MES Special Areas Newsletter

Special Areas Newsletter April 5, 2013

Maysville Elementary School

A New Student Teacher by Mrs. Kim Henderson and Miss Varner Special points of interest:  First Grade Program A on April 10 at 7:00  First Grade Program B on April 11 at 7:00  Fifth Grade Band Concert on May 15  Success Night on May 23

my first couple of weeks I will be observing, participating, getting to know the students, familiarizing myself with the daily routines, and providing assistance not only to Mrs. Hen-

“Hello everyone, I’m Miss Varner! I’m a student teacher from Muskingum University. Through student teaching, I’m learning what it takes to be an excellent art teacher. During

Inside this issue: From the Art Room

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Keyboarding

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Technology

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derson, but also the students. In short, I’m learning how Mrs. Henderson teaches and interacts with her students.

In the following weeks, I’ll slowly begin to take over each class period, which means I’ll be teaching the lessons and managing the class on my own. However, Mrs. Henderson will be nearby just in case I need some extra assistance. I truly appreciate Mrs. Henderson’s cooperation. I know this will be an amazing experience! I hope to learn a lot from your children and I hope they learn a lot from me as well.

Thank you! “

Music Matters by Mrs. Joan Davidson

Intermediate Phys- 3 ical Education Primary Physical Education

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Intermediate

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Music

I’m so happy to welcome Miss Varner to complete her student teaching assignment in our Art Room.

She has completed half of her student teaching assignment (6 weeks) in the high school and will remain in the elementary with us until May 3rd. I look forward to teaching cooperatively with her before she takes over and instructs our students with some of her own lessons.

April 10th and 11th are exciting days in the lives of our first graders. These are the dates of their very first music program. They will be embarking on a musical journey that will help them grow in a multitude of ways. They will find out that it is not as scary as they thought, and that they can get up in front of an audience and do amazing things. They will be doing a program called, “Music Matters”. This program demonstrates to them and their families that music is a vital part of life. They will take simple

songs like “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and add motions, add instruments, or just change the style to turn it into a new musical experience. They will demonstrate some of the concepts they learn in music while performing very familiar songs such as “Rain, Rain, Go Away” and “Jack and Jill”. They have learned to say really big words in order to sing “The Further Adventures of Three Blind Mice”. They are especially excited to perform “Mouse in the House” for everyone. Programs

provide the opportunity for students to shine as individuals and as members of a class. As it states in our final song, music is all around us, and plays a very important role in teaching, entertaining, and helping us lead productive lives. Please support our first graders in their first music program of their school career.

Program A Classes: Crane/ Williams, Copeland, Hartman and Chambers Program B Classes: Brock, Meredith, Vaughn and Perkinson

Special Areas Newsletter

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From the Art Room by Mrs. Kim Henderson Since our last newsletter every grade level has been busy working on many projects.

1st grade students completed their self-portraits, which were adorable – I really enjoyed helping the students with drawing all of their details and loved the personality that could be seen in each of their completed pieces.

These students have also been practicing their cutting of symmetrical shapes and painting with Q-tips.

“ I have placed many keyboarding skill building

2nd graders have been busy learning to create a color wheel with finger-paints.

They’ve used primary colors and mixed to create both secondary colors and tertiary colors. They completed it by mixing a brown or gray neutral color in the center.

3rd grade students finished

drawing 3-dimensional forms and using them realistically in scenes. Then they spent time illustrating their writing about their own individual Heroes. They began by typing about their Hero in Keyboarding and then illustrated these in art. The illustrations lined our hallway and were hung around the stage for their music program. There were so many interesting, beautiful and loving feelings portrayed in these, I do hope many of you were able to read some of them.

4th graders completed their ceramic coiled projects. They have also just completed a project in which they learned of Georges Seurat and his method of painting commonly known as Pointillism.

At this time of the year I al-

ways feel like time is flying by and know that I only have a few classes left to fit in all of the fun lessons I had planned.

So our 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th grade students are all working on a clay project or planning ahead for it.

Our Kindergarten students have recently gotten their first ceramic project completed. I love the excitement of the students as they work with clay for the first time, molding it with their own 2 little hands into a project which is “cooked” in the kiln or “fired” and then painting it with a “glaze” and then the amazement as they see their finished ceramic pinch pot and the beautiful colors after it’s been fired for that final time. I hope they shared the process and their excitement with their parents!

Keyboarding with Mrs. Ruth Birchfield

games on my webpage under ‘Keyboarding Fun’.”

Mrs. Birchfield

Fourth and fifth grade students have been very busy using TypingMaster.com to improve their keyboarding skills. They can see and feel themselves improving. The program guides students through small steps as they progress. If students are not happy with any of their scores, they can choose to redo any lesson and the program will record their highest score.

TypingMaster has been updating their online program and we were provided with a sneak preview of some of the changes. These new updates include the use of “flash” to run the program instead of “java.” This will make TypingMaster more user friendly to access and use from a home computer.

All students will need their

login information and will need to go through my webpage to access TypingMaster to login. Fourth and fifth grade students will be able access their account through the summer months to practice their keyboarding

skills.

