Trimester One Unified Arts Reports

Here are the Art, Music and PE trimester reports for your reading pleasure.

Unified Arts Report
Trimester One
Grade One


ART: Throughout history, the visual arts have served to connect our imaginations with that which make us human. Works of art reflect human feelings, values and the highest of ideals.
Art is a universal language. It has the power to transcend cultural variations, uniting us all. By cultivating an understanding and appreciation for artists’ works of the past and present, art education develops respect for diverse cultures and creative expressions.
Art is woven into every aspect of our lives, and learning about how and why artists, designers and advertisers use the elements of art will enable students to make intelligent informed decisions in the future.
We have spent the first three months of school together getting to know each other and exploring the world of color. As we become more aware of the color all around us, we learned about three special colors; the primary ones. We tried blending them in different ways to create new colors. We discussed rainbows and prisms. We made monoprints; a one of a kind crayon form of printing. We talked about trees and why trees are so important to us and created giant leaves with blended color using a new medium; water crayons. Our imaginations were stretched with leaf creatures, a drawing project. We have recently been studying the elements of geometric and organic shape. We are learning the differences between natural and manufactured shape. We continue to utilize the elements of color studied earlier. Projects will continue to build upon themselves throughout the school year, and all your child’s years here at Maple Ave.

Physical Education: “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”-Unknown
This year first grade has started off discovering our bodies and how they work. The students began the year with a variety of gross motor skilled activities. These activities are designed to get the students exploring and moving their bodies in a variety of ways. One of their favorite activities that we did during this unit was active reading. During this activity, I read them a few different books. While I was reading, they got to move around like the animals that were mentioned in the books, along with making the noises that the animals made. The students moved in a variety of styles (skipping, galloping, running, etc.). We worked on this unit for the month of September, each week changing the activities but keeping our focus on body control and awareness. After finishing up this unit, the students were introduced to soccer. Here they learned a little bit of the history of the game, while spending most of their time learning some of the basic skills needed to play. The students practiced dribbling under control, passing with the inside of their foot, as well as several different ways to trap and control the ball. They really enjoyed playing “sharks and minnows” during this unit! The classes recently finished off our basketball unit, in which we covered the history of the game, along with dribbling, passing, and shooting! One of the favorite activities was “Mario Brothers” which worked on dribbling and passing! We recently begun our bowling unit, which is one of the lifetime activity units we do during the year. The pinnacle of this unit tends to be the last day when we do disco bowling! I look forward to seeing those great dance moves they break into while bowling!

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. – Victor Hugo

It has been a great first trimester in first grade! Many students have sung their names for the class in our “hello song.” Students are also becoming very comfortable using hand signals when singing solfege (do re mi fa sol la ti do.) Ask your child to demonstrate the solfege hand signals for you! Students have also learned to understand and recognize basic music notation.
We sang a great song about Robot Boy and all of the things that he likes to do, we also re-wrote the words as a class to make our very own Robot Girl song!
A big focus lately has been on identifying the difference between pitch and volume. This concept can be very abstract for first graders, and the two can be confused easily. Students know this saying by heart now: “the bigger the instrument, the lower the sound.”
This trimester we have sung some really silly songs including “Ladybug in My Soda” and “Hip Hop Turkeys.”
In the coming trimester we will begin to shift our focus to musical expression and begin to look deeper into some musical notation.

Unified Arts Report
Trimester One
Grade Two


ART: Throughout history, the visual arts have served to connect our imaginations with that which make us human. Works of art reflect human feelings, values and the highest of ideals.
Art is a universal language. It has the power to transcend cultural variations, uniting us all. By cultivating an understanding and appreciation for artists’ works of the past and present, art education develops respect for diverse cultures and creative expressions.
Art is woven into every aspect of our lives, and learning about how and why artists, designers and advertisers use the elements of art will enable students to make intelligent informed decisions in the future.
We began the new school year together by discussing and reviewing the concepts of color in art and our everyday lives. We took advantage of harvest time and drew colorful fruit and veggies in color groups, trying to remember as many of each color as we could. We became reacquainted with the primary colors, and mixed them to make secondary colors. We talked about rainbows and their relationship to the color wheel and what creates a prism. We discovered the difference between hot and cold colors and how they effect our perception of certain objects. Autumn foliage was the perfect vehicle to create beautiful trees. We have been studying the element of shape recently. We know that shape is made of a line that is connected. Spirals were used to illustrate that a line becomes a shape. We constructed objects from geometric shapes. We talked about the difference between manufactured and natural shapes and discovered that every manufactured shape starts out as a natural one! We also continue to utilize the elements of color we learned earlier. Projects continue to build upon themselves throughout the school year.

