ARONIMINK IN ACTION

In honor of Earth Day, a group of Aronimink students worked with Tree Tenders of Upper Darby to have a new tree planted on the Aronimink field. The students helped plant the tree and heard a brief lesson about how trees are important to our environment.

Thank you to Mrs. King who organized this memorable learning experience for all. We are hoping this becomes another Aronimink tradition, or TREE-DITION, to add to the beauty of the school while helping the environment.

5th graders had the opportunity to tour the middle schools, led by former Aronimink students—which made the experience especially meaningful. The visit helped build excitement as students look ahead to the next phase of their education.

Fourth-grade math finds students honing their geometry skills. Lines, rays, and angles…oh my!

Those are only a few of the geometric figures students are learning about. Rhombus, trapezoid, and quadrilaterals, too! Students are also learning to use a protractor to measure angles and identify acute, obtuse, or right angles on sight.

In ELA, students continue to fine-tune their essay-writing skills. Students are learning to incorporate sources into their writing to cite evidence. Learning to use quotation marks when directly quoting a source is an imperative skill to avoid plagiarizing material. Also, learning to paraphrase or put facts into our own words is another skill students are incorporating into their writing.

Social Studies continues by learning about the peopling of the United States, then focusing on the region we call home, the Northeast. Students will explore how people came to populate North America and eventually the United States. Then, we will focus on the unique features of the 11 states that make up the Northeast region.

Third graders have been learning a lot in their Biodome Science unit. Below are pictures from Miss Lee's class polinating flowers.

Third Graders were treated to water ice and pretzels for beating the teachers in a Jeopardy game to gear up for the PSSA's. Thank you to Mrs. Elgart and Mr. Walden for organizing and provide this amazing treat!

This last month in 2nd grade students have enjoyed learning many new and exciting things! In ELA, students have been practicing reading and writing words such as -ar words, -air, -ear, and --are words and words with two syllables in a vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel pattern. We have also learned about how everyone has a story through books about different people's lives like I am Helen Keller and The Stories He Tells: The Story of Joseph Bruchac. Students continue to develop skills like identifying the central idea of a story and finding details to support ideas or facts in a story.

In math students have continued to work with 3-digit numbers. We moved from adding to subtracting these numbers this past month which allowed students to practice several new strategies. They also got to learn about measuring with inches, feet and yards, as well as centimeters and meters. They have just completed their third benchmark test of the year and are looking forward to learning about shapes next!

In science, we are learning all about materials and their properties. Students had the opportunity to observe and compare different materials. They determined if objects were hard or soft, flexible or not flexible, absorbent vs. non-absorbent or weak or strong. In small groups students build towers out of various materials to test their strength when subjected to weight. They were eager to see which materials would hold up under the pressure!

We are looking forward to a fun and eventful month ahead as we move into the warmer months and create some final, lasting memories here in second grade!

This month, our first-grade scientists have been exploring the fascinating world of light, shadows, and reflection. Through a lesson called Shadowtown, students were challenged to help solve a real-world problem faced by the town of Rjukan, Norway. Rjukan experiences shade for nearly six months each year, and our young scientists were tasked with finding a way to bring sunlight back to the town.

Along the way, students investigated their own shadows, explored how light interacts with different materials by learning about transparent, translucent, and opaque objects, and discovered how light can be reflected. Using their observations and new knowledge, students worked creatively and collaboratively to design solutions by demonstrating curiosity, critical thinking, and the true spirit of scientific inquiry.

Kindergarten has been busy learning and having fun this month. After over 150 days in school we are ready to start to show what we know! We are learning to do lots of things on our own! You can see us trying to learn to tie our own shoes, read decodable text and manipulate shapes!

EL students celebrated both the arrival of spring AND poetry month in April.

Ms. Delemitas's EL students made a bulletin board with flowers showing things they like to do in spring.

Color Day May Day- Friday, May 15!

What is Color Day May Day?

Color Day is the event that takes place during school hours where the students come outside at a predetermined time to compete in relay races.

Timeline:

9:30 a.m - 11:15 a.m. -

AM Kindergarten, first, second, and third grade students will compete in relay races.

1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. -

PM Kindergarten, fourth and fifth grade students will compete in relay races

What to wear? Students must wear sneakers and any clothing that has purple or yellow. Any type of Aronimink spirit wear shirt is recommended.

May Day is the event that takes place after school that begins at 4:00 where students must be accompanied by a parent. The home and school association will have food for sale, an inflatable obstacle course, games and activities for all. There is an admission fee but if you volunteer to help out, your family gets in for free!

This month in the library, students explored nonfiction text features. Using nonfiction books, they learned how to locate and use headings, captions, diagrams, photographs, illustrations, the table of contents, the index, and the glossary. These skills help students better understand and navigate informational texts, as many grades are working on research in their classrooms.

Our 5th-grade artists have been working on their Initial Clay Tiles! Students had a great time rolling out clay slabs and forming coils to build their initials. Along the way, they learned important techniques such as scoring and attaching clay pieces. They also explored a variety of textures to personalize their tiles and make each one unique.

Nice job, 5th grade! I can’t wait to see these pieces come to life once they are glazed!

April was a very busy month for the music department! We loved hearing the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students in the orchestra, band, and chorus perform in our spring concert. 5th grade students are preparing now to write their own songs using classroom instruments and music technology. 4th grade students are preparing to sing at the 5th grade moving up ceremony. 3rd grade students are wrapping up their recorder playing and moving to the beat with jump bands. 2nd and 1st grade students are learning new songs and reading rhythms with rhythm sticks, egg shakers, and more! Finally, Kindergarten students are getting ready to sing at their moving up ceremony in June!

The Challenge Corner

(Gifted Support Team: Ms. Cleary and Mrs. Donahue)

Riddle of the Month:

April showers bring May flowers, but what do Mayflowers bring?

Answer here: Riddle of the Month Answer Form

STEM Challenge: National Star Wars Day: May the 4th be with you.

Droids are all over the Star Wars galaxy but these are really just another word for robots! These robots are programmed to do all sorts of things from flying ships to being servants to everything in between. In Kodable, Carebots are similar to droids because they are robots that follow specific commands to accomplish tasks. These tasks include feeding and cleaning Kodable puppies.

Teach your students the basics of functions and conditional statements to help them train their Carebots to take care of puppies in our online Robots and Puppies activity. After this STEM activity you can talk about popular Star Wars droids and have students explain what conditions they use for their behavior.