ACS ATHENS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Volume 2, Issue 3 June 2013
THE MUSE Message from the Principal What a successful and fulfilling year it has been! It is really amazing how quickly time flies by when it is filled with remarkable moments. In May our students had the opportunity to showcase their learning during Student-Led Conferences. We are all so proud of their accomplishments and hard work during the year. In the Elementary School we implement best practices to ensure that each child is holistically successful; academically, socially and emotionally. At this point I would like to focus on the programs offered by our counseling department for social and emotional development. Children have participated in programs on change and transition (Owl Buddy Program and Transition Group), SelfEsteem, Communication Skills and Issues of Diversity of Culture, Tolerance, Healthy Habits and Hygiene, Sexual Education and Anti-Bullying. Dr. Alessandra Sax, our school counselor, and Ms. Zaharo Hilentazaris, the assistant to the counselor, have provided the children with continual support throughout the year individually and in groups. Furthermore, The Honor Code was an initiative that began last year in the Academy. Ms. Venie and Ms. Zaharo Hilentzaris expanded on the initiative this year in the Elementary School. The Committee consisted of one
student from every homeroom class, grades 2 through 5. Weekly meetings were dedicated to discussing the “Virtues of the Month,” and role playing conflict resolutions. Lastly, I would like to encourage all parents and students to be active this summer. It is awesome when students have the ability to balance their life and both work and play. This life skill is modeled by adults. By showing your child how to become actively engaged reading a book and actively staying fit and healthy, they will learn to become secure individuals. As you will note on the Calendar of Events, school year 2013-2014 will commence on September 5 for grades 1-12. The first day of school for our First graders is based on the first letter of their surnames. Students whose last name begins with the letters A—M will begin school on September 5, while those whose last names begin with the letters N—Z will start on September 6. Our Early Childhood Program will begin on September 11. School supply letters have been posted on the school website Supwww.acs.gr under School plies in the Elementary school section. Classroom teachers have distributed Math Packets for all grades. A Summer Reading List has also been recommended and can be found on the website in the Elementary school section. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to you all, for the
continuous support and encouragement that you have given us throughout the year. Our school is unique because of this important partnership which strengthens our programs and helps our students develop positive attitudes towards school and learning. Your enthusiasm and efforts made your child’s school experience even more meaningful. Some of you will be leaving the ACS Athens community to move to new places. We wish you all success and happiness in your venture, you will be missed. Enjoy the relaxing summer months with your family and friends. We will meet again in September full of energy and enthusiasm for yet another rewarding academic year. Enjoy your summer vacation! Cathy Makropoulos, Principal
Junior Kindergarten News
June has almost arrived and that means that the end of the school year is near. Our classes have grown so much in so many ways this year, but we still have much to learn and do during the month of June! A big thank you to all the parents who helped chaperone our field trip to Attica Zoological Park. You helped make it a safe and
pleasant experience for all the children. In the days ahead we will continue to investigate “Land and Sea Animals”, learning about these wonderful animals and their habitats. We will also be celebrating summer by having our End-of-the-Year party.
We are very proud of all of you and everything you have accomplished this year! Have a wonderful summer!! Sincerely, Ms. Alex, Ms. Vicki, Ms. Korinna
JK students have been involved in various projects throughout the year, such as their writing journals, self-portrait books, as well as fine motor skill journals. Please read and discuss any work your child brings home to share with you, and help to encourage continued exploration and “learning curiosity” during the summer months.
Kindergarten News The third trimester i n Kindergarten has been a quick and exciting one. The students have grown so much and are almost... first graders! This trimester, the Kindergartners met their vowel pals: Mox the Fox, Tin Man, Peg the Hen, Zac the Rat and most recently Gus the Duck. This long list of new friends took us on adventures through Backpack Bears' Reading and Writing books. They taught us how to identify vowel sounds in the middle position, blend new words, answer written questions, write stories and even helped us with our rhyming!
