SUPER SUBJECTS

Students’ sense of well-being is as important as data collected in those core academic areas. In school, that means making students feel that their interests and talents are valued, and making them feel engaged. Student engagement is a key factor in their academic success, and a student feeling less engaged is less likely to care about school.

Specials help in this area. They are a bright spot in the school day! Here’s what’s going on in our neck of the woods.

“I like the way you do

things here!”

-A Franklin student

during a special.

Winter 2020

Special Area Teachers (L-R): Mrs. Gilham, Mrs. Thompson, Mr. Veronica,

Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Marshall

Find out what’s new in:

Art

Library

Music

P.E.

Science

Franklin Elementary Special Areas

P.E. teachers (L to

R): Mr. Veronica,

Mrs. Murphy and

What is a Super Subject? Special Areas are Super Subjects! Art, Music, PE, Library and Science are the “specials” that the students at Franklin Elementary receive during their week. According to Dan McConnell “Specials Don’t Get in the Way, they help Make the Way” The Educator’s Room:

This month in Mrs. Has-selback's music room all students in Mrs. Pohl's, Mrs. Smith's and Mrs. Lambert's first grade clas-ses as well as all 3rd and 4th graders are working on our 20-note chromatic bell sets. Some things we are working on are: 1. How to properly hold a mallet 2. Warm-up 4-beat rhyth-mic patterns on white (diatonic/major scale) and black keys (pentatonic scale) such as "Let's Go Buffalo" and "Mississippi Hot Dog!" 3. First graders learned "The Snowman Song” on the bells and sang it, too. It goes up and down the scale. Have your first grader sing it for you! Third graders learned to sing, "I Had an Old Coat." They are play-ing an auxiliary bell part

for this song. We are preparing this song for our April school assembly and tying it into our recy-cling theme! Ask your third grader to sing it for you! Fourth graders have been fine-tuning their 1/9/20 concert music. We hope you enjoyed our con-cert!! We are also learn-ing to play the Mexican folk tune, "Chapanecus" on the bells. Fourth grade chorus will begin learning their spring music which will be 5 songs from the musical, The Music Man. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, all three grades will sing a song about Dr. King learn a part to this song as well. The lyrics to this song are: Martin Luther King Martin Luther King 1. He came from Georgia.

2. He led his people. 3. He loved his country. 4. He was a hero. Martin Luther King We are focusing on kind-ness and respecting others. We will all enjoy listening to some classical music such as Debussy's "Snow is Dancing" which incor-porates winter themes. We will use floating scarves to simulate snow. February will bring about a chance for some music history, dances, glocken-spiels, xylophones and metallophones as well as a tubano drumming unit with many rhyming chants to play along to. At the end of the month, 4th graders will begin watch-ing the musical, The Mu-sic Man.

In Mrs. Marshall’s Kin-dergarten Vocal Music classes Kindergartners have been learning about time, shape, space and force with movement activities. We are experimenting using scarves for move-ment and feathers to explore body aware-ness, level and shapes. We are singing alpha-bet songs and are dis-covering which letters use curved lines, straight lines and both. We are finding ways to use our bodies to form letters. Ask your kindergartner to sing “I’m So Glad to Be Here”. The 1st graders have labeled sol and mi and are learning to read sol and mi on abbreviated staves.

Students continue to read and write quarter notes, eighth notes and quarter rests using pop-sicle sticks. Students are beginning to learn about form in music. They know Mrs. Marshall’s favorite way to practice a song is to “sing it, think it, sing it”. “Thinking” a song is called “audiating”. It is a good skill to have to develop a person’s ear. Ask your 1st grader to sing “The Old Grey Cat is Sleeping”. The 2nd graders are reading patterns using sol, mi and la. Students are learning more about form in mu-sic. They are using shapes to represent different sections of music we are singing in

class. In Ms. Regan’s 2nd grade music classes students are working on songs in triple meter and working on reading Ask your 2nd grader to sing “Taxi, Taxi” for you. The 3rd graders 3rd grade recorders are doing extremely well. We have learned how to play low D and E, F#, G, A, B, high C and high D. Students can play approximately seven songs when lead by Mrs. Marshall. Many students can play the songs without assis-tance. We continue to challenge ourselves by working on note reading skills. Ask your 3rd grader to play “Old McDonald” for you.

Music Teachers (L to R):

Mrs. Hasselback, Mrs. Marshall and Ms. Regan

ART NEWS: We are always busy creating in the art room! Here are a few newsworthy items.

4th Graders have been exploring the exciting medium of printmaking. They created some monoprints-which are single prints made from painting done on acetate. They painted some beautiful winter trees on top of these prints. They also created a printing plate and made a radial print with them, rotating the plate in a circle on top of a rainbow colored drawing. In be-tween all of that, they designed the covers for the yearbook. Great work, fourth graders! 3rd graders practiced their cutting skills and made some really terrific snowflake snowmen. They are currently working in the studio on some independent paper sculptures. Using cutting, folding, crimping and fringing, their work is as unique as they are! They are learning to write about their work, so that others can understand it better when they are looking at it. 2nd graders made some really amazing puppets using paper sculpt-ing techniques. They had a blast telling jokes with their puppets! Earlier this winter, they tried their hands at clay sculpture and made some cute ceramic snowmen. 1st grade artists have such wonderful enthusiasm! They have made some great collages based on the children’s book author Lois Elhert. They made pop up chameleons that blended in with the background. They con-tinue to work on drawing and painting skills. Kindergarteners are just finishing up some beautiful winter landscape paintings. They learned about the primary colors, red, yellow and blue! They mixed them to create all the other colors.

