Delaney School Blog: Week 13 (11/25-11/27)

Hello Delaney Families,

We've had a quick (but busy) week with half days for the kids and parent/teacher conferences for the adults. On behalf of the staff, I would like to thank all of you for taking time out of your busy schedules to meet with our teachers. We strongly believe in the importance of the home/school connection and recognize that a strong working partnership results in the greatest success for our students. Thank you for all that you do!

From the Delaney School Family to yours, we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the break!

Positive Referrals

Congratulations to the following preschool, first grade and second grade students for receiving Positive Referrals this week. They were recognized for being good friends, putting others first, helping within the classroom without being asked, and being extremely considerate. Keep up the good work! We're very proud of your choices.

Mrs. Mariotti’s

Here is what we learned during November…

Kindergarten: This month we reviewed loud (forte) and soft (piano) sounds. We read a story called, “A Very Noisy Night” by Diana Hendry while identifying piano and forte sounds. We explored with our voices and instruments while using both forte and piano sounds. We learned many songs about turkeys; “Five Fat Turkeys”, “The Turkey Ran Away” and “Have you ever seen a Turkey”. We made a “Musical Turkey” picture to help us learn our colors and serve as a visual cue for learning the words to the song, “Have you ever seen a Turkey”. We also learned two pitches, “so” and “mi”. We used color coded flash cards to make “so-mi” patterns. The “so” was a green flash card and “mi” was a yellow flash card. You may have heard your child sing, “Green, Green, Yellow” and that was to help them learn the sounds for “so, so, mi”. Lastly, we had a lot of fun playing the tone blocks. We discovered that it sounded like a horse galloping. The children loved taking turns creating “horse sounds”.

First Grade: We began the month with reviewing the musical alphabet and made words using the seven letters of the musical alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, G). We worked in partners and took turns playing these musical words on the xylophones. We also learned a new technique called improvising. Improvising is when we “make it up as we go along”. We declared a “National Turkey Run Away Day” where all the turkeys ran away. We learned the “Turkey Run Away Day” song and took turns improvising on the xylophones. The children loved this so much that we did it twice! We also learned how to play the tone blocks and made movements to follow its different sounds. We reinforced rhythmic duration by arranging acorn cut outs into various long and short patterns. We also had a special white acorn which stood for a “quarter rest”. A rest stands for silence in a song. We learned a song called, “Hop Old Squirrel” and identified the rests in the song. We also played a fun game with this song. Lastly, we continued to develop our singing voices while matching the pitches, “so” and “mi”. We used color coded flash cards to make “so-mi” patterns and even audio recorded our singing to really hear our voices! The children really loved listening to their voice recorded on Mrs. Mariotti’s ipad! (In case you are wondering, the app I used is called “Mic Pro” and I believe it was free!! It also only records audio, no video.) Lastly, we had a lot of fun playing the tone blocks. We discovered that it sounded like a horse galloping. The children loved taking turns creating “horse sounds” and even expanded our playing into a “Match my Sound” game. We ice skated, walked, jogged, tip toed, hopped. It was a great month!

Second Grade: This month we reviewed the following rhythms; quarter notes, half notes, eighth notes and quarter rests. We learned a song called, “Hop Old Squirrel” and needed to arrange paper acorns to match the rhythm of the song. We also identified these rhythms while completing a worksheet called, “Rake the Leaves”. This really helped us discriminate the different rhythms and identify what they look like. We also reviewed the musical alphabet (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) while exploring on xylophones. We made words using the seven letters and played them on the xylophones. We continue to sing the pitches, “so” and “mi” and found these pitches in many of our songs this month. We also used color coded flash cards and boomwhackers to make “so-mi” patterns. Mrs. Mariotti brought her ipad to school to audio record the student’s singing voices (I used an app. called “Mic Pro”. I believe it was free and it also only records audio, no video.) The children really enjoyed hearing their voices and performances of some of their songs. We also learned a new technique called improvising. Improvising is when a performer “makes it up” as they play/sing along. We learned a new song called, “Turkey Run Away Day”. This song had an “AAB” form and they students could improvise during the “B” section of the song. It was pretty cool to hear them jam! We learned a new song called, “Turkey Trot Blues”. We played a circle game while singing this song. The children really enjoyed being the turkey! I believe the highlight of music this month was a traditional folk dance called, “Turkey in the Straw”. We learned a line dance to this song and wow- did we have a blast!

Third Grade: This month we continued to learn how to read music notes. We reviewed that music is written on a staff. The staff has five lines and four spaces. We reviewed the two sayings (“Every, Good, Boy, Deserves, Fudge” for the line notes and “F, A, C, E” for the spaces.) We practiced reading notes while playing the xylophones and notes written on the white boards. We also learned a song called, “Turkey Trot Blues” and learned the accompaniment on xylophones. Learning this song took a few classes- it was pretty hard but it was also a lot of fun! The children really loved playing the big wooden xylophones. We practiced xylophone techniques such as how to properly play and safely remove bars. We also sang “Over the River and Through the Woods” and used the xylophones to find the missing notes in the song. Lastly, we learned a traditional folk dance called, “Turkey in the Straw”. It is a line dance. The children really enjoyed learning the many steps to this song and wanted to do it over and over again!! I think it was a favorite!

Thank you all for of your Spirit Wear orders. A pick up schedule will be announced the week of December 9th.

Fall/Winter PTO newsletters will go out in backpacks on Wednesday, December 4th.

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday.

Gobble, Gobble!