Friday, October 31, 2014

October Ends


 




 


Happy Halloween!  The Delaney PTO Halloween bash last week was full of spooky costumes, monster mini golf, ghost bowling, and great dancing.  It has been rumored that the principal remembered how to do the chicken dance!   This week was quite busy again with lots of learning, many scary classroom activities, and the PTO book fair.  Here are some of the highlights:

 

 






















 

 
 

Principal’s coffee Date correction: Friday November 14, 2014

 


 



Parent Teacher Conferences:         Monday November 24th    12-3    

                                                      Tuesday November 25th    5-8
 
Noon dismissal both days!

 

 

School Council Meeting   Tuesday November 4th, 3:00, Roderick Office
 
 
 
 
 
Delaney School would like to thank the Wrentham Lion's Club for their generous donation to the health office in support of all children and for purchasing a new table and chairs for the health office.
We are much appreciative.



 

 

 



School Spirit Day  Friday November 7, 2014  

Wrentham Food Pantry donations  November 3rd-7th

“Express Yourself” by wearing something that shows your favorite sport or hobby

 





 
 


 

Please send in box tops. They translate into money that the PTO uses for events for the students and teachers. 

 



 


 Please join director Joshua O. Wolloff and the
King Philip Marching Band for a free performance of
“On The Town” and wish them well on their trip to the
US Bands Nationals at Met Life Stadium.
Admission is free and refreshments will be provided by the
King Philip Music Association
Saturday, November 1, 2014 at 6pm
King Philip Regional High School
201 Franklin Street, Wrentham
 
 

 


 
From Mrs. Mariotti


Here is what we learned during October…

Composer of the Month is….Edvard Grieg

Kindergarten: This month we explored with our voices. We learned how music has pitch and can be high (like a witch) or low (like a ghost). We used pipe cleaners to make sound shapes. Each student would match the pitch of their voice to the shape of their pipe cleaner. We are learning that high and low pitches are different from volume. This is tricky for kindergartners. Any sound can be loud or soft no matter its pitch. We have played lots of high and low games where we have to match our bodies with the pitch while Mrs. Mariotti plays different low and high sounds. Sometimes the kindergarteners get to compose the music and chose which sounds to make. It has been a lot of fun! We have sang lots of songs about the fall such as; “Have you ever seen an apple?”, “What Falls in the Fall?” by Laurie Berkner, and “Five little Pumpkins”. We listened to a song story called “Wizard’s Brew”. As we added various ingredients into our “brew”, our voices would change. The children really loved this song. One of our favorite games have been “Pumpkin, Pumpkin”. We sing a little song and magically change our bodies from pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns. Finally, we watched a puppet show called, “Peer Gynt” by the famous composer Edvard Grieg. It is based on a Norwegian fairy tale. Edvard Grieg is our new composer for October.

 

Composer of the Month is….Edvard Grieg

First Grade: October has been a busy month! We began by learning about long and short sounds (rhythm). We got to make patterns of “Ta” and “ti-ti” rhythms while singing the song “Cuckoo” and “October”. We also learned about melody. The melody is the part we would hum or whistle. We learned that melody can move up, down or stay the same. We pretended our voices were the wind and ghosts. We sang expressively as we made a mini play to the song “Five Little Pumpkins”. We added feeling with our facial expressions and our voice. Once we had the song down, we could add a xylophone for the wind sound effect. It sounded pretty good! We also loved playing the singing game, “Pumpkin, Pumpkin.” One person is the wizard and will sing the song with a magic wand (a mallet) and turn the class into jack-o-lanterns. We listened to a song story called “Wizard’s Brew”. As we add various ingredients into our “brew”, our voices would change. Each child made their own “Wizard’s Brew” by adding ingredients to change their song. We explored with our voices again while playing the singing game, “Hey Old Ghost”. We played lots of instruments this month such as; finger cymbals, xylophone, guiros and shakers. We also listened to music by a Norwegian composer named, Edvard Grieg. We found Norway on our map. Grieg was really proud to be Norwegian. He loved to compose music about famous stories and sights in Norway. We listened to “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and found long and short sounds while tapping to a listening map. Wow! We really did a lot this month!

