Lots of fun will be happening in Phys. Ed. this week! On Thursday, February 17th, all classes are scheduled to walk over to Gowen Park for sledding. Please make sure that students bring their snow gear (including snowpants, coats, boots, hats, and mittens) on this day.
It's Chickadee time in the library! Every year at this time, students in grades kindergarten through fourth listen to books that have been nominated for the Maine Children's Choice Picture Book Award otherwise known as the Chickadee Award. Once the ten nominated books are all shared, students get to vote on their favorites. The votes are then sent to the Chickadee committee and added in with all the other votes from students in the state of Maine. The book with the most votes is the Chickadee winner for the year 2021-2022. We are about halfway through the ten books and it has been wonderful to have each class come into the library eager to see what the next Chickadee book will be. The winner will be announced towards the end of April. Stay tuned!
In SPE health class all of the students have been exploring different aspects of social and emotional learning! The kindergarten students have been learning how to identify different emotions through facial expressions, and body language. We have also explored what makes each of us unique and special. Our 1st and 2nd grade students learned about different complex emotions like anger and frustration, while our 3rd and 4th grade students learned about stress. These students are also exploring different ways to cope with difficult emotions and are participating in a coping strategies challenge! Each week we practice a different calming strategy at the beginning of class and then the students will rate the strategy based on if it worked for them. In lieu of these lessons, the students from 1st grade to 4th grade created stress balls out of balloons and flour! For our next unit in Health class, all grades will be learning about disease and illness prevention, specifically germs, bacteria, viruses and hygiene. We will talk about the difference between bacteria and viruses, how the body fights diseases, our immune systems and positive health practices that reduce illness! I also want to congratulate all of our SPE students who came 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the Elk’s Association’s Drug Awareness Program coloring and poster contests, great job!! If you have any questions about Health class, please contact Ms. Smye at asmye@sanford.org.
For the past two weeks, art class has been focusing on Valentines Day; the meaning of it, the history of it, and learning about different artists that we can use to inspire our own Valentines Day artworks, i.e Abstract artist Wassily Kandinskey, Disney concept artist and illustrator Mary Blair, and street artists Dasic Fernandez and Chris Uphues.
The 4th Grade Chorus will be collaborating with CJL and MCS Chorus groups to create a “Spring Sing” video performance. They have been preparing three songs: “Fanga Alafia” (a traditional greeting song from Nigeria), “Song of Peace”, and “Happy”. We’ll be working on recording for this project throughout the next month. The final product will be completed and shared with families by the end of March. All students in K-4 have been working on singing skills, musical vocabulary, and instrument exploration. In addition, grades 3 and 4 have started their ukulele unit! We are very excited to share our learning with you this Spring. Stay tuned for information regarding upcoming spring concerts.