograph Prints. They each made their own “texture plate” by sticking foam shapes onto a square of tagboard. Then they inked up their texture plate on a giant stamp pad, and printed it four times on a big square of paper. This resulted in some striking graphic designs!

Currently, 2nd graders are drawing treehouses, using their imaginations to make a cool treehouse they think would be fun to live in/play in. They are adding color and details to these drawings to make them super-awesome.

Third Graders have been hard at work on a project that helps them explore warm and cool colors and complementary colors. Their “Warm Hands” drawings took a lot of thinking and strategizing as they created drawings that have a pattern, feature the outline of their hand (or other

drawings, as you can see…). Can you find the warm colors? The cool colors? And the complementary colors? Your third grader can help you!

A few more 4th Grade ceramics pieces have come out of the kiln and will be making their way home. Check out the red and white polka-dotted mushroom, small blue and yellow vase/cup, and “4-eva Friends” heart pieces!

After finishing up their ceramics pieces, 4th Graders are starting to learn about Tesselations: shapes that fit together, with no space in between them, that can cover a whole surface (like tiling a floor). They are beginning to explore tessellated patterns they can make.

As for 5th Grade, they continue their journey through the ceramics-making process! From building their pieces out of wet clay/letting them dry for a week/firing in the kiln/painting with clay glaze paint/and firing in the kiln again to create the colorful, shiny finish.

And they Behold the delicious confections created by the expert “chefs” at Patisserie Otter: cakes, pies, pizza slices…even stacks of pancakes! (Or, I guess…crepes?)

But: Surprise! They may look good enough to eat, but they are actually trinket boxes; the top comes off to reveal a secret, handy compartment for holding the treasures of their choice. These boxes are amazing! I wish we had a display case at school so we could put them out for all to see! The kids did a fantastic job of making their boxes and pieces look delicious, colorful, and fun. Many are still in progress…drying, firing, glazing…and all will be brought home by the end of the school year.

Onward we go…plenty more art to be made before school is out.