We also learned that the letter “H” is actually a hero who swoops down from the sky to help other letters make new sounds such as -ch, -wh, -th and -sh! The children read all about their vowel pals in their new decodable books and learned how to ent er vocabulary and high frequency words in their own personal dictionaries. We have finished all of our journals! The students have filled their journals with endless stories full of imagination and excitement. They have begun to use worm spacers, capital letters and even punctuation on their own when writing. The Kindergarteners love to read
their stories back to us explaining each character in detail. The students have enjoyed learning about vertebrates and invertebrates this trimester. They learned that all mammals share certain characteristics and that sometimes mammals become predators in order to survive. We discovered that birds are warm-blooded animals but... they are not mammals! After this we started reading about animals that change their temperature depending on their environment we call them...cold-blooded!
Kindergarten News continued The children were thrilled to read, discuss and write about iguanas, frogs, toads, clown fish, lion fish, snakes, sharks and many more cold-blooded vertebrates. Now we have begun to explore the c om pl ic a t e d wor ld of invertebrates!
daily basis during calendar time.
In order to build on their math skills, the Kindergarteners have been trying out a bit of geometry. We have been observing the different properties possessed by 2D and 3D shapes and how to identify them with the correct names. Through the use of interactive math games, manipulatives, puzzles and the math journals, the Kindergarteners continue to review these concepts and build on an understanding of less and more through a comparison of different shapes. We continue to recognize patterns and make graphs. We also continue to practice our counting to 100 by ones and tens and looking at place value up to 20 using ones and tens on a
As a culmination of our Community Helpers Unit we visited the OAKA Fire station and we were surprised to find our host to be a ‌ fire woman! This was a wonderful experience for the children because they learned that you can be anything if you just put your mind to it. We experienced how a firefighter lives on a daily basis, what their responsibilities are as Community Helpers, what to do in the case of a fire and where to call when in need! We wrapped up the day with a picnic near the OAKA station and a game of duck-duck-goose.
We greatly enjoyed our Unit of Inquiry, 'Community Helpers' as we read stories about chefs, policemen and women, veterinarians, doctors, dentists, teachers and many more! The Kindergarteners explored what it means to live in a community, through puppet shows, writing stories, presentations and listening activities. Towards the end of the unit the children wrote about what they dream they will become one day and through their writing explored why this is their dream.
Our last Unit of Inquiry is Wood and Paper. The students have enjoyed learning about the many types and uses of wood! We learned that wood floats unless you make it sink using paper clips, for example. We experimented with different ways to make wood sink and made a chart to reflect our findings. We also made wood out of shavings and went on a 'wood hunt' in our classrooms. Paper comes from trees, so we need to recycle paper in order to help conserve our trees! We are also continuing to explore the uses of paper by writing and drawing on different types of paper, folding paper and putting paper and water together to see what happens. We have read stories including The Story of a Chair, The Story of a Box, Are You a Scientiest?, Land, Air and Water and I Am Wood. This unit has helped the children develop a deeper curiosity about the world around... keep encouraging these interests at home! As the year finishes we must say that the Kindergartners have much to be proud of as we definitely are proud of them! Thank you for an amazing journey! Ms. Tracy and Ms. Stavi
1st Grade News Proud to be First Graders! This has been a productive and rewarding year for all of us in First Grade. We as teachers have enjoyed our contribution to your child’s school experiences. The children’s eagerness and willingness to learn is a reflection of the growth that First Graders have made not only academically but socially as well. We have applauded the diversity of personalities and interests in this group. Our reward as teachers has been to see the tremendous growth that your children have made in the past year. Their willingness to read, to write, to add, subtract, to calculate, discover, to investigate, to participate, to paint, to sing, to create, to contemplate and to resolve have been but a few of the experiences shared by all of us in First Grade. We feel that the children’s caring, responsibility and self-esteem have blossomed and this could not have happened without your support and guidance as parents. We as teachers could not have reached our goal of building self esteem in each child and nurturing in them a true love of learning
without your support in so many ways. It almost goes without saying that this year has been the most magical yet since we have had the tremendous joy of having Captain Chip here with us. He has grown under the care and guidance of your children as much as they have with him. We all appreciate this success and look forward to more next year. Thank you! Next year will be another big step for your children. You can do many things this summer to make next year a productive and successful learning experience too. Encourage your child to accept responsibility for his learning. Help your child to make decisions and accept the results of those decisions. Give your child the gift of organization and strategies to develop it.
