FEBRUARY
Message from Mr. Galperin:
February is a Black History Month and we will celebrate Valentine’s Day. Students will sing songs for both celebrations: “There’s a little wheel a turning in My Heart”, “Viva Valentine’, Valentine dance, and songs from Africa including: “Sansa Kroma” and “Masikati” combined with movements and use of percussion and Orff instruments. Also students will use our Smart Board, learning about music reading and working on ear-training activities.
A Message from Ms. Wagner
Ms. Wagner’s physical education classes visited different countries during the month of January. Children learned to appreciate other cultures by studying their customs and ways of life. At the start of the unit each child received a passport book to record what they learned during the visits to various countries. The students also learned about the continents, names of the countries, shape of the country, the flag, major instruments, dances, and games. Be on the lookout for your “world traveler’s” stamped passport to come home at the end of the month!
Looking Ahead:
In February we will be learning how to jump rope individually and long rope with partners and rhymes. We will also explore ball skills. Some things we will work on are rolling and basketball skills through movement.
A Message from Mrs. Fong
With the New Year under way past projects are wrapping up and exciting new projects are underway! Over the next few months’ students in all grades are exploring materials and ideas for the mural project that will be installed in the cafetorium hallway. Each class will work cooperatively to create large-scale paintings inspired by the simple silhouettes and bright, colorful backgrounds found in the paintings of contemporary painter Reggie Laurent.
Did you make a New Year’s resolution to clear out your junk drawer or your child’s toy box? Later in the school year students in kindergarten and 1st grade will be creating sculptures out of found objects…aka the small, random things that have collected in the back of your junk drawer or sifted to the bottom of the toy box. Old keys, hardware, kid’s meal toys, party favors, bottle caps and other tiny items that are no longer needed or purpose unknown will be a welcome addition to the “found object box” in the Art Room. Please make sure all items are safe for small fingers to handle…nothing sharp please!
A Message from Mrs. Poutre
Gong Hay Fa Choy! Happy Chinese New Year to everyone; it’s the Year of the Dragon.
We’ve been celebrating Chinese New Year in the Library this week.
Our TV Turn Off program has registered 78% of our students! Great Work! I’m very proud of everyone who is participating in the challenge this year. Keep up the great reading. The pictures have arrived and we’re cutting and organizing them, so keep an eye out for our bulletin board featuring each participant.
All of our new books have been processed and I was wowed to see that almost all of them have been checked out at least once and some many times already! To me, it’s really exciting to see the students so excited about new books.
February is Black History Month, so come in and checkout wonderful books by African American authors. Don’t forget the biography section in the library. Look for Ruby Bridges, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Jackie Robinson – a few famed African-Americans.
Read Across America Week is the week of February 27 – March 2, and we’ve got lots of fun and exciting things planned: special theme days, a Storytelling night, and a book drive! Keep February 29th penciled in on your calendars; details are forthcoming!
I wish everyone an early spring and a very Happy Valentine’s Day!
Happy Reading,
Mrs. Poutre
Message From Ms. Wagner and Mrs. Grosholz
Dear Parents/Guardians,
It’s time for you and your children to make a difference! During the up-coming week of February 13th, your child will be participating in a very special community service program ~ Jump Rope for Heart. The event helps to raise funds for the American Heart Association and its’ fight against our nation’s No. 1 and 3 killers – cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Jump Rope for Heart will take place during your child’s Physical Education class, teaching students about the importance of regular physical activity and heart health. By participating in Jump Rope for Heart, your child will learn how the heart works and how to take care of it through physical activity and nutrition.
The dollars raised will support vital research and educational programs; and you and your child can be a part of that. Imagine, partnering with a scientist one day to discover a breakthrough in cardiovascular disease prevention!
We are really excited about this year’s Jump Rope for Heart event and the experience it offers our students. We hope you will support your child’s participation in this lifesaving, educational event. To learn more about Jump Rope for Heart please view the forthcoming Jump Rope for Heart packet or visit, americanheart.org/jump.
Let’s help our children be heart heroes!
Sincerely,
The Physical Education Department
Ms. Wagner and Mrs. Grosholz
As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me: jpoutre@somsd.k12.nj.us, or 973-378-7698.
OCTOBER ART NEWS
At Back to School Night I mentioned an online student museum called Artsonia (www.artsonia.com) that Marshall School is joining. I am happy to report that the background work is finished and we are ready to start collecting parent/guardian permissions to start uploading student work! The week of October 3rd a purple permission form will be sent home with students. Please return these as soon as possible so that when your student has an art work ready to be posted there will be no delay in getting it on the site.
With the start of the new school year students have been getting re-acquainted with their drawing skills and doing special exercises to improve observation and the hand-eye-brain connection. Next up are projects relating to the themes for each grade level:
- Kindergarten will kick off their Modern Art Madness by exploring Kandinsky and all of his crazy lines
- 1st Grade and Multi-age classes will travel back to the time of Van Gogh and his sunflowers as well as explore the surreal portraits of Magritte (with a Fall twist) in the Ages of Art Time Machine
- 2nd grade will travel with Arty, the art mascot, to Mexico where we will see the sights on our first stop of the Around the World Art Tour.
Finally I would like to thank all of the volunteers who helped assemble, display and sort the pinwheels for our 2011 Pinwheels for Peace project…it looked amazing! The weather was not very cooperative this year, but we were able to enjoy it for a brief time. Thank you!!!!
Jessica Fong
Art Teacher
The Achieve Foundation Supports Educational Innovation
On December 6, the Achieve Foundation awarded 50 grants totaling $43,029 to teachers in all nine South Orange & Maplewood schools for their special projects to be carried out this spring. Achieve congratulates the more than 60 educators who received grants for their wonderful ideas to broaden the educational experience for their students, and applauds all of the 100 teachers who applied for grants this year. See the complete list of grants awarded at www.achievefoundation.com . The foundation received more worthy grant requests than it could fulfill with allocated funds. Go to the website for the list of approved grants that are still waiting for full or partial funding, and choose a project to support through the Achieve Direct Grant Funding Campaign until January 31. For further information, contact your school’s Achieve Liaison or Patti Coleman at 973-761-0727 or colepeople@aol.com.
Deborah M. Prinz, Executive Director, Achieve Foundation
