Curriculum Talking Points

For the Week ending 9/17/10

Kindergarten:

ART: The class generated rules for working together safely, peacefully, and happily as a community. Students read 600 Black Spots, and then created art using only circles and dots.

MUSIC: Students imitated the sounds of a rainstorm growing louder and softer. They put the rhythmic patterns of “All the Pretty Little Horses” in their bodies as an introduction to musical form. Students also improvised sounds in a rhythmic chant. (Ask your child what sound two sausages make while frying in a pan; you may be surprised!)

SCIENCE: Students became reacquainted with the science room after the summer break. They reviewed classroom procedures and were introduced to the new class routine. Working with partners and as individuals, students revisited the traits of living and non-living things and had a chance to observe, explore, and experiment with living and non-living specimens.

Lower Level:

ART: The class generated rules for working together safely, peacefully, and happily as a community. Students read Ish, by Peter H. Reynolds, and Seen Art, by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. They discussed what art is and why we have art, and worked in sketchbooks.

SCIENCE: Students began this year’s science class with an introduction to timelines, which will help the class in their study of dinosaurs. Students will create timelines showing when various species of dinosaurs lived. As they do this, they will sharpen their number sense, exploring just how big the number one million is. Did you know that it would take almost a week to count to one million? With a better understanding of large numbers, students will be better able to comprehend how long ago the dinosaurs lived.

SPANISH: The class and their teacher learned each other’s names by practicing greeting and farewell expressions. Students also created self-portraits, which they used in a name game.

Middle Level:

LANGUAGE ARTS: Students were introduced to the writer’s notebook and talked about how they will use it throughout the year. The class discussed how to choose a “just right” book (one that is comfortable to read but a little challenging) by using the five-finger rule. Each student wrote a letter to his or her future self to be re-opened at the end of the year.

MATH: Third graders learned how to check their work carefully and practiced their number sense by playing games such Guess, Digit, Place, and Buzz. Students also practiced their addition and subtraction facts. Fourth graders reviewed the year’s curriculum and practiced addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts with a game of Bingo.

ART: Students talked about what they want to achieve in art this year and completed sketches to support those ideas. The class put “their marks” into the art studio with footprint traces made by walking through colored chalk, grinding the chalk onto the soles of their shoes, and stepping on black construction paper. Students then continued to work over these traces of their soles with more colored chalk, creating wildly original work.

LATIN: Fourth graders were introduced to the concepts of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. They worked on the Latin root circ and learned some English words derived from it. The class also discussed the evolution of the Romance languages and the reasons why words of Latin origin occur so frequently in English.

LIBRARY: In addition to their basic orientation, the class enjoyed an introduction to the new computer catalogs and had time to browsing the collection.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION: The class met at Asphalt Green, where students used the expanded space to flex their muscles in longer sprints and a variety of lower-body stretching exercises. Students began a soccer unit, working on trapping, ball handling, and one and two touch passes.

SCIENCE: The class began the year by reviewing the scientific method. Students were challenged to discover how many drops of water fit on a penny. Although this experiment was a review, students were asked to identify the parts of the scientific method for the first time and write about them in detail while completing the experiment.

SPANISH: The class learned each other’s names by practicing greeting and farewell expressions. Students identified their hopes and goals for the year in Spanish class.

Upper Level:

LANGUAGE ARTS: Students brainstormed their academic and social goals for the year and chose one goal to expand on in a paragraph. The class discussed what a good D.E.A.R. book is, and students spent time browsing for one. Students also gave their first oral presentations, each sharing thoughts about one of their summer reading books.

MATH: The class discussed prime numbers, factors, and multiples, distinguishing differences and finding similarities between the concepts and arriving at definitions. Students also learned about using arrays and note taking.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Students started off by discussing and brainstorming responses to the question, “What is social studies?” They then moved into a conversation about timelines and the scope of their studies this semester, which will begin with a look at human migration and continue to include Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. Students listed questions they had about these cultures.

ART: Students talked about what they want to achieve in art this year and completed sketches to support those ideas. The class put “their marks” into the art studio with footprint traces made by walking through colored chalk, grinding the chalk onto the soles of their shoes, and stepping on black construction paper. Students then continued to work over these traces of their soles with more colored chalk, creating wildly original work.

LATIN: Students learned about the concepts of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. They were introduced to the Latin roots vis and spect, and to the prefix super. As they studied a group of English words derived from those roots, students began discussing the ways in which Latin vocabulary has been imported into English, as well as the development of the Romance languages from Latin.

LIBRARY: In addition to their basic orientation, the class enjoyed an introduction the new computer catalogs and browsed the collection.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION: The class met at Asphalt Green, where students used the expanded space to flex their muscles in longer sprints and a variety of lower-body stretching exercises. Students began a soccer unit, working on trapping, ball handling, and one and two touch passes.

SCIENCE: Students began the year by discussing global water issues and hearing more about their fall service-learning project. As this is a student-designed project, more details will follow as the project develops. The goals of the project are for the students to learn about global water issues, to raise awareness in their community about those issues, and to raise money for entrepreneurs in developing countries through the organization Kiva. Kiva raises money for various micro finance institutions around the world and allows donors to connect with the people who receive the loans, thus fostering an equal partnership between the donors and recipients of the loans. Please visit www.kiva.com for more information.

SPANISH: The class and their teacher learned each other’s names by practicing greeting and farewell expressions. Students had the option to choose a Spanish name to be used in Spanish class. Students identified their hopes and goals for the year.