Lower School News from The Swain School

Lower School Events

These are just a few of the highlights of our Preschool classrooms during the past two months:

During the month of January the students welcomed winter and learned about animals in the Arctic. They made an Emperor Penguin display and saw some of the Arctic animals on a field trip to Cabella's. Then they featured "February Food Month", learning about the food pyramid and even cooking something from each group as a class. They are taking their (rescheduled) field trip to Giant Food Store today.

In conjunction with the February virtue of 'charity', preschoolers made dog biscuits with Mrs. Gruber's advisory (she is the mother of Jayce and teaches 6th and 7th grade English in our Middle School). These biscuits will be delivered to a non-euthanizing shelter in Nazareth called Pets in Need.

(see their recent photos).

Also as part of last month's emphasis on 'charity', Mrs. Aker's Prekindergarten, along with their buddies in Mrs. Reger's class, collected hundreds of items for The Cat Shack. Each child was asked to do chores at home to earn the items to donate. The class spent the morning with their fourth grade buddies taking inventory of what they collected. (Miss Kleppinger's fourth grade students were so impressed with this project, they contributed many items too!) (see their photos)

In addition to doing community service, the prekindergarten students just finished their second group story of the trilogy that will eventually be published into a book. Mrs. Akers' class will be holding a grand premier for their parents on Tuesday, March 23 at 8 a.m., to preview their story.

Mrs. Takacs' prekindergarten class also worked on a special Charity project. They each did special jobs at home to earn money to buy a stuffed animal to bring in to school. The stuffed animals will be donated to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Lehigh Valley Hospital to be given to children who are hospitalized, to help cheer them up a bit.

Another special activity in February was the Mommy and Me Sweetheart Tea, which they finally were able to have on the snowdate of Feb. 23. They enjoyed several arts and crafts projects with their mothers, got their pictures taken together (pictured, J.T. and Kylie with their Mom), sang some "love songs" to them and enjoyed refreshments together. Everyone had a wonderful time. (see more photos)

The Kindergarten classes celebrated 100_day_party

the 100th day of school on Feb. 16. There were games, activities and music to help celebrate this exciting time of the academic year and milestone. (left, Mr. Wagner shares a 100th day story)

The Kindergarten classes are working hard on their writing during their Writing Workshop activities. They are currently working on "how to stories" and will be presenting them soon during a celebration. They are also wrapping up their studies of the Tundra for their Social Studies curriculum. They will enter the Rainforest in the next few weeks and learn all about this diverse and beautiful biome. Keep an eye out for their hallway to transform into a rainforest.

To celebrate one of their many studies during their global studies curriculum, the first grade and fifth grade students got together to celebrate the Chinese New Year. To recognize the year of the dragon, the first grade students made amazing dragon masks in art class with Mrs. Ward. They used these masks to participate in a parade around the school. In addition, they completed several stations created by the fifth graders and learned more about China and the Chinese New Year. The students tasted foods, candies, made lanterns, used chopsticks and did so much more. It was a wonderful time and Mrs. Appel and Mr. Eidam deserve a big thank you for working so well with the first grade students and their teachers. It is great that the year of the dragon was celebrated in unison with the first and fifth graders here at Swain.

Mrs. Scerbo, Miss Christensen, and Mrs. Garton report that the second grade students did a relevant reading activity about Canada and the Olympics. The students did a special project that tied in with the Winter Olympics, the global studies of Canada, and Women in Sports. This entire project was implemented into our writing unit using Writers Workshop.

Many of the students read an informational report on female sports stars and were asked to select the star who inspired them most. Each teacher in second grade chose different strategies to learn about these athletes. Then they each wrote a newspaper article in the Second Grade Chronicles about their selected star. The articles were shared with the other reading groups.

The group did such an awesome job that copies are being sent to Mia Hamm and Bethany Hamilton. Mrs. Scerbo reported that her class did hear back from Bethany already via email and will be receiving her monthly newsletter. Hopefully, the students can get autographed photos from these athletes. Original articles are hanging in the class if you wish to read. (more second grade reading photos)

Also, in Writer's Workshop the second graders are involved in developing research reports that include: cover page, table of contents, introduction and one idea that is researched.

Another project second graders are working on in math is graphing. Each student created a survey question with choices and surveyed 50 people around school and home. During the next few weeks, the students are in the technology lab graphing the data. The students will develop comparison questions to ask about each individual graph. This is a really a great assignment and will prepare our second graders for their third grade year.

Tuesday, March 2 it was Dr. Seuss Day and Miss Zepp's Kindergarten and Mrs. Garton's class celebrated the author's birthday together. Activities included the making of "Oobleck" from the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and experi-mented with its consistency. Is it a solid, or a liquid? And what sticks in Oobleck? The kindergarten and second grade students read popular Dr. Seuss books together and made their own "cat in the hat" hats.

During the week of March 1, Mrs. Garton's class celebrated Read Across America week by having Mystery Guest readers come in to read to the class in Story Mountain, and share some of their favorite books. Many guests included parents, faculty and staff.

Also in second grade the students had a Poetry/Publishing Party celebration. The students shared their poetry pieces that they wrote during Judyth Hill's visit, and shared their Fairy Tale Adaptations with the class and special family guests.

Miss Christensen's second grade students have been writing poetry and here are some examples of their meaningful work:

Animals

Two frogs are hopping on the lily pads.
Hawks are soaring at midnight.
Mount Everest is cold all day.
Two arctic foxes play trumpets.
The moon shines in the dark.

By - Nelson (pictured, left)

My Bedroom

Copper fire, yellow and red,
The eagle is flying around my bed.
Snowflakes in Florida, the color of white.
The darkest evening of the year.

By - Noah

Third grade students had a great experience making their own dog biscuits and creating some great posters to advertise them. They also took orders and had many parent contributions. They raised $150, and there are still extras for sale in the Main Office ($1 per bag).

On a recent Saturday a small group of third graders went to Animals in Distress in Center Valley to present our giant fake check (see it hanging on Mrs. Fragin's door), extra dog biscuits, and also took a tour of the facility. What an amazing opportunity for the third grade students! Did you know Animals in Distress have over 250 cats there?

The third grade field trip to Quiet Valley was memorable. The students were transported back in time to what it would be like to go to school in 1893. Students dressed up, were given old fashioned names, and did actual school lessons, as they were done in this time period.

In reading class the third grade students are studying many famous Pennsylvanians including Tara Lipinsky, Will Smith, Milton S. Hershey, Elizabeth Blackwell, Benjamin Franklin and many more. When they finish these books, the students are going to work on a Pennsylvania scrapbook. This is a fantastic integration of reading, writing, social studies, and technology lab.

And third graders recently presented the annual Fairy Tale Wax Museum, in which they replicated story characters and stood still for ten minutes at a time! (right, Mustafa as "Robin Hood")

Fourth graders began a poetry journal with Swain's visiting poet-in-residence Judyth Hill (with Miss Kleppinger's class, below), who taught the students how to express themselves in a variety of poetic ways, followed by a discussion of poetry elements including different types of poems. The students had an opportunity to try their hand at writing these different poems. Next, they took a literary journey by reading the novel Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech. They gr4_poetry

discussed the poems that were explored by Jack and his class in the novel. The students became literary critics supporting personal opinions with details from the poems and book.

To end their poetry section, the fourth graders had their annual Beatnik Café in the small dining room. The students learned about the Beatnik poets, who they were, what they stood for, and the time frame in American History. The fourth grade class transformed the small dining room into a Beatnik café, became Beatniks, and read poems that we created throughout their poetry journal. (see their photos)