Benton Specialist Monthly Recap

Kindergarten-5th grade were able to experience the parachute. Lots of cooperative learning.

We had a blast in the music room in April!

Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd worked on our solfege scale, as well as dynamic identification through rain songs.  We were able to learn about and play new instruments like ocean drums, thunder tubes and rain sticks to simulate the sounds of storms!  3rd grade took a musical trip through the decades, listening, dancing, and playing along to music from the 60s and 70s.  4th grade finished their Hip Hop Music Unit with a childrens book rap project.  After creating a hip hop loop using Garage Band, they practiced rapping a rhyming childrens book on top of their music.  5th grade learned all about the 12 bar Blues, with a virtual Blues escape room, and writing their own Blues song lyrics!

After spring break, we jumped right into our big end-of-year clay projects.  Kindergarten through 2nd Grade created hatching baby dinosaurs and 3rd Grade through 5th Grade created clay rattles.  All grades had two meeting times to work on these so that they could come up with their own designs and elaborate and refine them before being fired in the kiln.  We are now wrapping up the painting process and our sculptures should be coming home soon.  In our down time during this process, the older grades have continued to work on their post & lintel architecture in Minecraft and the younger grades have put finishing touches on the works of imagination that we started last month.

See all of this and more in our Artsonia galleries!  Our public galleries may be found here: https://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=94365

And if you’ve not already done so, you can connect with your child’s gallery by following this link: https://www.artsonia.com/connect/NB8J7YX4

With the end of the school year approaching and lots of special events scheduled, students are full of energy at Benton!  In Counseling, we are reviewing and fine-tuning whole body listening, a skill that will supports student engagement in class and at home.  Through books like Lacy Walker, Non-Stop Talker by Christianne Jones, Why Should I Listen by Mike Gordon, The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerffeld, and Woody Birdy by Tammi Sauer, students give their feedback on listening without interrupting.  Our final Counseling unit will cover Summer Safety and managing transition to summer activities.   

School just seems to be getting busier and busier!

Fifth graders finished their video games projects and had them on display in an open arcade during STEAM Night.

We also had our school One Read this month.  This consisted of us all reading Rabbit & Bear: Attack of the Snack, and celebrating that book with a spirit week. 

We're in the middle of MAP testing, so I've been on everyone's speed dial when issues pop up.  Also with MAP, each testing classroom has been paired with a K-2 buddy classroom to help cheer them on during testing.  As part of that, these buddy classrooms have been able to cash in on a STEM time together with me.  We've used this time to explore some of our robots!  We'll be doing more of this in the makerspace next month.  

As always, if you would like your student to be included on our hallway "Did You Know?" display, please fill out this form!

In Media, we started our Minecraft unit.

In grades K-2nd, we are focusing on learning basic skills like building a house and adding interior/exterior design elements. They can other cool elements like a garden, pool or trampoline to their build.

In grades 3rd-5th, students are using their imagination to create complex builds. These challenges include building a working roller coaster, an impenetrable castle, and even a complex maze that will confuse whoever enters.