Sanford Pride Elementary School

Hello Pride Families - Please join us on Tuesday, December 5th, 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM for the free family event - Snapshots with Santa. This event is sponsored by the MCS Pride PTA. *Don't forget to bring your camera for photos.

Using Creative Thinking to Solve Problems Submitted by Mr. Benham Many people believe that you are either creative or you aren’t. Well, guess what? Creativity is a skill that can be improved with practice. This week third grade students practiced the skills of creative thinking. We warmed up our brains by coming up with many ideas (fluency), we added to our ideas (elaboration), and we saw things in a new way (flexibility). Using a well known tool called SCAMPER, students were challenged to redesign the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to solve the problems of wind, hard to control balloons, balloons that can rip, and avoiding obstacles in the parade route. Ideas included smaller balloons, sticky gloves for holding the straps, driveable balloons, street lamps wrapped in pillows, and even using sled dogs or robots to pull the balloons! What creative solutions do you have?

The MCS Pride PTA is in need of volunteers for the events listed below. If you are interested in helping out, please email mcsptame@gmail.com. Snapshots with Santa at Pride Elementary - 12/5 5:00-7:00pm Snapshots with Santa at MCS Elementary - 12/13 5:00-7:00pm

Hello Pride Families - Please see the link to this week's SPE Weekly Roar. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EdKKtc6KAl6XpoTR9kNSDJGURMR3yeTv/view?usp=drivesdk

The MCS Pride PTA is in need of volunteers for the events listed below. If you are interested in helping out, please email mcsptame@gmail.com. Snapshots with Santa at Pride Elementary - 12/5 5:00-7:00pm Snapshots with Santa at MCS Elementary - 12/13 5:00-7:00pm

The SPE Library has been very busy these past few months. Students have been enjoying many of the new books that arrived in September. They have also enjoyed getting to know Mrs. Caswell, the new library ed tech. She brings a lot of fun and whimsy to the library with her eye catching displays and excitement for books. Second, third and fourth grade students have started participating in Fab First Chapters where Mrs. Caswell shares the first few chapters of a new books and provides students with read-alike titles to check out. This has been a great way to introduce new genres and get students to try books that they may not have noticed before. Kindergarteners are now taking books home after learning how to care for library books and first graders helped create a “Wild About Books” bulletin board on the ramp to show off their artistic talent. All students have also enjoyed the different Makerspace activities that the library offers. Makerspaces allow students to use different materials to build, make, decorate, or play with and students can work with these materials on their own or with classmates. Makerspaces encourage collaboration, problem solving and creativity. Some students have been able to participate in Makerspace challenges as well. One challenge was to build a Thanksgiving dinner table out of craft sticks and blocks that will hold all of the dinner plates while another had students make boats out of tinfoil that would hold ten “passengers” without sinking. These activities had students working together and persevering to meet the challenge. When Mrs. Sullivan is in the building she has been teaching students how to be safe, respectful and responsible when using technology and going online. Many students are on their way to becoming great Digital Citizens! After Thanksgiving break, students will be introduced to fantasy books and as always when we come back after December break, it will be time for Chickadee books. There are 10 new, exciting nominees that we can’t wait to share with everyone.

Pre-K has been so creative with their different elements of art practice! We have learned about how to draw texture in art, how to use color in art, how to glue down shapes, and layer color in our art! They have done such a great job of focusing on the process of creating art! Kindergarten has just finished up their Yayoi Kusama-inspired dot pumpkins. We learned about an artist from Japan, who uses lines, shapes, lots of colors, and many dots in her artwork! We had many skill builders to become more familiar with drawing lines, adding color, and focusing on our craftsmanship! Up next is painting practice to prepare us for our Grandma Moses-inspired Landscape paintings! 1st grade has just finished up their color monsters, and will be starting their Dia De Los Muertos Sugar Skulls this week! 2nd grade has been on a month-long journey into color theory. From reviewing the primary and secondary colors to differentiating between warm and cool colors. Finally, this week we will end this unit by mixing the primary colors plus black and white to create matching skin tones for our self-portraits! 3rd grade has been working hard on the " community " concept by creating postcards representing our communities. We use the art room as a studio space to individually test out, and choose different art materials to add color to our postcards. Focusing on using the tools safely, responsibly, and creatively! 4th grade has spent the past month working on their wonderful original work of art "W.O.W" art. They had to brainstorm multiple ideas for an original work of art and choose and edit a final sketch. They are spending this week testing out multiple art materials to decide which one(s) they want to use for their artwork. We will spend two more art classes finalizing our artwork with color before filling out artist statements! Art Club has morphed into two groups of students. One group focuses primarily on weaving and different weaving techniques, with the hopes of creating a large woven blanket for the end of the year, while the other group has been taking the lead on two student-run stop-motion animation videos!

