Art - Krista Geier and Marie Yarnell

Music - Amy Hiel and Rebekah Knitt

Physical Education - Jacob Breunig and Seth Kostroski

Email: contact@saukprairieschools.org
Website: www.saukprairieschools.org

This newsletter is to help you stay connected to what is happening in the Grand Avenue Specials. The Specials are composed of Music, Art and Physical Education. We hope that you find the information useful and please feel free to contact your student's Specials teacher with questions or concerns.

WHAT WE'VE BEEN WORKING ON:

Fifth Grade: 5th grade artists have been creating an embroidery project on plastic canvas. Each artist designed their own pattern and then selected stitch styles that would work the best for their design. Look for these projects to come home before winter break, and check our social media pages for pictures of artists hard at work!

Fourth Grade: 4th grade artists have been creating clay gnomes. Each artist designed their gnome and then created their plan out of clay. Artists learned how to create a 3D shape out stacked pinch pots and continued to develop techniques that are used when creating sculptures with clay.

Third Grade: As we transition into December artists are finishing their Keith Haring projects or taking a break from weaving and creating clay snowmen! During the clay project artists will learn how to create a slab of clay, mold or sculpt clay and paint small details. A special thank you to GSPIE for the funds to cover the clay cost.

Did you know the Sauk Prairie K-12 Art Department has a Facebook page? Like us to get announcements for upcoming events and pictures of what we are doing in class!

Monday, January 13th @ 6:00 p.m.- 3rd Grade Family Folk Dance Night at Grand Avenue

Thursday, February 6th @ 6:00 p.m.-5th Grade Concert at Grand Avenue

Thursday, March 13th @ 7:00 p.m.- District-Wide Choralpalooza Concert at the High School

Tuesday May 6th @ 6:00- 3rd Grade Concert at Grand Avenue

Thursday, May 15th- 4th Grade Field Trip to Overture Center for the Link Up Concert

Wednesday, May 21st- 5th Grade Chorus Field Trip to perform at Bridges Elementary

Thursday, May 22nd @ 7:00 p.m.- 5th Grade Chorus to sing at Middle School Spring Concert

3rd Grade musicians have been learning to read and perform sixteenth note rhythms, began our ukulele unit, and have been doing lots of folk dancing. We can't wait to share some of our dances with you at Family Folk Dance Night in January!

4th Grade musicians at Grand spent the month of November working on our ukulele skills. We also worked on our ensemble skills, learning a Xylophone arrangement for a song called "Ghost of John". In December we will keep working on expanding our repertoire of ukulele chords and strumming patterns, and learn how to square dance!

5th Grade musicians prepared for the Veterans Day Assembly, learning the Star Spangled Banner, songs for each branch of the military, and a song called "Soldier, This Song I Sing For You". We talked a lot about performance etiquette and the importance of being respectful during performances like these.

We have now started preparing for the Grand Avenue 5th Grade Concert, which will be held on Thursday February 6th at 6:00 p.m. This concert will showcase performances from the 5th Grade Chorus, Orff Ensemble, and full group performance from all Grand Avenue 5th Grade Students.

• What We've Been Working On:

  We have been focusing on assessing our overall fitness. Our goal is for students to recognize their areas of strength and weakness and know how to work to improve their fitness. The areas of fitness we focus on are listed below with the assessment we use to monitor that area.

  1. Cardiovascular Endurance - Pacer Test
  2. Flexibility - Sit and Reach Test
  3. Muscular Strength - Push-up Test
  4. Muscular Endurance - Curl-up Test

  
  

  What's Coming Up:

  • We are finishing any fitness assessments we didn't get done and will start our jump rope unit. Benefits of jumping rope include; improved cardiovascular endurance, increased bone density, and enhanced agility.
  • The week before winter break we will have the annual Winter Wonderland Stations set up in the gym! This way everyone will get to enjoy these stations twice.
  • We will begin our Exhaustive Gymnastics unit when we return from break