Physical Education: “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”-Unknown
We are off to another fast start in second grade! We began the year with a variety of cooperative games. These are activities designed to get the classes working together toward a common goal, in turn, building a stronger sense of community amongst the students. During this unit the students really focused on using positive communication. They needed to verbalize their thoughts and listen to their peers. This was a great unit to watch unfold as well as experience with each class. The students made some great strides in working together and having a common goal be the big picture. The classes then moved into our soccer unit. Here they focused on dribbling, passing, and trapping. Watching the students begin to control their passes using the proper kicking technique was amazing. During first grade, they really struggle to use the inside of their foot when striking the ball, but this year they really did awesome! Following this unit, the classes moved into basketball. Here they had a brief lesson on the history related to the game and its local ties to New England. The activities we did were designed to get the maximum number of touches on the ball while working on the necessary skills (dribbling, passing, shooting) to play the sport. The classes’ favorite activity by far was “Mario Brothers”, which worked on dribbling and passing. We are currently involved in one of our lifetime skills units, bowling. This is a crowd pleaser, especially when we do disco bowling during the last class!

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. – Victor Hugo

We have had a great first trimester in second grade! The children are becoming more and more comfortable using hand signals when singing solfege (do re mi fa sol la ti do.) Ask your child to demonstrate the solfege hand signals for you! The children have also learned to understand and recognize basic music notation.
A big focus this trimester has been on musical timbres and the way different instruments sound. Timbre can also influence our mood as the students learned in our gentle sounding song about autumn. In our song “Whacky Ogre” we used boom whackers and other classroom instruments to help us sing a very fun song.
For Thanksgiving, students completed a really silly art project where they constructed turkeys out of music symbols.
Patriotic songs have been the focus of the last few weeks. Second grade students did a great job learning “Yankee Doodle” and were able to put all of the mixed up words together like a puzzle.
During the last week of the trimester, the students will be listening to the famous piece of music “Carmina Burana.” This will lead us into a deep listening unit that will begin the second trimester.

Unified Arts Report
Trimester One
Grade Three


ART: Throughout history, the visual arts have served to connect our imaginations with that which make us human. Works of art reflect human feelings, values and the highest of ideals.
Art is a universal language. It has the power to transcend cultural variations, uniting us all. By cultivating an understanding and appreciation for artists’ works of the past and present, art education develops respect for diverse cultures and creative expressions.
Art is woven into every aspect of our lives, and learning about how and why artists, designers and advertisers use the elements of art will enable students to make intelligent informed decisions in the future.
We began our third year together reviewing familiar concepts; primary and secondary color, hot and cold color, and the color wheel. We all made our own color wheel with a theme to keep and refer to. We looked at various landscape paintings, and then made one, emphasizing the horizon line, then added color with only primary colors; a challenge when you must have all the colors of the color wheel present! We created beautiful autumn impressionistic paintings entitled scattered leaves. We learned about the color scheme called complementary, and tried an eye/brain exercise to experience after-imaging. We then put the knowledge to use with an op art project using complements. Our most recent project is an abstract one, using geometric design and colored pencil. We continue to build upon the knowledge we have gained in our years together in art. It is a joy to see the students’ enthusiasm and love of learning.

Physical Education: “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”-Unknown
The third graders started the year off with a challenging unit this year, cooperative games. These activities are designed to get the students communicating and working together toward a common goal. The challenges placed before them are very tough, especially when a class is just getting to know each other early in the year. One of the new challenges that they had was working together to clean up a “toxic waste” spill in the gym. This challenge was amazing to watch! The students started off pretty rocky and really struggled. After a short time their communication skills really began to take over and their whole attitude changed. When we did the challenge a second time, they completed the task with ease because their communication skills and ability to stay positive had improve so much that working together was a breeze! These activities really help develop a sense of community in the classroom. The students moved into soccer after the cooperative games unit. Here they played several new games to work on their dribbling and passing skills. The growth between second and third grade is amazing and very noticeable when watching them work with the balls. Their favorite activity was “sharks and minnows”. This is a dribbling activity that really stresses making good decisions, while maintaining good ball control. The students then moved into their basketball unit, which not only taught the fundamentals, but the history of the sport. “Mario Brothers” was definitely one of the favorite activities during this unit. This fast paced game worked on dribbling as well as passing and allowed them to test their skills with their classmates. We are currently involved with our bowling unit. This year the third graders will be keeping their scores electronically, which they are very excited for! Should be fun seeing all those scores posted up on the wall just like at the bowling alley.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. – Victor Hugo