Share times creative, spend a reading together, inquiry and independence.
that are lot of time encourage celebrate
We are very proud of the progress your children have made. We will enjoy watching them reach for challenges in the future. We believe that is what school and life are about. We hope that your child’s First Grade experiences have added the necessary tools for coping with future challenges. Our best to all of you and enjoy the summer. To those returning to our school community, “See you in the Fall.” For those moving to other schools, “Best wishes to you and don’t forget to drop us a line.” Most sincerely, Ms. Birbil, Ms. Lamprou and Ms. Safaris
2nd Grade News
This semester we learned all about nourishment and food. Our Health Unit allows students to discover the 5 Food Groups in a story called The Royal Food Family. The main character in this story was a Dragon, named “Little D,” who was struggling to take part in daily activities because he was always tired. Every week the students met a new character (who represented a food group) and learned how each group was essential for our health. Students learned how to create a balanced meal and understood that eating a variety of food is necessary to keep their bodies healthy. As a part of this unit, second grade simultaneously prepared for a musical; called “Hansel & Gretel Eat Right”; in which students put a spin onto this fairy tale adventure and made sure our main characters learned a new lesson about nutrition! Throughout our health unit st u dent s hav e ha d t he opportunity to read through an array of non-fiction books during their reading time and were encouraged to bring books about eating right for home reading. Children learned what kinds of foods grow where and why, the 5 food groups, details about the food pyramid, vitamins and minerals we get from a balanced diet and so much more. Due to their vast readings in class, students have
been able to reflect on their findings and have been reporting on each food group in their food journals. Moreover, this semester’s writing goal included writing Opinion Papers (or also known as persuasive writing). The kids are really enjoying taking sides and stating their opinions and beliefs on the many topics discussed in class; including food preferences, homework, rewards and lots more. This writing task has really allowed students to vocalize and record personal viewpoints with the opportunity to defen d themselves and express what they value. We have had a lot of fun sharing ideas in class, but especially putting these ideas down on paper!
The math topics we have covered included geometric shapes, dividing shapes and numbers into parts for our fraction unit, and now we have been diving into the fundamentals of measurement. It is important for students to know and understand measurement terminology to effectively execute and provide proof of measurement in different activities.
Problems of measurement help children associate numbers with real quantities or amounts. Students learned how to use a ruler, discuss attributes of objects, areas of s p a c e, in c h e s an d centimeters too. We look forward to having students experiment with measuring the objects inside our room and record data onto measurement charts. Ms. Mantagos, Ms. Moros, Ms. Spiliot
3rd Grade News We can’t believe the end of the year is here already! Time flies when you are reading as many books as Third Grade! We focused on non-fiction books and the text features found inside. The students were able to identify the important text features in the book and were able to explain why these features helped the reader understand the text better. We also reviewed general good reading practices to stay sharp over the summer. In math we were hard at work learning to measure all sorts of things. Perimeter, area, time, oh my! Students learned how to use a ruler and practiced measuring items using metric and customary units. The third graders learned about the basic units used to measure distance, capacity, and mass, and were able to pick the appropriate unit to use when measuring different items. In writing students continued to
focus on personal essays. They used their observations of the world around them to create well thought out opinion pieces that were both personal and meaningful. After, the third graders were (finally, according the kids) able to let their imaginations soar as we created detailed fiction stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Students also worked incredibly hard to create complex characters, detailed settings, and interesting plots in order to hook their reader. Wow was it fun to see all that creativity. In Social Studies the students continued to focus on communities all around the world, especially those in the United States. The third graders learned about some of the important jobs found in communities and how certain
jobs have changed over time. They have also discussed their current roles and how they will change as they get older. We were very excited to go on a field trip to The Ranch in Corinth. There we learned about how a community in the Old West operated and we compared it to our current one. In the afternoon we participated in activities like horseback riding, train trips, archery, and much more. It was a great experience!! We have really enjoyed your students this year and wish you all the best over the summer and next year in 4th grade! Our final act as third grade teachers is to remind you to read, Read, READ every day over the summer! Do it… or else you may find one of us showing up at your front door… Ms. Hapsis, Ms. Mukri and Mr. Perroni
4th Grade News The last part of the trimester found the 4th graders learning by doing!! In the science unit of Electricity and Magnetism, students have been learning about making complete circuits. Students are fascinated with this unit as they make motors run and make an electromagnet. In the Modern Olympics Unit, students have been researching, making PowerPoints, reading, and writing. One of the highlights of the unit was our field trip to the Kalimarmaro Stadium. We played games and competed in
Olympic sporting events. Also, in swimming, Ms. Salouros and the 4th grade teamed up to have some exciting Olympic swimming events at the pool! Student—Led Conferences were a great success! Students were able to demonstrate their 4th grade knowledge and tried to knock their parents’ socks off!!! During this last month, the 4th graders will be reinforcing their skills in class and for homework.
