KESHEQUA CENTRAL SCHOOL DALTON ELEMENTARY NEWS · 2017-12-04 · closed February 15 th through the...

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Volume 10

Issue 4

KESHEQUA CENTRAL SCHOOL

Letter from the Principal

January 2010

'You have to stand outside the box to see how the box can be re-designed.' Charles Handy

2nd Grade 4

Coming in February 12

February Menu Insert

DALTON ELEMENTARY NEWS

1st Grade 2, 3

Letter from Our Principal 1

3rd Grade 5. 6

Officer Didas 7

Peace Builders 8

Bus Driver Tower 9

From the Art Room 10

Teaching Assistant Corner 11

It is always amazing how quickly the school year goes by. It seems as though

the students were just walking in the doors in September and we are already

half way through this school year! January has been a busy month as you will be

able to see by the interesting articles and events highlighted in this newslet-

ter.

As February is approaching, our reading specialists are finishing up a midyear

benchmark assessment on all of our students. This data will assist us in monitor-

ing each student’s progress as well as in making adjustments to supports and in-

terventions. Teachers will also be preparing report cards which will be sent

home on February 12th. If you have any questions about your child’s progress

please contact your child’s teacher.

As a reminder our February break looks a bit different this year. School will be

closed February 15th through the 17th and will resume on Thursday, February

18th.

Ami Hunt

Elementary Principal


The first graders in Mrs. Beachel’s class have been hard at work exploring the properties of solids,

liquids, and gases. We sorted things like buttons, sea-

shells, and everyday objects and came up with ways to

categorize them. During shape centers we used pattern

blocks to combine shapes to make things like flowers, a

rocket ship, and a house. We also identified geometric

solids according to their flat surfaces.

We looked at the properties of water and deter-

mined that liquids take the shape of the container that

they are in. We changed the color of water by mixing

food coloring together to create several new colors. We

also studied oil, vinegar, and starch by feeling them

and examining their differences.

Studying the properties of air was fun for the

students as well. We used Alka Seltzer tablets to blow

up a balloon and it was almost like magic! Another fun

experiment was showing the difference between a bal-

loon blown up with helium and one blown up with air.

The children loved to see the balloon float!

This properties unit has been a fun and inter-

active way for the students to explore solids, liquids,

and gases. Science really is a lot of fun when you can

become a scientist yourself!

Mrs. Beachel’s 1st Grade Class gets Scientific


Mrs. Vogel’s first graders have been learning about shapes! The children have

been not only learning the names of the plane shapes such as circles, squares, and

rectangles, but they’ve been learned about solid figures such as cubes, cylinders,

and spheres! To enhance our study of shapes we use tangrams, pattern blocks,

and geoboards. The children used small plane shapes to make “shape pictures”

and did an awesome job! Look carefully at some of the pictures that they made.

Can you find: the flower; the camel; the man with the sun; and the snow-

man by the fire?

Mrs. Vogel’s Class Learns About Shapes


Mrs. Gehrig’s 2nd Grade News

Mrs. Gehrig checks out the “new” collections of “Boy Books” and “Girl Books”.

These library collections have sparked a big interest in reading !

Second graders enjoy being creative about “SNOW”

Third Grade Reading Buddies


'Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we were never able to do.' Peter Senge

3rd and 1st Grade Reading Buddies pair up to celebrate the holiday

season.

Mrs. Hochbrueckner and Mrs. Brooker’s 1st grade students paired with Miss

Neu’s 3rd grade class to celebrate the 2009 holiday season. Each reading buddy

pair, worked together to create some hand crafted ornaments.

Students were introduced to their reading buddies at the beginning of the year.

Once a week, the reading buddies get together and read. The students enjoy

reading together and enjoy having a new friend in the building.

Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.' Barbara Kingsolver


Mrs. DeMarco’s Third Grade News In December we tried our hands at writing instructions. Each student chose his or her own topic

so we had quite a variety. The topics included instructions for riding a bike, putting up a

Christmas tree, decorating a cake, logging onto the Webkinz website, jumping a bike, cutting out

a snowflake, setting up a Wii, getting a fire going, making Raman Noodles, and even taking out

the garbage.

Here are a couple of samples with other topics:

How to Fix a Bike by Miguel Pena

When you are riding your bike and

your chain falls off first you have to

flip your bike over. Next put the chain

back on. Finally put oil on it if it is

dry or rusty. Then ride. Now you know

how to fix your bike’s chain.

Making Pizza by Annika McEvoy

This is instructions for making pizza.

First my mom and I get the dough.

Then we put the sauce on. I spread

it with a spoon! Next we put pepperoni on

the Pizza. Then we put the cheese on the

pizza. Then we put it in the oven.

