Class News
SOUTH END
May 2024 Class News
Pre- K Ms. Caggiano - School has flown by and we can’t believe it is the end of May already! PreK has been learning so much and having a ton of fun. They learned all about parts of a plant, plant life cycle, insects and the life cycle of a butterfly. We even got to watch caterpillars of our own grow and turn into pretty butterflies. This month we focused on letters V, W, X, Y, and Z and finally completed our alphabet. Our preschoolers were most excited about our beautiful gifts we made for Mother’s Day along with our spring concert that they got to perform!
Pre-K Mrs. Donker - Our Pre-K class has been working so hard getting ready for our Spring concert. The students, who are guided by Ms. Alecia will be performing in the media center on May 16th. Our creative brains were at work in the month of May, making everything from bumble bees, to spring monsters, back to sweet Mother’s Day gifts for our favorite ladies. Our class also LOVED making a birthday card and surprising Mrs. DiMatteo. In the classroom we have been working on our tracing, cutting, and gluing skills. Our class is so excited to continue to count down to the last days of school!
Kindergarten - The kindergarteners have been working so hard on writing stories, tapping out cvc words, blends, and so much more! This month we are celebrating Mother’s Day with fun and exciting crafts for our loved ones! All the students are thrilled to show their mothers/grandmother/aunties the special little gifts they made for them. In reading we are continuing our non-fiction/fiction reading with stories about caterpillars and butterflies. Together the students are sequencing the life of a butterfly while writing about the stages in conjunction with science. In math, we have introduced subtraction as our last unit. For addition we are becoming masters by solving many color by number activities! We look forward to June as we are wrapping up all Kindergarten units.
Grade 1- In first grade, we are focusing on reviews in our writing unit. Students have been choosing topics to write their opinions on and are really enjoying giving their reviews. In math we finished learning about place value and have started two digit addition and subtraction. We just finished vowel teams for phonics and learning all the different rules to help them with the pattern for reading and spelling. Students are moving on to learning about diphthongs. We have started our novel study of Frog and Toad. Students really look forward to reading a chapter each week.
Grade 2 - Second grade students recently finished the newest math unit on measurement. The students loved to explore using rulers, yard sticks and non standard units of measurement. They expanded their math vocabulary when comparing and contrasting length, width and height as well as using the terms centimeters, inch, yard, feet and meter. We have moved on to recording data. We have been surveying our classmates on their favorite things and recording in bar graphs, tally charts, and picture graphs. We are starting our final novel study, The Chalk Box Kid. During our novel studies, we love to make connections between the characters and talk about the problem and solution of the story. In science we are continuing to explore plants, seeds and life cycles. With Spring in full effect it is fun to relate what we are learning to the environment around us! This year is flying by and we can not believe we are in June.
Grade 4 - Our 4th graders completed their NJSLA for ELA and Math and we are so proud of their hard work. Students are actively engaged in their final novel of the year, Holes. They continue to analyze characters and identify conflicts and themes of the novel. In Math, they recently completed their unit on angles where they have mastered identifying the types of angles and know how to measure angles using a protractor. They are completing their final region of the US, the western states. Students are now excited to show their knowledge of all 50 states! We are looking forward to so much in June - a visit to MMS, pool party with North End, Talent Show, Promotion Ceremony, Beach Day, and of course the Clap Out!
PE- All Physical Education classes are participating in the President’s Challenge. The challenges are designed to help improve their activity and fitness levels. The five challenges consist of push-ups, v-sit, shuttle run, curl-ups, and the pacer. The pre test was given during the month of October and the post test was completed during the month of May. The goal for all students was to maintain or improve from their fall scores.
Music - This month, we took a much-deserved break from singing (after our wonderful Spring Concert last month) to learn about our instrument families. Each grade explored the percussion family by playing rhythm sticks and hand drums, with the third graders playing a new favorite game called "Let's All Play Our Drum." Fourth graders earned their white and yellow belts for our first two songs on the recorder (following our "Recorder Karate" curriculum). Fourth graders also began learning their graduation songs for next month!
Media - 4th grade Media students are working in groups to continue through Khan Academy’s Imagineering in a Box. Students are using their established themes and stories to now plan rides/attractions and design a map. 3rd graders continue to use Kiddle to explore given places throughout the world. This month they have investigated tourist attractions as well as things to do, using keywords for their search queries and modifying them as necessary based on results. They created bulleted lists in Slides and inserted pictures of their attractions as well. 2nd grade Media students have wrapped up their research on their chosen famous women. They continued to use Kiddle to report obstacles that their women faced throughout their lives as well as fun facts about them. Their information has been put into a Slides presentation, where they learned how to work with various themes and layouts, insert relevant pictures, create bulleted lists, and insert and modify textboxes. 1st graders and Kindergarteners are reading fairy tales to continue to work on the skill of retelling, this time with students completing a graphic organizer in pairs or individually rather than as a whole class. The organizer helps them to remember the characters, setting, beginning, middle, and end. Students have the flexibility to write sentences or draw out their ideas on the organizer to demonstrate their understanding.
Art - The South End artists have been very busy exploring the elements of art and using them to create architectural drawings in K-4. The kindergarten students have been working on drawing their own shops. Some are selling donuts, while others are selling toy cars! What would you like to buy? Our first grade artists have been using line and shape in a certain way to show 3D form. They have been drawing and painting barns on their own personalized farms. MOOO! In second grade, the students have also been exploring form by creating masterpieces of 3D houses. Some have pools, while others have whimsical gardens. I sure would love to live in many of their creations! The third grade pieces have us all hungry, since they are drawing cafes/restaurants. Some students embraced the french theme and even learned some french to go along with their Parisian cafes…Bonjour! Bienvenu! The fourth graders have been working on the design element of VARIETY and have been working on 2D cityscapes. Their goal was to create a city street with a variety of shops and buildings, each exhibiting different doors, windows, and other design elements. Let’s not forget about Pre-K! They have been working on an array of mixed-media pieces such as springtime garden snails and Memorial Day ice pops. We have been using our tiny fingers to glue lots of sequins, and other embellishments to make our collages POP! Stay tuned to see many of these pieces around town!
World Language - Our Kindergarteners practiced the Días de la Semana (Days of the Week) song and created a mayo calendar with me! They made sure to label the days of the week (cut and paste) as well as mark the important days (birthdays/holidays)! First graders practiced their vocabulary on el cuerpo (the body/face) by singing Cabeza, Ojos, Rodillas y Pies (Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes) and playing Símon Dice (Simon Says). Second grade learend about Cinco de Mayo and the geography of Mexico. Third grade learned the vocabulary words for frutas y legumbres (fruits/vegetables) and became familiar with the verbs comer (to eat) and beber/tomar (to drink). Fourth grade was introduced to the Spanish speaking countries of Argentina and Colombia. They took notes and researched interesting facts. They even created a travel flier for Argentina on their chromebooks.
Guidance - Our kindergartners and first graders read a story called Ollie Outside: Screen Free Fun. Ollie wanted to build a fort with his family, however his family was too busy to help because they were using technology such as phones, emails, and video games. In Second grade the students read Sage Stands Up. In this story Sage observes her friends being mean to her friend. Sage had to figure out a strategy to help her friend and let the others know how hurtful they were. The third graders finished reading the Weird, Dare, and Tough trilogy. Each story was the point of view from a victim, a bystander, and someone being mean. The fourth graders had to solve brain teasers. The fourth graders next month will learn to open combination locks to help ease the transition into Memorial MIddle School.