Special Area Curriculum Updates

At the start of STEAM this year our K-6 STEAM program immersed students in foundational lessons that sparked curiosity and creativity. Through hands-on engineering challenges, students designed and built simple structures using everyday materials. This fostered critical thinking, collaboration, and teamwork. In coding activities, students learned basic programming concepts on platforms like Scratch, empowering creativity through interactive stories and games. These early experiences lay the groundwork for our upcoming robotics units, where students will apply their engineering and coding skills to design and program robots. With the goal of bringing their imaginative ideas to life while enhancing their problem-solving abilities in a fun and dynamic environment.

Kindergarten through second grade are learning about book care and famous authors and illustrators.

Third grade started EDUtyping and learning about the different sections of the library and how it is organized.

Fourth grade is working on typing, genres and parts of speech.

Fifth grade is learning about plagiarism and its consequences, genres, typing and great books to read.

There are two sixth grade reading groups that visit the library each week to discuss short stories that the students read from the commonlit.org website.

First through sixth grade students get a sticker when they check-out or renew books. Together they are building a mystery mosaic picture.

EC Health classes this fall are centered around a strategy called the FITT Principle (F)requency (I)ntensity (T)ime and (T)ype. A simple and all inclusive strategy that involves activities, for any level of fitness, to make improvements. These activities will continue until mid-November, when each grade level (4,5,6) will begin to focus on the Health classroom curriculum for the remainder of fall and throughout the winter.

This fall season. our P.E. classes have been enjoying the weather, participating in our wellness step challenge before class each week. Our Kindergarten through second grade classes have been working on their spatial awareness skills with various tag and creative movement activities and will be moving onto locomotor skill lessons within the month of October and concluding with fun, festive Halloween games!

Our third through sixth grade classes have been enjoying social-emotional learning activities and team building games. We are working on establishing our routines and safety practices as part of our gym environment for the year. They have also participated in the fitness testing, learning about health related fitness components that we can build on in school and out of school.

Learning a string instrument is a rewarding process that builds patience, discipline, and creativity in young musicians. Students are developing foundational skills, from proper bowing techniques to reading music, and learning how to listen and play as part of a group. These early lessons lay the groundwork for future musical growth, and it’s wonderful to see their progress week by week.

Our beginners are making important strides in mastering the basics of playing their instruments. Regular practice and attending rehearsals are key to building confidence and technique.

For those in Junior and Senior Orchestra, the December 17th Winter Concert will be a chance to showcase their hard work, while beginners continue to focus on developing the skills that will prepare them for future performances. Support from home is essential in fostering their enthusiasm and growth as young musicians.

Students across all grades have had the opportunity to play many of our percussion instruments in the first few months of school. They have also been busy reviewing fundamentals as well as preparing for new concepts in their grade level. We have had lots of fun learning new songs and playing new games as well. Our chorus and choristers rehearsals are well underway, and we are preparing for a great winter concert. I look forward to continuing this wonderful year of music making!

The EC band students have been hard at work, focusing on the building blocks of performing on their instruments.

Our Cub Band students (beginning band) have spent the early stages of the school year focusing on creating a good sound on their instruments, holding their instruments properly, and learning how to play some simple notes and rhythms from our lesson book series. In the upcoming months, they will be able to play more notes and songs in preparation for the Spring Concert on May 20th.

Our Wildcat Band students in 5th and 6th grades spent the first several weeks of school honing the fundamentals of their instruments. Following our review, the students have begun learning the winter concert music in preparation for our Winter Concert on December 10th. We hope you can join us for this enjoyable event!

In the months of October, November and December all grades from Kindergarten to sixth grade will be making a clay project. Each year every student at East Coventry will be creating a clay project and learning a different technique. As students get older they can use these clay techniques in order to create more complex art projects. Working with clay in art class is a very exciting time of the year!

Mrs. Grove, STEAM

Mr. Hall, Strings

Ms. Janke, Librarian

Mr. Klick, Band

Mr. Mitchell, Health/PE

Mrs. Mitchell, Health/PE

Mrs. Oehler, General Music/Chorus

Mrs. Salopek, Art