Mr. Perry, Ms. Koutsioukis and Ms. Soteres loved teaching all of your children and getting to know you this year. We wish you a relaxing, adventurous, and memorable summer vacation. We recommend you read a least three books at your current reading level or above over the summer. Especially to our friends who are still learning English, you must continue to practice over the summer for the best results in 5th grade. Also, we suggest some websites to reinforce all the skills that were taught this
4th Grade News continued National Geographic for Kids Online
year. Language Arts: James Patterson’s Read Kiddo Read http://readkiddoread.com This site is the brainchild of author, James Patterson. His goal is to help parents and educators connect children with books that will turn them into lifelong readers. The site is colorful, easy to navigate, the titles are hand-picked by qualified professional, and there are links to websites for these people as well. Grammar Gorillas http://www.funbrain.com/ grammar/ Spelling: Online Spelling Program www.spellingcity.com Online Spelling Program offers over 38,000 spelling words and eight spelling games, K-12 spelling lists are offered. One can select lists by age, sounds, Dolch lists, and topics, and more. You can customize your own word lists and create games and puzzles. Woodlands Junior School http://resources.woodlandsjunior.kent.sch.uk/literacy/ index.htm Topmarks http://ww.topmarks.co.uk/ english-games/7-11-years/ punctuation Math: World of Math Online http://math.com World of Math Online by Leap of Faith Financial Services, Inc.: dedicated to providing a variety of ways for students, parents, teachers to learn math. Included are assessments , ondemand modular courses, 24/7
*Defenders of Wildlife – Kid’s Planet www.kidsplanet.org
live online tutoring, lesson plans, links to worksheets, drill & practice opportunities, expert answers to math questions, and more. Education Place http://eduplace.com/kids/ mhm Education Place by Houghton Mifflin: a good site to practice ITBS test-taking skills for math. Other nice offerings are strategies and immediate feedback. Plus, it’s fun! LearnZillion.com – a great way to learn new concepts and reinforce old ones. FunBrain http://www.funbrain.com/ numbers.html Woodlands Junior School http://resources.woodlandsjunior.kent.sch.uk/maths/ fractions/ Topmarks http:// www.topmarks.co.uk/ maths-games/7-11-years/ fractions-and-decimals Animals/Wildlife
Defenders of Wildlife, Washington DC: This is an award winning site and one of the “great sites for kids”! Features: description of endangered species and also lists species by continent, thorough fact sheet on each animal, some animals have photographs and a video clip, great games, stories, excellent teacher’s resource with lesson plans along with activities and more games. There is a place on each page to adopt an animal. There is a separate info section on the World Wide Wolf efforts with information and curriculum for teachers to create a unit. This is an excellent site. Enjoy! Mr. Perry, Ms. Koutsoukis, and Ms. Soteres
5th Grade News ACS 5th Grade Cleans UP! Soon after Spring vacation our 5th graders celebrated Earth Day and helped to save a small part of the planet by cleaning the beach at Aghios Nicholas in Anavissos! We also had an awesome math field trip to the Herakledion Museum in Thisseion, where we learned about optical illusions, 2D and 3D space, symmetry and geometry. We had great fun challenging each other to make symmetrical designs! What is more, we visited the Acropolis museum and scrambled our way up to the top to visit the Parthenon. What a great ending to our Ancient Greek unit! Back in the classroom, students
have been enjoying trying out many hands-on science experiments as part of our levers and pulleys unit. In this unit the focus has been on measuring accurately, recording observations and drawing conclusions, and learning to write up an accurate science lab. The most memorable part: The Lift the Teacher challenge! Now into our final unit on colonial history in Early America, students practiced being diligent note takers, learning and writing information about this time period. Reading Workshop has been one of the favorite lessons of the Fifth graders! Students selected their own choice of
reading material, and learned to analyze and discuss their novels in both classrooms. Additionally, students have sharpened their understanding of grammar rules and writing mechanics. As we prepared for Student Led Conferences, we reflected on our learning this year and how we feel about Middle School! Did you know that the thing most 5th graders are looking forward to is having a locker! It has been a busy, exciting time for 5th graders! Ms. Coklas & Ms. Kynigou
ESL News to go First grade!!