In Music class, students in grades K-2 have been developing their singing and steady beat skills through games. Some of our favorite games have included Aiken Drum, A Tisket A Tasket, and Wake Up Lazy Bones. We have also explored some of the percussion instruments in our classroom. We are learning how to perform music as a team, listen to the other parts, and how to take care of our musical instruments. Students in grades 3 and 4 are working on their music-reading skills (rhythms for Grade 3 and note-naming for Grade 4), and we are performing with instruments such as ukuleles and glockenspiels. The 4th Grade Chorus just finished their Veterans Day recording project with Mrs. Schnell from WSSR-TV. Their video can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVmEZrlC4bM or by searching for “WSSR Sanford Pride Veterans Day 2023” on YouTube.

In SPE Phys. Ed. class, we have finished our playground and tagging games and have started moving into our sports units. The first unit we are focusing on is soccer.

In SPE health class this year, the students have all been exploring the different names of their body parts, and learning the correct names to call their body parts. Currently, all students in Health have just started the drug-prevention unit. The kindergarteners and 1st graders have been learning about making healthy decisions when it comes to medicine! The 2nd graders are learning about the medicine safety rules and the herbs and plants that also act as medicine! The 3rd and 4th graders are currently busy exploring the roles, and placements of the major organs in the human body by creating life size paper diagrams of their own bodies. This will lead us into exploring how illegal and legal substances damage those major organs and create unhealthy outcomes. The following unit will be centered around germs for kindergarten, first grade and second grade. The 3rd and 4th graders will move onto talking about peer pressure and bullying.

MCS Pride PTA's annual Turkey Troy is a spirited tradition that brings students, teachers, and families together to celebrate the community. On Saturday, Cobb Stadium came alive despite the rainy weather with vibrant colors as runners donned sports attire and creative turkey accessories. Thank you to all of the families and businesses who donated their trucks for students to discover and explore!

Hello Pride Families - Please see the link to this week's SPE Weekly Roar. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B92dZ9j2yuf6ELY_J4ogdOtEWGHix4x6/view?usp=sharing

Hello Pride Families - We hope to see you at the MCS Pride PTA Turkey Trot Fundraiser. Please see the link for more details. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1spgjBaCNJu5U8NLG4AL1nrEpudFP8EtW/view?usp=sharing

Please don't forget to join us for the MCS Pride PTA Turkey Trot, which is scheduled for Saturday, November 18th. Please see the below link for more details.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1spgjBaCNJu5U8NLG4AL1nrEpudFP8EtW/view?usp=sharing

Hello Pride Families - Please don't forget to join us for the MCS Pride PTA Turkey Trot, which is scheduled for Saturday, November 18th. Please see the below link for more details.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1spgjBaCNJu5U8NLG4AL1nrEpudFP8EtW/view?usp=sharing

The MCS Pride PTA is in need of volunteers for its Turkey Trot at Cobb Stadium this Saturday from 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. They need help with concessions, clean up and more. If you are interested in helping out, please email at mcsptame@gmail.com.

Hello Pride Families - Don't forget - The MCS Pride PTA Turkey Trot Fundraiser is scheduled for Saturday, November 18th. We hope that many of our students will participate in this fun event! Please see the link for more details. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1spgjBaCNJu5U8NLG4AL1nrEpudFP8EtW/view?usp=sharing

Hello Pride Families - Please see the link to this week's SPE Weekly Roar. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ok0lHydUL_cBLqHbNrC9xnqwO1-U_WBT/view?usp=sharing

Carl J. Lamb, Sanford Pride, and Margaret Chase Smith elementary schools each organized celebrations to honor the sacrifices of veterans for Veterans Day. Read more about them here! https://www.sanford.org/article/1335471

REMINDER! Sanford Pride's Trick or Treat event is TONIGHT from 5:30-7 p.m. inside the school at the gym!