Subscribing to the Online Community Groups

Dear Parents,

The Lower School administration uses the Online Community to communicate with our families.  Dr. Bianco and Mrs. Weinman's letters and Lower Division reminders are posted on a Lower Division blog. This is the school administration's main form of communication, so EVERYONE should subscribe. In order to have access, you will need to subscribe to the Lower Division blog. 

Directions:
First log into the Online Community. After logging into the Online Community, go to Community > Groups > Lower Division Group from the green menu bar. First, click on the icon "Join Group." Next, scroll down the page and click on the Subscribe button. This will send you e-mail alerts whenever Dr. Biano and Mrs. Weinman write a new blog post.

You may contact Anna Baralt at acb@shorecrest.org if you have forgotten your login information. Please watch this two-minute tutorial that explains how to subscribe to a blog.

Thanks!

Ms. Díaz Leroy

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

February 14, 2010 marked not only Valentine's Day, but also the Chinese New Year. Happy year of the Tiger! The second graders entertained Grandparents and Special Friends on February 5th with the traditional song Gong Xi, sung in both English and Chinese.

Tuned in to Technology

Students explored www.nyphilkids.org, a fun website run by the New York Philharmonic. Here you can learn about composers, musicians, conductors, and instruments. After reading about how "Mozart is in love," students explored the musical game room. Kindergartners stepped up to the SMARTBoard to play the memory game Music Match Composers. They were asked to match composer cards or listen to match musical motifs. Kindergartners also loved Music Match instruments in which they had to work in pairs to match instruments. I encourage all families who play at home to say the composer or instrument name out loud so students are familiar with their names and faces.

2nd Grade Song Writers

Second graders sang through the many verses of the traditional English tune A-Hunting We Will Go. Students then used rhyming words to create their own verses.  Second graders illustrated their song and recorded them in Garage Band. Nearly all of the second graders said their voice sounded "funny" when their heard their own recorded track!

First Grade Rhythm Makers

Firstgraders had a blast reading, clapping and writing rhythms. Students learned five different rhythms that included quarter notes, double eighth notes, and quarter rests. They then wrote these rhythms with rhythm markers on their beat strips. Great job first grade!

Getting Ready to Jam!

The fourth graders are getting ready for their grade level performance of We Haz Jazz. Students are seen here reading through their scripts focusing on vocal projection and expression. The show is sure to be a hit!

Kindergarteners Create Music

Kindergartners spent Monday learning music vocabulary. Boring? NO WAY! Class began with the question, "What is pitch?" (Not the pitch used in baseball, the one used in music.)

Pitch is used to describe how high or low a note sounds. Kindergartners described many high and low things we see every day-birds and beetles, clouds and grass. We explored high and low pitches by moving up or down with the notes of the slide whistle.

We then moved over to the SMARTBoard so we could see high and low pitches. Using the Sketch Pad at www.creatingmusic.com kindergartners drew the letters M, V, and W and listened to the sound of the letters. Take some time to explore this site with your child. I think you'll both have a ton of fun!