Science: Science Lab where we ‘take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!’ Kindergarten- Students have been learning about how forces push and pull on objects. We are finishing up our unit with a focus on mag-nets! Our next unit is going to focus on how living things have wants and needs. Grade 1- The past few months have been out of this world in first grade Science Lab! After wrapping up our unit on sound and light, we have moved on to exploring the patterns which appear in our skies. These would be: reasons we have day and night, the seasons, phases of the moon, and constellations! Up next will be our unit on life science and biodiversity! Grade 2- Students have been learning about how the surface of the Earth can change quickly or slowly. They were able to use this knowledge to develop a model to identify and represent different shapes and kinds of landforms found on Earth. Next up we are moving into a study of plants! Grade 3- Students have been studying weather patterns around the world and what makes weather extreme! Students also have been work-ing on exploring what makes an area’s climate unique to its region. We will be moving into life cycles and animal characteristics. Grade 4- Students have been experimenting with weathering and erosion on different soil types. In their final project they created a video presentation using an app called Stage Pro, showing the effects of wa-ter erosion on sand, rocks, and soil. In the coming weeks we will be working with electricity! Thank you! Mrs. Dean and Mr. Fuchs

Franklin El Library: Mrs. Bumbalo, the library aide and I have enjoyed working with all of the students these last few months. We love to see them excited about the books they are reading. Kindergarten is finish-ing up an Ezra Jack Keats author study. Students made books that retell the story of The Snowy Day and they made collages of the setting from the story. First grade looked at illustrators who use collage to support the college pictures they made in art. We are looking at fables and the lessons of stories. Second grade learned about the author Philip Stead and read many of his stories. Students are writing their own version of Jonathan and The Big Blue Boat and making their own stamps to illustrate their writing. Fourth grade recently looked at books and poems by Kwame Alexander who recently won the Caldecott Award for his book Undefeated. Over the break, consider visiting one of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library Branches. They often have family friendly events when school is out. If you are interested in ebooks, the link to SORA at the library web page provides access to many popular titles for students. Thank you for helping your child re-member to return her library books. Part of being a Library Lightning Leader is returning and sharing library books with oth-er students. This year we have already circulated over 16 thou-sand books this year! Keep up the great reading Franklin and be sure to share with us stories that you love.

Mrs. Thompson

Band News:

In 4th grade band and orchestra we have begun practicing as ensembles. Band meets Mondays and orchestra meets Tuesdays. We are starting to work on music for our concert in May and are getting used to playing as a large group. Please encour-age students to practice at home!

Students in Physical Education have been focusing on winter activities to keep their bodies healthy and active during these long cold months. Students had the opportunity to rotate through different centers (hockey, sledding, snowshoeing, snowball/snowman knockdown and ice skating). Students then had an opportuni-ty to participate in a two week hockey unit which culminated with a pond hockey tournament. Winterfest activities closed out January!

At the start of February the 2nd – 4th grade students started team handball while the Kindergarten and 1st grade students participated in overhand throwing activi-ties.

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Family Hockey Night:

Family Hockey Night was held on Thursday, January 16th. Many stu-dents and their families came out to play in the Franklin pond hockey tournament. Thank you to all the families and staff that made this a suc-cessful night.

**Another Family Wellness Night will be held on Thursday, March 12th. Information to follow!

Jump Rope for Heart: The week of February 10th– February 14th, Franklin Elementary is holding the annual Jump Rope for Heart event to raise funds for the American Heart Associa-tion. The event will run during the students’ physical education classes that week but students have the entire month of February to collect donations. The donation envelopes are due in to school by Friday, February 28th, 2020.

Master Chong’s Tae Kwon Do:

Master Chong’s Tae kwon Do will then offer 4 after school classes for the students to sign up for. The classes will cost $20 but the money goes back to Franklin. Those clas-ses will be run afterschool from 3:30pm. – 4:15pm on the following dates:

Monday, March 16th

Wednesday, March 18th

Monday, March 23rd

Wednesday, March 25th

Information to follow!

Sneakers:

Just a reminder to have your child wear or bring sneakers on their PE and Well-ness days. If you have sneakers in good condition that you are willing to donate to Franklin we would appreciate it.

Wellness:

The entire school has been working to improve their upper body strength by practicing push- ups and curl- ups during warm ups. We have seen such great strides! Please encourage your child to prac-tice at home.

The Wellness room has been full of activities based on nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle. Check out myplate.gov for great nutrition ideas! Our next unit is the cardiovascular system and cardio workouts. All grade levels will utilize our class ipad set to learn what a heart rate is and what a heart looks like.