For the first part of the trimester we have learned a lot about musical expression. Students have drawn pictures while listening to music. Students have done a great job making connections between visual art and music.
Students are also becoming pros at using hand signals when singing solfege (do re mi fa sol la ti do.) The children have begun to learn about minor scales using solfege hand signals this trimester. Ask your child to demonstrate the solfege hand signals for you!
The children have begun the recorder unit! The children have been very excited and looking forward to playing! For the past few weeks we have been busy preparing for this unit. The students have actually been completing math exercises in music class! This will help us be able to read the notes and play more accurately. Ask your child to sing the song “Rhythm is Math” for you!


Unified Arts Report
Trimester One
Grade Four


ART: Throughout history, the visual arts have served to connect our imaginations with that which make us human. Works of art reflect human feelings, values and the highest of ideals.
Art is a universal language. It has the power to transcend cultural variations, uniting us all. By cultivating an understanding and appreciation for artists’ works of the past and present, art education develops respect for diverse cultures and creative expressions.
Art is woven into every aspect of our lives, and learning about how and why artists, designers and advertisers use the elements of art will enable students to make intelligent informed decisions in the future.
It is a treat to instruct fourth graders in art! We can be more in depth with our vocabulary of art and projects that we can create. We started our year with an interesting project called “Me and My Shadow”. Students learned a great technique to draw a human figure and then attached a cast shadow. The figures were in an action pose, and from the back! Ancient and living cultures are a wonderful way to learn about our world and appreciate the diversity surrounding us. We studied the art of the Abenaki people of NH and VT. The style, subject matter, and materials used were (and still are) determined by what the environment provided. Replicas of birch bark canoes were constructed after viewing a slide show where contemporary and centuries old techniques were shown. I am always happy to share my Abenaki heritage with the students. Next we began a complete review of what we have learned about color in art and our world. Work on a tree color sampler utilized all our color concepts and employed some useful art techniques. Students will self-assess on the knowledge they retained.

Physical Education: “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”-Unknown
Fourth graders are true explorers! There is nothing that they aren’t willing to try to conquer. During fourth grade the students are truly challenged not just mentally, but physically too! The classes started the year off with cooperative games that are designed to get the classes working together and building a strong community. The first couple of warm-up challenges were met with ease! However the challenges quickly got a lot more difficult! They were not as straight forward and really required good communication and complete cooperation to complete them. The cliffhanger challenge was a true test of their ability to work together and stay positive. Each class started off by standing together on one mat, and had to move across the room to get to another mat. The class was not allowed to touch the floor at all, and were given a couple “space age hovering discs” , that they were allowed to step on. However the challenge was communicating as a group to figure out how to use these discs correctly. Once this was done, they had to put their thoughts into actions and work together to complete the challenge. This was a blast to watch each class conquer this challenge. This unit was followed up by several weeks of soccer. Here they worked on honing in their skills of kicking, trapping, and dribbling. The classes also explored how the game has evolved over time along with changes in equipment. This was a great way to mix history in with physical education! We followed soccer up with basketball. The classes worked on the basic skills (dribbling, passing, shooting) by getting as many touches on the ball as possible. “Mario Brothers”, a game that works on dribbling and passing, was definitely a class favorite! We are currently working at Maple Lanes on our bowling skills. This game is a great lifetime skill that can be enjoyed throughout their life. We are going to try and keep our scores electronically this year, which the classes are very excited about!

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. – Victor Hugo

It has been a great first trimester in 4th grade music! For the first few weeks of school we looked really deep into the different parts of a song. The children also learned to sing the classic children’s song “Grandfather Clock.”
We have been hard at work on our winter musical! We are rehearsing as a middle school chorus would during class to prepare for next year! I think all families are going to be VERY impressed. I thank all of the children for their hard work on memorizing the words and the movements to all of the songs. I also thank students who have taken extra time during recess to audition for parts and help prepare for the concert! It’s going to be great!