 

 

Composer of the Month is….Edvard Grieg

Second Grade: This month we focused on two musical concepts: duration in rhythm and pitch. Second graders have mastered quarter and eighth note rhythms, so we added two new ones this month: quarter rest and half note. We have discovered that rhythm is a lot like fractions. A half note (ta-a) is held for two beats. It is twice as long as a quarter note, which gets one beat. A quarter note (ta) is twice as long as a single eighth note. Each eighth note (ti) gets a half of a beat. We often say them in pairs (ti-ti). It sounds pretty confusing, but I am always amazed how kids learn this so quickly! We played a rhythm game called, “Snakes and Ladders”. It is like the game “Chutes and Ladders”. We roll a musical dice and will move our game piece however many spots that note is held for. (Ex. Roll a quarter note and you will move one place. Roll a half note and move two places.) We also made rhythms while creating musical spider webs. Every web had eight measures and each measure would add up to two beats. It was fun playing these rhythms on the guiros. We also played a rhythmic game called “Riddle, Riddle, Riddle, Ree” and made rhythms (sway, clap and tip-toe) using our bodies. We also learned about pitch (the “highness” or “lowness” of a sound). Each music class begins with a “Mystery Pitch”. I play a short melody on the xylophone, and then the children need to guess what pitches I played. We then pass around my “musical phone” (made out of pcv pipe) to better hear our voices. We learned that a melody can move up, down or stay the same. We have learned; “so”, “mi”, “la”, “fa” and “re”. We find these pitches in our songs, “Sarasponda”, “Skin and Bones”, “Wind up the Apple Tree” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. We reviewed the musical alphabet (A,B,C,D,E,F,G) while exploring on xylophones. We made musical words such as “E,G,G” or “D,A,D” and then played those words on the xylophones. We also learned about Edvard Grieg (a composer from Norway) and followed a tapping listening guide to Grieg’s famous song, “In the Hall of the Mountain King”.


Composer of the Month is….Edvard Grieg

Third Grade: This month we focused on learning how to read music notes. We learned that music is written on a staff. The staff has five lines and four spaces. Every note is either a line note or a space note. To help us read music, there are “sayings” to identify the different notes. We learned that the line note saying is “Every, Good, Boy, Deserves, Fudge”. We learned that the space note sayings spell the word “F, A, C, E”. We also discovered that the words “space” and “face” rhyme. When we read the notes, we need to count up the lines or spaces to find the letter. We practiced this in lots of ways. We laid a giant staff on the floor and took turns hopping on the lines and spaces of the staff. We also put bean bags on the various lines and spaces to identify the various notes. Students were given a Pre-Test to assess their prior knowledge and will be assessed again in early December to show student learning. I am confident that every student will improve their understanding of reading music. Their brains just soak it all in! It’s amazing to me! We also learned that music has an alphabet just like our regular alphabet. We discovered that it starts off the same (A, B, C, D, E, F, G), but learned that the musical alphabet only has seven letters. We were able to explore with the musical alphabet using the xylophones and could even make words with the musical alphabet (E,G,G or D,A,D). We practiced reading notes while learning the song, “Skin and Bones”. First, we labeled each note with its letter name. After all the notes were labeled correctly, we were able to play the song on the xylophone. Learning how to read music is a vital step in playing the recorder. As a reminder, all recorder forms are due. The recorder unit will begin in December.


 


 

 

More Reading by Senator Ross last week!



 
 
 Our special visitors had a great day!
A special thanks to our PTO volunteers, Delaney School Specialists and Paraprofessionals and Luciano's Lake Pearl.











 
 
 
The PTO book fair has been very busy this week.  There have been many happy faces walking through our halls with  anticipation of reading their new selections!

 


 
 

 

Don’t forget to fall back and set your clocks!
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thank you for reading and viewing!

Colleen C. Wagstaff
Delaney Principal