March Private School Newsletter

Verse of the Month

Letter writing became authentic and meaningful after our guest speakers, Mr. Mike and Mr. Rich, visited with their ROCKET collection!

Their presentation was so motivational and such an exciting culminating activity for our Forces in Motion Unit. The kids wanted to show their thankfulness using their newly acquired letter-writing skills! The results were fantastic and much enjoyed by our wonderful guest speakers!

We are currently blending our comprehension strategies, writing, and social studies skills to compare and contrast George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. This multi-disciplinary approach really motivates students and makes great use of our time in class.

Our little ones have been working on short vowel sounds in word families. In March, we will be starting our fairy tales unit! Reading has become a routine at home for all of our students and we all enjoy listening to our youngest readers as they apply phonics to read entire sentences on their own! Such diligent little word detectives! In March, our older students will be writing persuasive essays and compare and contrast essays. We will also begin our verbs unit in grammar!

In Math, older students are dividing by two-digit numbers to find quotients (answers) with multiple digits. They can solve problems using both long division and the short form. Younger students are taking a first look at fractions and Racing to 100 using their new place value skills!

Our Fun Fridays are being used to complete a giant timeline of early American History! Students will increase their sense of time and space between events and use the timelines as a reference as we move from life as a new country into the Civil War era in March.

March will also bring many exciting opportunities for students to showcase their problem-solving skills using the Guess and Check method, making organized lists, and working backward to find unknown variables in problems. Looking forward to springing ahead into so much new learning this month!

-with Mrs. Nancy-

The Parables of Jesus have been our focus this month. Students have enjoyed using pictures, graphic organizers, and games to understand the message of each one, but the most preferred activity by far has been the role-play of modern-day skits which have added tremendous understanding, as well as a sprinkle of humor, to our Bible study. After our initial activities, we settle in and read the words of Jesus from the Bible and talk about His message to us. The students understand that these stories are the method Jesus chose to teach us about choices we should make and how we should live as Christians. During our conversation after the lesson, I get a little peek into their hearts. After our lesson on the house built on rock and the house built on sand, one short conversation summed up student learning: I asked, “After thinking about this parable, what do you think Jesus’s message is to you?” A student answered, “I think He is saying that if we want to walk closely with Him and have a strong faith foundation, we should spend more time reading the Bible than we do watching TV or playing video games.” The faith of a child is so simple, pure, and real. These kids amaze me!

-Miss Evana-

We learned a lot of new songs in February that will follow us through the next month and until graduation. We now have three ensemble songs with light choreography that we will continue to polish over the next few months. This month, my class was so excited to finally be assigned their solo pieces that they will be individually coached and graded on in a final performance for their peers before they perform in front of the family. The excitement was in the air the day we found out our songs; it was a great day in voice class! Every student has performed their song with the help of the choir but should be working towards memorization at home so they can start performing solo.

Big news for my piano class: we are officially done with numbers and our first book and have moved on to letters and our second book. We are turning every finger number into a letter one by one now by making each new letter with clay and placing it on the corresponding piano key in different games we learn in class. Each song is learned with the class and practiced independently, then awarded a special sticker when it is successfully performed. Once these letters are solidified, we will move on to learning notes in the next month and begin to work on rhythm!

-Mr. Edgar-

A well-known song from the 1970s called "Lean on Me" is now being studied in our music/piano class. This music, which to the untrained ear simply sounds like a great melody with wonderful lyrics, has taken on the role of a teacher for the children. While everyone in the class is playing a distinct part, the complicated rhythms require our students to count aloud (which is crucial to play any song correctly) and cooperate as a group. Some students are given particular cues to sing or clap while they play; this is not a simple task since, if you are not paying attention, you might quickly get lost. As there will be an exam in the last week of February that will cover all we have taught, we have been studying terminology for the past three weeks. In March we will continue studying “Lean on Me.” Your children are incredible and extremely talented. It’s a joy to instruct them.

-Mr. Jacob-

In February we started learning our new piano piece Lean On Me. This piece uses those skills we've been developing such as being able to play an individual part in an ensemble, playing with two hands, and listening as we play. This is a challenging song and the students are making great progress. In addition, we have been learning some of the basics of music theory and preparing for a test at the end of the month. The students have learned the fundamentals of musical terms and symbols and they are learning how we build chords. I can't wait for them to show off that knowledge over the coming months!

-Mr. Nicholas-

In the month of February, the students and I made great leaps in their classroom education skills along with their technical proficiency at the barre. A very critical component of a student's ballet training is that they become adept at barre work before they move on to learning intermediate center steps. The students are ready to move up their training into classical center work! The students are coming a long way in such a short amount of time, and in March we will begin a new class syllabus that will include training on pirouettes, leaps, and center tondu to name a few out of the many things we will be working on together! I am so proud of all the student's hard work thus far. February was a tremendous success and I'm eagerly looking toward the future of their training in the month of March!

-Miss Jackie-

This month the students are continuing to work on their ballet training and growing in their understanding of how to execute each step properly. We have slowed everything down this year and have been making our technique our main priority because we know this is how we will improve, not only in Ballet but in all of our other dance forms as well. We have been spending much time focusing on the shape placement and articulation of the foot and ankle in various dance steps, specifically the Tendu.

In addition to developing our technique, we have been continuing our work to strengthen our ballet terminology.

Dancers have been learning to:

Identify each term visually
Spell each term orally from memory
Execute each term properly; I am looking for specific things depending on the student's age/developmental stage
Define each term

Students will be taking a written and oral assessment called a "SWYK" (Show What You Know) at the end of March to evaluate their progress. We will continue to be working on this during our class time together.

Our focus this month: Articulation- Foot & Ankle shape in Tendu

Tendu means to STRETCH
The demi-point is where the toes meet the ball of the foot. It is important that we pass through this position as we present and close in our Tendu
Toes should extend long in our Tendu position
Use the floor!-- While pressing down to the floor, work your foot to demi-point and then press into a full-point extension.
The top of your ankle should feel stretched and long. It is the peak of your Tendu.
The arch of your foot should be fully engaged

Question of the month: When initiating a Tendu, what is the very first part of your foot that leads this?

Looking forward: Students will continue to experiment with foot articulation in other steps such as Dégagé and Rond de Jambe, as well as continue preparing for their SWYK.

-Miss Lyndsey-

In Tap Dance, we worked on a combo in tap consisting of heel, ball change, 2x heel, hop, shuffle step. We worked slow at first and now most of the students can do it full out. They all have been working very hard on this combo. We have been adding on to our recital dance, as well as, incorporating the props we will be using for recital. When the prop hats came in, the kids were so excited! For March in theatre we will start our lesson on puppetry, and for dance we will continue to work on our Spring recital dance, as well as, a new tap move called, Bombershays.

For the month of February in theatre, we continued working on our set design projects. We finalized our drafts and presented them to the class. The students had a blast with this project!