Third grade has also continued to build their keyboarding skills using various programs including “Dance Mat Typing,” an online program that is also entertaining. I have placed many keyboard-

ing skill building games on my webpage under “Keyboarding Fun.” Second grade was introduced to keyboarding using the home row keys and are building their skills slowly.

First graders are at the beginning stages of becoming familiar with the keyboard and gaining a basic knowledge of key placement.

They practice this skill using Microsoft Word to post journal entries, along with saving and retrieving their documents. They have also been learning about the importance of Internet Safety. Kindergarten students are developing basic computer skills and growing more comfortable as new skills are added and prac-

April 5, 2013

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Technology by Mrs. Krissy Machamer Intermediate Technology Classes have been working on learning how to use our Audiobook and E-book service Overdrive. Students have learned how to log into this system and have practiced how to check out the available titles in a digital format.

We have also discussed the differences between Audiobooks and E-books. We will practice using this system throughout the end of the year.

To learn more about Overdrive, you can visit the following link - http:// www.overdrive.com/. To visit our Overdrive Library where students can access and check out e-books, you will first need to visit the MES Media Center’s Website at http:// www.maysville.k12.oh.us/ maysvillelsd. Then you will click on Media Center and then click on the Overdrive Media Console. To sign into

Overdrive, students will need their 5 digit Library ID (which is their lunch number) and their Pin is their birthday (4 digits only, i.e., 0409 for April 9th). If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me in the Library or email me at kmachamer@laca.org.

Intermediate Physical Education by Mr. Lew Nicholas The second semester we have worked on folk dancing along with the music classes. Even though you may not think of this as a traditional Physical Education activity, Mrs. Sellers picked some great dances that worked on our cardio-respiratory fitness and other standards, like sequencing of movements.

I introduced the students to floor hockey. We worked on stick handling, passing and receiving. We then played for

a couple of days and worked on the ideas of offense and defense.

We are now working on basketball. We have worked on 3 types of passes; chest, bounce and overhead. I have showed the students several different dribbling drills that they can do on their own in a small space to become a better ball handler. We are finishing up working on form shooting. I am showing the students the BEEF technique.

BEEF stands for balance, elbow, eyes and follow through. Once we are finished with our skill development we will spend a couple of days putting our skills to use in a game situation. I hope to be able to get outside soon and start working on more traditional activities, like kickball and whiffle ball.

We will also be doing some end of the year assessments.

Primary Physical Education by Mrs. Jen Whiteman The third nine weeks had been very exciting for us in primary physical education.

We have been focusing on many different areas of physical education. First, we have been working on many strength activities. This is being accomplished through weight bearing games and creative movement activities.

Students leap, bound, jump, land, balance, and transfer weight as they learn the importance of developing

strong muscles for a lifetime.

Our second focus has been on Fitness. The activities are designed to emphasize fitness components associated with a healthy lifestyle: cardiovascular efficiency, muscular strength, and flexibility.

Our final focus has been on tagging games. Game play is such an important part of our curriculum. The children learn sport and movement skills, cultural concepts, co-

operation, and other meaningful social values. In addition, game play is motivating and an excellent method for developing cardiovascular fitness.

Please continue to send your children in tennis shoes on their scheduled physical education days.

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”

John F. Kennedy

Intermediate Music by Mrs. Beth Sellers

The third nine weeks was very busy for the intermediate music classes. The third graders worked very hard to prepare for their program, “American Voices.” The students sang about different American heroes like George Washington, Roberto Clemente and Sacajawea. The speaking parts included actual quotes from some of our heroes. In keyboarding and art class they wrote about their heroes and illustrated their work. These served as the decorations for our program. I love to see my students dressed up and the excitement they feel getting ready for a program. I love to see each individual shine and succeed, whether they are singing, playing an instrument, dancing or doing a speaking part. Programs help me to really get to know the children better.

We will begin to work on “Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saen towards the end of the year. The students will learn about this piece of music, the instruments of the orchestra and

how to write their own animal songs.

The fourth and fifth graders did folk dancing with the gym classes in December. When we got back from winter break, the fourth graders continued their recorder belt songs and learned about Mozart and his music. Especially fun was playing Mozart’s Musical Dice game and seeing how many new songs we could create.

The fifth graders also contin-

ued working on recorder belts and learned about theme and variations. We used Schubert’s song “Die Forelle” which means the trout and acted it out with a

sheet for the water, construction paper fish with paperclips and a magnetic fishing rod. When we were very familiar with the song, we listened to all the different variations Shubert made with his melody. Similar to what Schubert did, the fifth graders worked in groups to create variations of “Hot Cross Buns” by changing rhythms in the theme. They got to work in small groups and perform their variations on the recorder.

Right now we are using a giant floor piano to review music reading. If you walk by my room, you may hear the squeaks and squawks as the students play patterns and scales. It’s been noisy, but very fun! The activity is helping them to get ready for the end of the year assessments which they will hopefully complete by the end of April.

I will be sending review sheets home to practice for the note naming and rhythm reading assessments