It is unbelievable how fast the year has gone by and how much knowledge the students have soaked up! Students are used their English to effectively communicate inside and outside of the classroom with teachers and friends! First graders have gained leagues in learning new vocabulary and in decoding words! They used sentence starters to kick off their writing activities and have built up a great bank of eight words. Way
The Second graders continued to focus on reading comprehension and building up their vocabularies as we looked at more difficult words while finding their synonyms and antonyms. Third graders covered immense ground this year and demonstrated their learned knowledge in every area! Fourth grade honed in on improving writing skills to prepare them for the extensive writing required in Fifth grade. Our focus was on developing topic
sentences to establish the main idea, including details, and wrapping up their writing with closing statements. Fifth grade continued to work on improving their writing by making their ideas more clear, writing more descriptively, and editing for grammar. A big congratulations to the Fifth graders on all of their hard work and successes. I wish you all the best as you move on to Middle School!
ESL News continued I am ecstatic with all the progress I have seen this year and am excited to hear about all of the learned knowledge applied next year! Don’t forget to continue practicing English over the summer!
Have your child make goals to read over the summer, whether it’s reading a novel or a number of smaller books. Keep a journal of all your adventures over the summer: write about a fun day you had, something really cool that you saw, or maybe some friends you met up with! The internet is also a great way to practice English through fun games, or have friends over and watch a movie in English. Sadly, this is my last year at ACS and I will greatly miss all of the students next year! I will keep in touch with the ESL teacher and hope to hear about everyone and all of the gains they continue to make! I would love to hear from you all at cat.schulz@gmail.com. Keep up the hard work! Ms. Schulz
Optimal Learning News What a successful year it has been! Amidst the success of the 8th Annual Learning Difference Conference, we have also been witnessing and experiencing a great deal of progress. Students have worked on an enormous variety of skills throughout this year, such as: associating letters with sounds, thinking of details that support main ideas, reading texts accurately and editing errors, using periods and capitals correctly, understanding the meaning of text, word problems for math, logic puzzles, etc. I am very proud of their effort and their enthusiasm towards each skill. They have persevered and we can all see the steps they have made towards reaching their goals.
The third Trimester Progress Reports were recently sent out and I was pleased by the overall success students have shown in their subjects. In addition, I am very proud of students in 3-5 grades because they are taking their time, putting forth great effort to do well on their MAP tests! We have been seeing some substantial growth and I commend them all. I wish all students an exciting summer, one that will reenergize them, so that upon their return in September we can continue our work with the same power and determination for success. Ms. Kaldelli
News from the Greek Classes
“Kalo
kalokairi!”
We are approaching the end of a wonderful school year for all the Greek classes of the Elementary School. It has been a really fulfilling and productive year for the Greek Language Department! Congratulations to all students who did a fantastic job preparing for the Student—Led Conferences that took place in May. During the conferences, students enthusiastically showed their work in Greek and had a great time working on different stations in each class!
It was a great pleasure working with such enthusiastic students! We are really proud of their academic accomplishments in Greek. We will joyfully remember the special moments of OXI Day, the Greek Independence Day celebration, the Taverna Day and the Greek Beginners/Intermediate show to name but a few. Have fun, swim, eat summer fruit and ice cream….and read many Greek books! Have a great summer!