Finally it’s done. Now we all sit and eat it up,

but not all of it!

Jumping a Bike by Tony Jeffords

This is instructions for jumping a bike. First get out a flat board and get two big boards.

Next get your bike. Sit on it and back up.

Now drive fast and hit the jump. This is instructions to jump a bike.


Developing Healthy Habits as a FFFFaMiLLLLyyyy

The best place for children to learn about living a healthy lifestyle is at home. The les-

sons learned can be reinforced at school, but will have the most impact when practiced

daily at home.

Families can encourage children to be more active by having them participate in family

activities as well as sports. Along with physical activity, there are other important

health-related lessons to teach your children -- and to reflect in your own life!

Consider making the following actions part of your family’s healthy lifestyle:

Cut back on TV, computer, and video game time. Less time spent on these activities

leaves more time for movement!

Take a family walk or bike ride.

Play with your children. It will be healthy for all of you, both physically and emo-

tionally.

Make homework a priority. Provide a quiet time and place for doing homework. Talk

to your child’s teacher to make sure your child is keeping up with classroom

work.

Plan to eat a balanced, healthy dinner together as a family. If schedules don’t allow

for dinner together every night, make a goal to have at least two dinners together

every week.

Make sure you and your children get enough sleep. Choose a reasonable bedtime

that allows for 9 to 12 hours of sleep each night for a school-aged child.

(Teenagers may need even more sleep than a young child!)

Our health is an important factor in our quality of life. Children who are healthy learn

better, have more positive interactions, and have a better chance for success in life. As a

parent, you have a lot of power to provide your children with the basic knowledge and

practices they need for the rest of their lives.

Excerpted from “Our Children” a PTA publication for parents. Author Sally

Schoessler, RN, SNT, MSEd, is a school nurse teacher. She has served on the

boards of directors of the National Association of School Nurses and the New

York State Association of School Nurses.

Officer Michael Didas

Resource Officer


I am a peace builder

I pledge to praise people

To give up put-downs

To seek wise people

To notice and speak up

about hurts that I have

caused

To right wrongs

I will build peace at home

at school and in my com-

munity each day.

Lacey Hillier

Aiden Crittenden

Paige Burley

Claire Sullivan

Jacob Petti

Collin Hallett

Tucker Sanford

Brendan White

Phillip Hess

Parker McTarnaghan

Kyle Galton

Kole Andress

Brandy Bird

Michelle Dunham

Alexa Spencer

PEACE BUILDERS

Austin Holley

Gage Geens

Caleb Buchinger

Abby Knapp

Patrick Scully

Kyler Gilbride

Brandon Curry

Hannah Meritt

Madyson Simmons

Jessica Patterson

Elizabeth Cassidy

Allison Galton

John Bailey

Matthew Meritt

PEACE BUILDERS

PLEDGE

Message from the Bus Driver’s Tower January 2010

Congratulations to the following Riders of the Month for December

Student Bus Driver

Haley Wood 113 K. Douglass

Joe Colombo 129 R. Smith

Rene Figueroa 111 J. Vogt

Courtney Ellsworth 120 B. Benson

The bus drivers will auction a homemade afghan just before Easter.

It is donated by Patty Fisher. Tickets will be one dollar and no need to be present at the time of draw-

ing.

Proceeds are used for funding the “Rider of the Month” program, scholarships for seniors and donations

from the Bus Drivers Association.

Tickets will be available from school bus drivers.

Check in next month for more details.

Thank you


Bus Drivers Tower

Congratulations to all of you

Great Job


From the Art Room…From the Art Room…From the Art Room…From the Art Room…

While we are all looking forward to an early spring, please keep in mind that I would love you to show some of your own art-

work along with our students during the evening of our Dalton Fine Arts Festival on Monday, May 17th. This offer is open to both

professional artists and amateurs alike, to whoever is interested in our surrounding counties. For more information on displaying your

artwork please call 476-2234, ext. 1140.

Excerpts from Art Educator, Elliott Eisner, on

How the Arts continue to benefit our children (Part I) …

The arts teach children that problems can have more than one answer. If they do anything, the arts embrace diversity of outcome. Standardization of solution and uniformity of response is no virtue in the arts.

The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving, purposes are seldom fixed. Situations change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unan-ticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds. At its best, work in the arts is not a monologue delivered by the artist to the work, but a dialogue. It is a conversation with materials, a conversation punctuated with all the surprises and uncertainty that really stimulating con-versation makes possible. In the arts, one looks for surprise that redefines goals; purposes are held flexibly. The aim is more than im-pressing into a material what you already know, but discovering what you don’t.

