Sylvan Park Related Arts Newsletter

We hope that your family had a wonderful break! As always, in related arts, we are looking forward to enriching your child's learning and expanding their world. To that end, we have much planned for the months of January, February, and March. Sincerely,

The Related Arts Team

This nine weeks our focus is on fitness. We are working on different fitness stations for one minute each. Each station has a different component of fitness We are learning the difference between a working heart rate and resting heart rate.

These fitness stations are getting us ready for February, American Heart Month. Sylvan Park always participates in Jump Rope for Heart. We believe in helping others through our donations while, at the same, learning to jump rope and maintain heart health as a school. Additional information will come in February about Jump Rope for Heart. Thanks for your continued support of physical education at Sylvan Park.

Coach Goad and Coach Scott

During the third nine weeks, our new vocabulary focus will consists of family, family activities, emotions, phrases associated with Valentines Day, and parts of the body. Our class activities will also include an understanding of what parts of the world speak Spanish officially by identifying them on the world map. As always, class content will be enriched through cultural topics of interest to fuel the love of the Spanish language itself. Calendar, numbers, and review of previous learning will continue to be a part of class. I am looking forward to a wonderful semester of learning. Thank you sincerely,

Sra. Poole

In kindergarten this quarter, we will focus on the following:

interpreting iconic notation for steady beat and rhythm, exploring different ways we use our voices, and the solfege pitches of “so” and “mi,” among other things. First grade will also work on solfege and add the pitch “la,” as well as compose “so-mi” patterns and practice rhythmic dictation. Second grade will read and create rhythms using note values from paired eighth notes up to half notes and half rests. They will also learn the solfege pitch “re” and discuss musical forms and phrasing. In third grade, we will focus on reading music from the staff using solfege, practice playing a basic accompaniment in duple meter, and practice improvising question and answer phrases using percussion. Fourth grade will also work on reading music from the staff using solfege, as well as playing accompaniments, and improvising rhythmic and tonal patterns using all of the solfege and note values we have learned so far. Thank you,

Ms. Biederstadt

n art for this third nine weeks we will continue being creative with drawing and hopefully doing a clay project with all grade levels. I wanted to include a quote that I agree with completely. “Children are usually confident about their ability to draw. Nothing should be done to lesson this confidence. If a child does their work conscientiously in the art lesson, they deserve praise and not adverse criticism, even if their finished picture appears to have little artistic merit. For children ,the value of drawing lies in the creative activity or process, rather in an adult’s idea of what the finished picture should look like.” Thank you for your support. Mr. Green

Computer

This third nine weeks we will continue a combination of teacher-led activities and keyboarding practice using a self-paced software program. Third and fourth grade students will be practicing for the writing assessment this nine weeks. Also fourth grade will be researching their favorite musician as a collaborative project with music. We will continue to focus on the following skills:

· Staying on home row

· Maintaining good posture

· Keeping their eyes on the screen

· Working on accuracy before speed

Also students can practice at home on Type 2 Learn 4 www.ttl4sunburst.com

Logon: student Id number

Password: 715

Account: 150051

Typing web www.typingweb.com

Our class rules are as follows:

BE READY

· Come in quietly

· Get at assigned laptop

BE RESPECTFUL

· Hands on your computer only

· Quietly complete tasks

· Handle computers Gently

· Listen to teacher’s instructions

BE RESPONSIBLE

· Log in as instructed

· Log off before leaving lab

· Place headphones back in box

· Push in chair