News from the Arabic Classes Learning Arabic is fun! A fun and productive year of learning Arabic almost went by. I would like to congratulate all students of the Arabic classes on carrying out Student – Led conferences successfully. They all took pride in the hard work they did this year! I wish all of you a great vacation! Please remember to read lots of Arabic books over the summer! You are great to work with! Ms. Accari
Καλό καλοκαίρι! Ms. Rovoli, Ms. Gaki and Ms. Papageorgiou
News from the Art Class Elementary students have been very productive in creating inspiring artworks this year in the art room. In this third trimester we revisited the methods and vocabulary used to talk about and critique our artwork. We practiced these tools in the classroom and during Student—Led Conferences. To name just a few of the projects from this third trimester: Kindergarten further developed their concepts of shape, line, pattern, and
color. Students completed incorporated into a variety of a variety of projects artworks. involving collage, color First graders viewed artworks mixing, stencil painting, from Impressionist artists and and other media. We discussed bold colors and discussed abstract vs. visible brush strokes. We realism and collaged further developed paint mixing Picasso—inspired selftechniques and the proper portraits. The concept of use of brushes in our visual texture (we learned own Impressionist paintings. about surface texture Students viewed and discussed earlier in the year) was artwork by Georgia O’Keefe and introduced in a cactus created wax resist flowers while mixed-media project. in their homeroom they worked Kindergarteners made on a plant unit. While color wheels and the warm discussing symmetry, students and cool colors were later added monoprint
butterflies to their flowers. First graders most recently created clay pots in conjunction with their Ancient Greece unit. These small sculptures were then painted with geometric shapes. Second graders created warm and cool color collage landscapes with a silhouette of their African animal in support of their African unit. We also explored mud painting by collecting dirt from the school yard and mixing it with water and pigment. To complement their Dr. Seuss unit students made Cat in the Hat artworks while learning about complementary colors and horizontal vs. vertical lines. Later, we viewed artwork by Georges Seurat and experimented with pointillism. Third graders explored depth by using paper and sponge spacers to create layered jungles. Then portraits of their tablemates were painted in the style of Henri Matisse and other Fauvist artists. Third graders also went on a field trip across campus to the theater lobby to sketch artwork from the IB art show. Academy students then visited our classroom to discuss their work. It was inspiring for both Elementary and Academy students alike to engage in a conversation across ages about what is it like to create art. Students then dove into an in depth cubism project involving collage and oil pastel and
inspired by a cubism project the Academy students showed.
Our fourth graders explored abstract interpretations of landscape by using colored tissue paper and black paper to make “stained glass” artworks. Students also went to the theater lobby to sketch artwork from the IB art show. Academy students then visited our classroom to discuss their work. It was inspiring for both Elementary and Academy students alike to engage in a conversation across ages about what is it like to create art. Students then started an in depth cubism project that involved practicing paint mixing, shape, and the hard edge painting technique. This project was also inspired by a cubism project the Academy students showed. Fifth grade discussed form and texture while crafting clay animal heads inspired by the sphinx at Delphi. We discussed proper scoring techniques and then painted our animals using a wash and layered colors.
A complementary color study was completed in a variety of media. These projects are currently displayed in the multi— purpose room of the Elementary school. Students w er e very fortunate to have the opportunity to visit the H er a kl ei d o n m u s e um which explores connections between mathematics and art. Students viewed and discussed artwork by M.C. Escher and V. Vasarely. In the art room we learned the tools to create 1-point and 2-point perspective drawings. The Elementary students never cease to amaze me with their creativity and imagination. To see more of what we have done as a school-wide Visual Arts department, visit the theater lobby where a K-12 art show is currently on display. There is also an installation of paper cubes inspired by Joan Miro and created by our second graders on the front of the Elementary school building. Ms. Stauffer
News from the Computer Lab! worked on PowerPoint presentations about a Modern Olympic Sport. In addition they used Microsoft Word for various projects like the snail life cycle and the plant life cycle. They also used “Scratch Programming” to work on animations.
Our kindergartners used Back Pack Bears in www.starfall.com to practice their beginning reading skills. They also practiced beginning math c o n c e p t s t h r o u g h They www.morestarfall.com. also used Tux Paint for some beautiful spring drawings. First graders worked on beginning geometry, addition/ subtraction concepts and reading skills in They www.morestarfall.com. also used Trudy’s Time and Place to work on directional words. In addition they began some keyboard recognition skills with an online website. Second grade students worked on their research skills to find information about an African animal using www.choosito.com and www.kids.nationalgeographic.co m/kids/animals.