The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form, nor numbers exhaust what we can know. Put simply, the limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition. The reduction of knowing to the quantifiable and the lit-eral is too high a price to pay for defining the conditions of knowledge. What we come to know through literature, poetry and the arts is not reducible to the literal.

The arts teach students that small difference can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties. Paying attention to subtleties is not typically a dominant mode of perception in the ordinary course of our lives. We typically see in order to recognize rather than to explore the nuances of a visual field; how many of us have really seen the façade of our own house? I suspect few. One test is to try to draw it. We tend to look at our house or for our house in order to know if we have arrived home, or to decide if it needs to be painted, or to determine if anyone’s there. Seeing its visual qualities and their relation-ships is much less common.

The arts teach students to think through and within a material.

All art forms employ some means through which images become real. In music it is patterned sound; in dance, it is the expressive move-ment of a dancer in motion; in the visual arts it is visual form on a canvas, a block of granite, a sheet of aluminum; in theater it’s a com-plex of speech, movement and set. Each of these art forms uses materials that impose upon those using them a certain set of constraints.

They make certain demands. They also provide an array of affordances. Materials offer distinctive opportunities. To realize such opportuni-

ties, the child must be able to convert a material into a medium. For this to occur, the child must learn to think within the affordances and constraints of a material and to employ techniques to make the conversion of a material into a medium possible. A material is not the same

as a medium or vice versa. Material is the stuff you work with. A medium is something that mediates choices, decisions, ideas, and images that the individual has. The problem for the child is to take some material and think within the constraints and affordances of that material

the shape that image needs to take.

Part II continued in our February Newsletter. For more information, contact the National Art Education Association: 1916 Association Drive, Reston, VA 20191. Call (703) 860-8000 or visit www.naea-reston.org.


When I write, I:

(V) Am concerned how neat and well spaced my letters and words

are

(A) Often say the letters and words to myself.

(K) Push hard on my pen or pencil and feel the flow of the words

or letters.

If I had to remember a list of items, I would remember it best if I:

(V) Wrote them down.

(A) Said them over and over to myself.

(K) Moved around and used my fingers to name each item.

I prefer teachers who:

(V) Use the board or overhead project.

(A) Talk with a lot of expression.

(K) Use hands-on activities.

When solving a problem, I

(V) Write or draw diagrams to see it.

(A) Talk myself through it.

(K) Use my entire body or move object to help me think.

Scoring instructions: Add the number of responses for each letter

and enter the total. The area with the highest number of re-

sponses is probably your primary mode of learning.

The Teaching Assistants’ Corner

By Dee Dee Burt

Previously I talked about who and what a teaching assistant does. I also

discussed the different learning styles. Would you like to know how you

learn best? If you’re curious take this little test. Remember, we do not fit

into just one category, we all learn differently depending on our strengths

and weaknesses, likes and dislikes.

(V) Visual, (A) Auditory, (K) Kinesthetic/Tactile

Learning Style Inventory (by Jonelle A. Beatrice)

If I have to learn how to do something, I learn best when:

(V) Watch someone show me how.

(A) Hear someone tell me how.

(K) Try to do it myself.

When I read, I often find that I:

(V) Visualize what I am reading in my mind’s eye.

(A) Read out loud or hear the words inside my head.

(K) Fidget and try to “feel” content.

When asked to give directions, I:

(V) See the actual place in my mind as I give directions or prefer to

draw them.

(K) Have to point or move my body as I give directions.

If I am unsure how to spell a word, I:

(V) Write it in order to determine if it looks right.

(A) Spell it out loud in order to determine if it sounds right.

(K) Write it in order to determine if it feels right.

P.O. Box 517

Nunda, New York, 14517 Phone: (585) 468-2541

KESHEQUA CENTRAL SCHOOL

Dalton Elementary Dalton, New York 14836 Phone: (585) 476-2234

Ami Hunt—Principal

1716 Church Street

Dalton, N Y 14836


'what a child can do today with assistance, she will be able to do by herself tomorrow'. Lev Vygotsky.

Coming in February

2/04 Merry-Go-Round Theater (KG) 9:15-10:15

2/05 Second Marking Period Ends

2/12 Report Cards go home

2/15 –2/17 Presidents’ Recess-No School

2/19 Merry-Go-Round Theater ( work-

shops/Classrooms. Gr. 3, 4, 5) 8:30-9:20am

Connect the Dots and Color Fun Page

KESHEQUA CENTRAL SCHOOL DALTON ELEMENTARY NEWS · 2017-12-04 · closed February 15 th through the...

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