Logo header

November 14, 2014
    
Community
Beach Park School Newsletter
Important Dates
Above: Macy working with Sensorial Materials 

 

 

  

 Wed - Fri, Nov 26 - 28- Thanksgiving Holiday    

                                              School Closed

    

 

 

 

UE students concentrating on their Haiku's
Quick Links

 

Food Drive

for 

Metropolitan Ministries

 

You may have

noticed the donation

barrel that arrived at our

front gate from 

Metropolitan Ministries.

 

We will be collecting food only until

Tuesday

November 25th.

 

The items most in demand at this time are:

 

Cereal

Canned Fruit

Canned Yams

Stuffing

Peanut Butter

Macaroni & Cheese

Grocery Gift Cards

 

No glass jars, please.

 

Metropolitan Ministries provides services for the homeless and nearly homeless in four counties in this area.

 

Primary

  

Charles with the Pink Tower and Brown Stair

The classes are enjoying many special activities inspired by last week's peace conference. We are practicing how to use the peace rose and peace songs to communicate kind words and resolve conflicts. It is impressive to see how quickly children are able to learn these concepts and use them with friends. Miss Lisa's class held their first 'Class Meeting' on Thursday where the children discussed any issue they feel needs to be resolved. They created a classroom Peace Journal which will hold a running record of their days at school. Ask your child about Freddie, and how 'a Bug' and "a wish" help us resolve conflict.

 

We continue to watch our Lima beans grow. The beans that sprouted have been planted in our garden. Some of the children are writing garden journals to record their observations and discoveries. Several of them have found pipe vine swallowtail caterpillars and ladybug larva.  It is always nice to have nature provide our next unit of study! We are also learning about how the composter is used to decompose our organic materials to make fertilizer for the plants.

 

In math, Miss Lisa's class counted how many corn kernels are on one ear of corn- the children estimated and then counted by tens, ours had 459. The older friends have been very busy writing in their class journals.

 

In art, Ms. Denise's students are making beautiful push-pinned cornucopias and creating a "Thanksgiving" turkey with feathers that express what each person is thankful for. Miss Lisa's class created a thankful tree using branches the children picked up on their nature walk.

 

Thank you to the Yokum family for taking such good care of our class pet over the weekend. And thank you, Katie Perkey for reading to the class on Friday.

Lower Elementary
Learning about hydroponic gardening.

We had a great week in lower elementary! The field trip to the Urban Oasis Hydroponic Farm was very fun and interesting. The children were able to hear about the great advantages to hydroponic gardening.

 

They had a lesson on Veterans Day and learned why we honor those who have served. We introduced the Solar System and talked about how different all the planets are. We learned more about Beethoven this week by watching the film "Beethoven Lives Upstairs."

 

As we approach the holiday season, we would like to invite parents who have a special tradition to come share with us about the different holidays you celebrate with your family. If you would like to give a special presentation or do a special craft with the children, just let us know and we will schedule a time. 

 

Book reports are due this Monday, November 17. This report can be on any book your child would like to read. We have had several turned in and are excited to see the presentations! 

 

We are starting a special project with the children, and we need yarn, lots of yarn! If you have any extra yarn that you would like to donate, we would really appreciate it! Thank you! 

Upper Elementary
UE students 'working' on their video.

This week in the upper elementary classroom, we continued our work on astronomy and constellations, by reading the Story of the World and the Yamato Dynasty of Japan. In Grammar Land we are took up an advanced study of the Pronoun.

 

In addition, students are moving forward with their math, geometry and language lessons. For math facts, we practiced with the 8x tables and reviewed the 6x-7x tables.

 

The Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we have two fun activities planned. On Monday the 24th, we will be visiting AMC theaters at Westshore Mall to watch a movie. We will either see Big Hero 6, or Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Which movie we see will depend on the time. Students are responsible for bringing in money for the movie and for a snack. Students will be able to purchase one drink and one snack with their money. We will give specific dollar amounts as we get closer to the activity. We will be walking to the theater, and will need chaperons to join us.

 

On Tuesday the 25th, we are going with middle school, to Al Lopez Park. Students need a bag lunch and we have fun activities planned for all. Upon our return, upper elementary is hosting a cookie decorating activity for the younger students. This trip is free, but we are looking for those who are able to drive. Please e-mail Mr. Greg with any questions. 

Middle School

This week in Middle school, we have been practicing Conclusions and working on grammar. We have also been reading "Grammar Land" where we are learning about the different parts of speech.

 

We had another Algebra test on Friday. Then, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we had Earth Science where we learned about the Early Earth.  In Spanish, we each had our own assignment in Paso A Paso the Spanish text book we are studying. 

 

Monday we had a yearbook meeting and are trying to decide on the program we will be using to put together the yearbook. On Tuesday, we had pictures taken and went to the YMCA, where we took a Yoga class in the morning. On Thursday, we had a Service Meeting to send emails to organizations that we might want to work with.

 

Finally, on Friday we had another Service Meeting where we started our presentations that showcase our causes. We also had tennis on Friday afternoon. Overall, this was an interesting week and we hope to have another one like it.    

Andrew

Spanish

LOWER ELEMENTARY: Our week was productive and filled with activities. One of them was to have a pet shop with all sorts of animals. The catch to playing the game? The transaction had to be "en Espanol", no one knew which animals were for sale! Strangely enough, the last animal to be sold from our inventory was an iguana! We also worked on an oral A to Z in Spanish using nouns and verbs.
 
UPPER ELEMENTARY: Fun and interesting is a good way to describe our week, since we worked on adjectives. In Spanish, the challenge about this part of the grammar is that adjectives are masculine, feminine, singular or plural. The main class assignment for this group was to individually describe a person, an object and an animal.
 
MIDDLE SCHOOL: Our weekly lessons were entertaining and diverse. Each student read a different paragraph from their assigned textbooks. The reading was followed by a simple project. Some of these projects were a cardboard pizza with different flavors labeled in Spanish, another project was a girl's wardrobe which included many types of fabrics and patterns, we also saw a city map with its main attractions, and a survey about types of food.

 

TRIVIA FACT: The picturesque town of Cachi in Argentina is home to a very old church with many of its furnishings (altar, confessionals, pews, even the roof and the floor) made out of CACTUS WOOD, one of the few building materials available in the area.


 

Ceiling of this 16th century church is made out of cactus wood. Cachi, Argentina

  

Office Notes
Chess Club

Chess Club will start again in the new year! Coach Al will be sending home a flyer with all the details!
This program is designed to teach children a fun game, its ancient history and important life principles like patience, concentration, planning, calculation, values and more.
 
Library News

 

Hello Beach Park Parents-


It's your friendly librarian, Maria. Many of your children have been enjoying the library's collection of books, especially the kindergartners. This year we began something new and are bringing them over every Tuesday to check out 2 books. Before the Thanksgiving break, I would appreciate it if you would look around the house for any library books that need to be turned in. If your child is still reading it, but they've had it over a month, just leave me a note on my desk and I will recheck it out in their name.

 
Thank you!

 Maria

 

 

 4200 W. North A Street � Tampa, FL 33609 � Ph: 813-289-3747 � Fax: 813-286-7307
[email protected]

Beach Park School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, age, national or ethnic origin.