Grade 2 also began a pilot Blog/Pinpals with a class located in the United States. This activity was helpful in learning about online blogging etiquette and writing skills. They also began keyboarding practice to become familiar with the keyboard. Third graders prepared a Pow er Point pr esentat ion about themselves as an introduction to PowerPoint. They also created animations with Scratch Programming language from the MIT Media Lab. The children have to apply some geometry concepts and put together blocks of instructions in order to create an animation. In addition grade 3 students worked on Raz-Kids for reading, and Type to Learn for keyboarding skills. Fourth grade students
Grade 5 students learned design skills with “Google Sketchup”, a 3D modeling program. This program is used for architectural purposes and can also be down loaded for use at home. Fifth grade also worked on “Scratch Programming” and for www.typingweb.com keyboarding practice. I want to wish everyone a restful summer and thank you for your support during the year. Ms. Sarantes
News from the Music Room music using various instruments. First grade worked hard this year and gave a very successful performance during the Spring Concert. Very well done to all students!
Music is a way of expressing oneself and applies to all ages! During lessons, students are guided through the learning of the basic ideas of music. They listen, learn, compose and perform music from different parts of the world and of different styles. They are encouraged to use a number of tuned and untuned percussion instruments. Kindergarten further developed their understanding of pitch, tempo, dynamics, and rhythm. They also worked further on movement coordination and singing. Students learned a number of songs with live music accompaniment. Their wonderful performance at the ACS Spring Concert was a sample of the work they do in class and was a true example of their progress since the beginning of the academic year. Very well done to all students! First grade continued to expand their musical vocabulary and understanding of the elements involved in every piece of music. They also composed their own music in groups, and performed
Second grade worked hard on expanding their vocal and listening skills. They also developed further their understanding of melody and rhythm and how to combine the two together. Second grade gave a wonderful performance during the Spring Concert. Very well done to all students!
Fourth grade worked hard during this last trimester and developed a large number of musical skills. Amongst other things they largely progressed on their vocal, listening, rhythmic, harmony, and dancing skills. Fourth grade gave a wonderful performance during the Spring Concert. Very well done to all students! Fifth grade students worked on composition skills, movement coordination, vocal technique, and development of aural skills. Fifth grade students gave a a wonderful performance during the Spring Concert. Very well done to all students! Ms. Apostolou
Third grade further expanded on their understanding of music. This past trimester they focused on vocal and listening skills, structure, and development of breathing and recorder skills. Third grade gave a wonderful performance during the Spring Concert where a sample of their work in class was demonstrated in front of a large audience. Very well done to all students!
News from P.E.
“T.E.A.M.: TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE” Splish, splash, I was taking a bath. All alone in the ACS Athens swimming pool! Yes, you have guessed it! It has been our swimming unit time here, at the ACS Athens Elementary School! Students in grades 1-5 have been getting wet and physically fit as they have been challenged to learn the different types of strokes. Students have also been overcoming their fear of the water as they have been demonstrating the freestyle kick, the breastroke, the backstroke, and many more swimming skills. The students have had fun learning the different types of dives while practicing safety around the pool, as well as in it. I would like to thank Mr. Chris Kourtis for all his assistance, guidance, and help to the elementary students and myself during the swimming unit. On April 19th, the JK/K students completed their “Fun in the Sun” Field Day, while grades 1-5 had their own “Fun in the Sun” Field Day on May 19th. All students had a wonderful time as they moved from station to station and completed the different games and activities. The importance of the field days is to teach student about teamwork, sportsmanship, responsibility, unity and kindness. This is the reason that each house receives points not just in placement, but in sportsmanship as well. I thank all the parents that came and supported the program. Grades 1-5 were exposed to a unit on mini golf as well. Mr. Nick Naoum was our guest during this time, and he taught and demonstrated to the students the golf strokes, the rules and the regulations, and the proper golf etiquette. All students had fun learning all about this new unit addition to the curriculum.
Kindergarteners experienced different and cooperative parachute activities. Students had a blast watching the colorful and big circle “come to life” as they shook it, hid under it, twirled it, and played different games with it. Finally, I would like to express that this has truly been a productive and fun year in P.E. The students have successfully achieved the tasks that are necessary to complete at their specific age level, and I am very proud of all of them. I want to thank all of you as well, the parents, guardians, and all of the staff and faculty at the elementary school, for your continued support, cooperation, and love. I wish you all a fun and healthy summer! With lots of Love, Mrs. Salouros