Quarter Two Off and Running!

Hi all:

Welcome back for another edition of the Specials Team's Quartly Newsletter. As a reminder we will post between these newsletters if something especially exciting is going on in the Specials world. We look forward to seeing you all when you are on campus for conferences.

PE:

Physical Education has had a great start for the 2015-2016 school year. Thanks for everyone's effort to Keep Our Kids Moving. Disc Sports unit has wrapped up but Extra Credit for all 4th -8th graders is good till Thanksgiving Break. Any student who goes out and plays 9 hole of Disc Golf at a local course will receive extra credit for 2nd Q. The Physical Education Dept. has several bags and discs for loan so don't feel the need to go out and buy a Disc. Please contact me if you need any information on this great family outdoors opportunity.

Our 2nd Quarter will look to get up and running with Cardio and the Mile Run for the Presidents Council on Physical Fitness and our Team Sport unit of study Lacrosse. Visitation has purchased school equipment so their is no need to have personal equipment brought to school.

Library:

Exiting times in the Library as our Annual Book Fair starts this week. See below for more info.

ANNUAL BOOK FAIR

Sunday, October 18 8-1:00

Monday, October 19 8-4:00

Tuesday, October 20 8-4:00

Wednesday, October 21 9:15-4:00

Thursday, October 22 8-8:00

Friday, October 23 9-3:00

For more information and to shop online visit:

http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/visitationschool

BOOK WEEK 2015

Each day 2 (K-3 and 4-8) book trivia questions will be read in the morning.

Winners will be announced at the end of the day.

We will have a reading theme each day.

Monday-”Get into the Reading Game” Students may wear a team or school jersey or T-shirt with their uniform.

Tuesday- Dress as a book character. Students may come to school dressed as a character from a book. We would like the students to choose an actual character ie Joe from the book Jim & Me by Dan Gutman and not just a baseball player because they read a book about a baseball team or player.

Wednesday- “Tip Your Hat to Reading” Students may wear a hat in school after Mass.

Thursday- “Slip into a Good Book” Students may bring and change into a pair of slippers to wear during the school day.

Art:

Mr. Casey continues to be hard at work assisting different grade levels and grade level parent volunteers gathering up supplies and producing wonderful class projects for the Auction. As always these are must see priceless items being sold at this year's School Auction.

We post pictures of student work from time to time on the website and in our newsletter blog so be sure to check back often and check out your artist's work.

Technology:

(K-3) First Quarter we focused heavily on familiarizing ourselves with the computers once again and getting back into our good typing habits. This year third grade has started using Typing Club to help give us more information on their accuracy and words-per-minute, which helps me to better assess our students typing progress. In K-2 we use BBC typing which is a fun interactive typing program that promotes the use of the home row keys. This quarter we will split our focus between activities that promote inquiry based learning (research) and internet safety.

(4) Now that we have established a basic knowledge of how to use google, gmail, and goolge classroom we are diving in to using all the wonderful tools Google Education provides such as: Google Docs, Google Slides and Google Sheets. We will continue our exploration of these tools into next quarter, while also focusing on internet safety.

(5-6) We are making our major focus of first semester looking at how to research, why we research and how do we use the information. First quarter we worked with Google Forms, Google Drawings and Padlet to create posters about KC Leaders and American Heroes. I have included links to the padlets below. Be sure to check back because as each student turns their assignment in our padlet grows! (Password: shamrock)

http://padlet.com/ejerome1/americanhero

http://padlet.com/ejerome1/kcleaders

(7-8) We continue to do great work in 7-8th grade electives this semester. In Publications we have gotten off to a very strong start with the yearbook and our school newspaper The Shamrock continues to impress students and staff every other week. In coding class we have moved from the Jr. High course in Code.Org to Khan Academy's Computer Programing curriculum. We continue to do unpluged activies that cover topics such as: Binary Code, Algorithms and If/Then Statements. In Intro to Design I am constantly impressed and astounded by our students work. Most recently each student designed and laid out their own 300 sq ft. Tiny Home.

Music (k-4):

Hello all, we are getting ready to start practice for the Christmas program and working hard on our recorders in the older grades. So far we are off to a great start and I am enjoying my time here at Visitation getting to know the students and parents.

Music (5-8):

Hello- Just a reminder to check the music website for all information and up-to-date announcements for 5-8 Music.

Spanish:

Bienvenidos! Que tal?

For second quarter, please continue to follow your child's grade level study guide so your child will be prepared for Spanish class. This helps them develop a background knowledge needed when participating in our conversational-style language class.

In Kindergarten to Second grade we are continuing to read the wide variety of cultural and bilingual books the Plaza Library has to offer. We are singing more bilingual songs during carpet time and spelling Spanish words with Spanish letters. You tube has great videos of the Spanish alphabet if you want to help your child. Also, you can start helping them spell words like "gato" (cat) and "perro" (dog). If they want to spell more words in Spanish, you can use the words from their grade level vocabulary list. Please remember to have them spell with the Spanish alphabet and not the English.

In Third and Fourth grade we are reading popular Spanish books such as Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Hurricanes, The Librarian from the Black Lagoon, and more. We were fortunate enough to have a class set of 5 popular books in Spanish donated to the classroom. The students love to volunteer to read the Spanish. It is really neat to see them want to engage in this challenge!

In Fifth and Sixth grade we are finishing our culture films of the Day of the Dead and Mexican Culture based in Mexico City. The objective here is for students to constantly hear the sounds of the Spanish language and then later apply that to our reading and speaking. Fifth and Sixth grade will also have more quizlet.com practice to do at home. If they are having trouble with this, please send me an email.

Also, please remind your child that when Spanish class is difficult, that means they are getting smarter and learning more! In class, I try to praise the process students take to overcome the academic obstacles such as their grit, strategy, focus, and effort, rather than talent or right answers. Research has found this to be a much more effective way to teach students how to confront challenges long-term.

Lastly, please visit my Spanish class website for help with pronunciation, videos, websites to visit, apps to download, songs, copy of the grade level study guides, prayers, and more. www.VisitationSpanish.weebly.com

Hasta luego!