February/March Electives News

• 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders have been learning pickleball. We finished up pickleball tournaments last week.
• 4th and 5th have also begun pickleball club after school, which will be ongoing til almost the end of the year.
• We have started some of our Fitnessgram tests. We start with our shoulder reach and trunk lift tests and progress to the sit-up and push-up tests. We will end with our mile run. These tests won’t be completed until mid May.
• Last week, we took our 3rd vocabulary test - students have learned 5 muscles and what they do! 5th grade has also learned 5 bones.
• Jumping rope will be our next unit.
  

• Students are working on their fundraiser art - look for more information coming home very soon!

• We learned about Chinese New Year (it's the year of the Dragon!) and made paper chain dragons.

• We are also learning about Pop Art - lines, colors, and perspectives

• And making Op Art with fun eye-popping designs!

Music Amazon Wish List

• 3rd Grade is taking a Music field trip to hear the San Antonio Philharmonic perform “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Permission slips for this trip have been sent home. Students have been learning about the famous composer, Mussorgsky and his music through listening and paper plate routines!

• 4th grade is preparing for a music program that will be after Spring Break at the Intermediate. They are practicing lots of ukulele and learning some silly songs for our “LOL (laugh out loud)” performance! More details to follow…

• 5th graders have started playing recorder in class. They are working hard on reading music and naming notes. A special thank you to Victoria Myers for donating some new recorders for students in need. These students will have a program in May for the Fine Arts Extravaganza at the high school to close out the year.

• Ukulele clubs have started and are doing an excellent job. We have two groups of 4th/5th graders meeting on Wednesdays. A special thank you to Mrs. Dylla, Mrs. Olivarez, and Mrs. Elley for joining also! Check out some video highlights of their practices on our school Facebook page.

Technology Amazon Wish List

• All three grades continue to practice keyboarding skills every time they visit the computer lab.
• Thanks to a new push from the state for technology vocabulary instruction, I'm making sure that students in each grade level have visuals and lots of opportunities to hands-on practice some coding vocabulary. Your student should already be able to tell you about:
• 3rd graders: code, loops, and debug
• 4th graders: events and event handlers
• 5th graders: blocks and sprites
• 3rd grade has been working on Code.org puzzles using debugging and looping skills, going at their own pace and receiving 1-1 instruction when they get confused. They are learning about the term algorithm, and how algorithms aren't just on computers, but are an important part of every day life.
• 4th grade has used the Code.org "dance party" blank screen code creator to practice setting up events (ask your child to show you their "moose dance" - it's easy to access at home by clicking on the "my projects" option once they click on their name in the top left of the screen). Look for them to be learning the vocabulary words iteration and counter starting this next week!
• 5th grade has used BrainPop to create a game using multiple sprites. Look for them to begin learning about conditionals and learning these new vocabulary words - conditional, else, and else if.
• Coding Club is off to a fabulous start! Coders have completed puzzles, played games, and even started working with coding actual motherboards at our most recent meeting! Coding club is a by-invitation-only club that was offered to specially selected 4th and 5th grade students based on their classroom performance and completion of specific tasks on Code.org, which were available to ALL 4th and 5th grade students to complete, had they been interested in participating in the club.

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