Week 32 (April 28-May 2)

Greetings Delaney Families,
Happy May!  
We hope that you and your family had a wonderful April vacation.  It's hard to believe how fast the school year has gone and that we're already in the the last couple of months of the school year.  These next several weeks will be jam packed with MCAS, PARCC, the art show, field trips, field day, end of the year activities and much much more.  We hope you'll be able to join us for many of these events and look forward to seeing you.

JDRF Fundraiser Update

A BIG “Thank you!” to all of our students and families who contributed to the JDRF Kids Walk fundraiser.  To date, we have raised over $15,000!!!  We are so grateful for your support in making this a huge success!

Congratulations to Miss Williams for finishing her first full Boston Marathon!  As you may recall, she was running to raise funds for Juvenile Diabetes.  We're so proud of her and all who were able to run.

 

On Monday, 17 teachers from the Delaney and Roderick Schools attended a full day workshop on Fountas & Pinnell.  The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems are tools that can be used to identify the instructional and independent reading levels of all students and document student progress through one-on-one formative and summative assessments.  These teachers will be training the remaining teachers at their grade and subject levels in the near future.

Thanks to a generous grant from WEST, the entire second grade visited Fenway park for a tour this week.  The tour was a follow up to author, David Kelly's, visit to the Delaney School the week prior to vacation to discuss his Ballpark Mysteries series and chat with the students about being an author.  As you can see my the pictures, the kids, teachers, and parent volunteers had a fantastic time!

MCAS

Students in Grade 3 will be participating in MCAS mathematics testing on May 6th and 7th. 

Parental Input Letter
As a reminder, parental input letters are due on Friday, May 9th.  Emails were sent to all families (preK-3) on Monday, April 26th that included the guidelines for the letter.  If you did not receive the email or need an additional copy of the letter, extras are available in the offices.  Parents of incoming kindergarten students were mailed a separate letter that included their information and specific timelines.

Art Show
The Delaney Art Show will be held on Thursday, May 15th in the Delaney Cafeteria from 5:00-6:30 p.m.  The children and Mrs. Lovely have been working hard to create sculptures, drawings and paintings for this wonderful event.  We hope to see you there!

From the Nurses...

BMI screening for 1st graders will be starting over the next few weeks.  If you wish to not have your child included in the screening, please contact the school nurses in writing by 5/9/14. Thank you!

What's been happening in music?..

                                                         From Mrs. Mariotti...

Here is what we learned during April…

This month’s composer…..Ludwig van Beethoven

Kindergarten: We learned a lot in music this month! During the beginning of April, we finished up some activities surrounding the famous children’s story called, “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev. Ms. Mariotti would play the various characters’ melodies on the keyboard. Students would guess which instrument was playing and which character it belonged to. Students had a lot of fun moving to the music and matching their movements to the music. We experienced various speed, dynamics, moods and emotions in our music. We also began to learn about instruments and the materials they are made of. This month we focused on instruments made of wood (ex. Rhythm sticks, claves and sandblocks) and instruments made out of metal (triangle, cow bell and jingle bells). We played a listening game called “Listen to me play”. Students took turns playing instruments hidden behind a curtain. They had so much fun guessing the sound! We have begun a new unit on sound and silence. We are learning how music has silence in it. In first grade students will learn how these “silences” are called “rests”. Our new composer is Ludwig van Beethoven. He was a famous deaf composer. We read, danced and listened to some of his music this month. We will learn more about Beethoven in May.

This month’s composer….. Ludwig van Beethoven

First Grade: We learned a lot in music this month! During the beginning of April, we finished up some activities surrounding the famous children’s story called, “Peter and the Wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev. We made a puppet show! We looked for various instruments in our classroom to use as props for our show. It was so much fun! We also began to learn about instrument families. We learned that instruments are categorized into families. We looked at different instruments and identified things that were the same and different.  We had a lot of fun experimenting with vibrations. We noticed how a triangle stops its sound when it is touched. The vibration of the metal makes it sound. The children had a great time playing the triangles and learning about vibrations and sound. We played a listening game called “Listen to me play”. Students took turns playing instruments (triangle, cow bell, bell, claves and sandblocks) hidden behind a curtain. They had so much fun guessing the sound! We have begun to learn about silences in music. We call them “rests”.  We sang a song called, “Peas Porridge Hot” and found all the rests in the music. We also used flashcards to make our own patterns of sounds and silences. Our new composer is Ludwig van Beethoven. He was a famous deaf composer. We read, danced and listened to some of his music this month. We will learn more about Beethoven in May.

This month’s composer….. Ludwig van Beethoven

Second Grade: This month we learned about instrument families. We learned how there are four instrument families; String, Woodwind, Brass and Percussion. We listened to examples of the various families and learned how each group makes their sound. We also learned how the size and materials will affect the sound. A small instrument (ex. flute) will have a high sound, where a larger instrument (ex. Tuba) will have a lower sound. We learned a new song called, “Tumba”. It is a folk song from Palestine. It has a unique melody and was fun to sing. We added tambourines and xylophones to our song as well. We reviewed rhythmic notation so our playing was accurate during the song. We reviewed that a whole note equals four beats, a dotted half note equals three beats, a half note equals two beats, a quarter note equals one beat and an eighth note equals a half of a beat. Our new composer is Ludwig van Beethoven. He was a famous deaf composer. We read, danced and listened to some of his music this month. We will learn more about Beethoven in May.

This month’s composer….. Ludwig van Beethoven

Third Grade: Third graders are continuing to work hard learning how to play the recorder! Playing an instrument takes a lot of hard work, patience and practice! We continue to learn and review the purple belt song, “Old MacDonald”. We are also working towards to our blue belt song, “When the Saints Go Marching In”. In this song, we learn about a new musical concept called a “tie”. A tie is a curved line that connects two notes of the same pitch. Only the first note is played and then held for the value of both notes. The blue belt is a really tough song! It also teaches us two new notes (High C and High D). Both of these notes can squeak pretty easily if we blow too hard, so we need to be gentle and cover the holes completely for a nice sound. Some students are moving on to the next belt (red), “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. Once again this song is tough too! We learned a new note called F#. Our new composer is Ludwig van Beethoven. He was a famous deaf composer. He wrote our black belt song, called “Ode to Joy”.

PTO News 5/1/2014

Spring Clean Up

It is hard to believe it is May 1st.  We hope the weather turns warmer quickly.  The forecast is looking good for this Saturday, May 3rd which is the Spring clean up day.  There will be teams of local professional landscapers who will be cleaning up the grounds in the morning utilizing their equipment.  Once they are finished with their equipment around noon (12 PM) we are in need of volunteers to help with weeding, mulching, planting, etc.  Please come even if you can only give an hour! 

Trex Plastic Bags Contest

We were overwhelmed with the amount of bags brought in before vacation!  We are happy to report that we once again won the bench from Trex.  It should arrive soon!  Just because our contest is over, you can still recycle plastic bags at Target, Lowe's and Stop&Shop.  Thanks again!

Staff Appreciation Luncheon

The luncheon is set for May 16th.  We have collected about half of the amount we need to fund the lunch.  Please send in your $1 per child or $3 per family if you have not done so.  Children may put it in the PTO box in their classroom.  We are in need of helpers; the morning of, during the lunch and clean up, so please let us know if you can help on Friday, May 16th.  E-mail us at wrenthampto@gmail.com.  Thank you!

As always, thank you for reading and have a fantastic weekend!
Go Bruins!

 Sincerely,
Melissa D. Peterson