April Electives News

• PE has been very busy lately! We have Fitnessgram testing going on (sit-ups, mile run, push-ups). We will also be getting heights and weights in the very near future.
  

• Students have been working on jump rope and rhythm skills. They have done regular jump rope, participated in Learning the Ropes contest, long rope jumping, and chinese jump ropes. We hope to start using jump bands soon, if they come in on time. Students are also working on basketball skills: passing, dribbling, and shooting. Soon, we will begin an outdoor unit focusing on Kuub, Bocce Ball, Croquet, cornhole, soccer, softball/baseball, and track events.

• Fitness club will be participating in the Bluebonnet Parade Saturday, April 6th, and will be performing before and after the parade. The performance before will be in the high school parking lot and after will be at the La Vernia City Park. We'd love for you to come and see all we have been working on!

• Pickleball Club will continue alternating Mondays between Group 1 and Group 2. Information on Glow in the dark pickleball for 5th grade will be coming soon.

• The last vocab test will be in a couple of weeks. Please make sure your child is reviewing the 3rd and 4th 9 weeks information.

* Remember to check out your child's art for our fundraiser at Art to Remember! The deadline to order is April 4, 2024. One final paper reminder with a QR code should reach you soon. Visit arttoremember.com for all orders. Please do not send cash or checks to the school. Shipping to the school is free if ordered by the due date.

Thank you all for supporting our art program!

* The National Art Educators Association Big Art Day was a hit! We had a great time dodging the raindrops in the shade while decorating the sidewalk with chalk. Thank you Officer Cordova, for keeping us safe while we played.

* We have all been busy working on additions to the Fine Arts Extravaganza and plastic art for the McNay Spotlight project.

* Shout out to all the kids helping save Earth one plastic piece at a time. Let us remember every day is Earth Day for artists!

If you would like to view ALL of the winning artwork from this year's Paint to Music contest, click on this link to see them on the Symphony League's website. ALL 3rd grade students at our school participated in this contest and we had 5 receive recognition, which is incredible!

Music Amazon Wish List

• 4th Graders are preparing for their "LOL" program in April. Click the attached links to view the pdf file with more information about each program.
  

  • Pod 1 will perform on Tuesday, April 2nd - Mulle, McDougald, Lear, Hajek, Bullard, Pruski, and Soto's classes.

  • Pod 2 will perform on Thursday, April 4th - Stolowski, Stanush, Zatopek, Morin, Kosub, Engelke, and Dylla's classes.
  • Both performances start at 6:00pm in the Intermediate Cafeteria. All students will be featured on ukulele in this performance.

• 5th Grade and Ukulele club will be performing at the Fine Arts Extravaganza in May!
  

• Extra ukulele practices are available for students on the following mornings: Tuesday, 7a.m. on the stage (Ukulele club members only), Wednesday, 7a.m. on the stage (any 4th graders)

Technology Amazon Wish List

• All three grades continue to practice keyboarding skills every time they visit the computer lab.
• Vocabulary words your student should be able to tell you about:
• 3rd graders: code, loops, debug, algorithm
• 4th graders: events, event handlers, counter, iteration
• 5th graders: blocks, sprites, conditionals, else, else if
• 3rd grade is continuing their Code.org puzzles, and are learning how to use the "Dance Party" feature to combine the many coding skills they have learned this year.
• 4th grade has been continuing their Code.org "Dance Party" creations, and will begin reviewing Online Safety tips, as well as for most of April and May they'll do an "animal changes" unit using BrainPOP and Code.org to connect what they are learning in their science classes with coding in a really fun way!
• 5th grade has begun a new section of Code.org called the "Sprite Lab" to learn to make actual interactive programs! We'll continue this further, and will also do a neat Cyber Security unit from BrainPOP where they will even get to make their own digital movies online, using all the skills they have learned this year. Topics partners could have for their films will be Basic Online Safety, Digital Etiquette, Information Privacy, Cyberbullying, or Social Media. Once their films are created, we will have a "Film Festival" celebration, where the top student-voted videos from each class will have an opportunity to be voted on by the entire 5th grade class! The top three videos over all will be shared with the whole school to help reinforce making safe choices online.

If your child is wanting to access their Code.org projects at home, remind them to follow these steps.

1) Go to Code.org - either from the Digital Den, or just by typing in code.org in the address bar.

2) Click sign in - in the top right corner of the screen

3) Click the green "Continue With Google" button

4) Click on your name (if this doesn't auto-connect, use the steps below to log in to Google!)

5) Click "continue"

6) Once your puzzles show up, you can then click on your name and click on "My Projects," OR click on the "Projects" tab at the top. Your project will be at the bottom of that page, once it loads.

BE SURE YOU CLICK ON YOUR NAME AND CLICK SIGN OUT WHEN YOU ARE DONE OR YOUR WORK WILL BE LOST!!!! It auto-saves WHEN you log out!

Anytime your child needs to log in to a website using their Google account, but the Digital Den is "down," or maybe you're just not able to connect to it for whatever reason, their Google email address is their LUNCHNUMBER@lvschools.net. Their password is their lunch number, an UPPERCASE first letter of their first name, and then a lowercase first letter of their last name.

FOR EXAMPLE, using my initials (this account does not exist)

username:

010101@lvschools.net

password:

010101Ch