Shorecrest Events!

Relay for Life – April 5

Shorecrest's Relay for Life on April 5 is our annual effort to combat cancer. This event provides fun for the whole family as we raise funds to fight this dreaded disease. 

Relay for Life will begin for the students and anyone else who would like to come at 9:00 AM when the entire student body will assemble on the football field for a brief ceremony and to walk the initial lap around the track.  

The booths with food, games, raffles and much more will start to open at 3:00 and we hope you will bring the family and all your friends. At 6:00 there will be an official opening with a tribute to and dinner for survivors of cancer. If you or anyone you know is a survivor who would like attend the dinner, please contact Su Stevens, our Service Learning Coordinator, sstevens@shorecrest.org.

Many thanks to those who have already returned contribution envelopes!

ECC Almost Sleepover  - Friday, April 12

The Almost Sleepover was a sign-up event  ($50) offered during the Gala, and there are still some spots left! 

Between 6:00-9:00 PM, the lucky children whose parents purchase this treat for them, will enjoy play, pizza, a movie and more, all while wearing their pajamas! Contact Mrs. McIvor for space availability and full information.

Celebrate the Arts at Shorecrest

On April 19, the Early Childhood and Lower Division students will have a full morning of celebrating the visual and performing arts. It will begin for the children with interactive sessions with visiting artists, and will continue for them and you with a musical program and exhibition of the children's art at 11:00 AM followed by a picnic. 

Parents should bring lunch and picnic blankets for themselves or their family. Children's lunches are available from Sage but must be preordered, even for children on the yearly lunch plan. Be sure to return the order form you received last week. 

Field trip: Botanical Gardens

On April 25, our Junior Kindergarten class will take an exciting trip to Botanical Gardens!  A master gardener will be our guide.  The children will have the opportunity to explore, investigate and enjoy the gardens, ask questions and even have a picnic lunch.  Further details to come!

Stay tuned for more great pics this week of our ongoing Flower Project!!!

Spring has sprung a project!!!

Everyone loves a project! In the classroom, a project is defined as an in-depth study of a topic or theme.  Project work enriches younger children's painting and drawing, dramatic play, construction and more by relating them to life outside school. The project approach to learning is responsive to the different interests and life experiences of children.  

There are five structural features of the Project Approach to learning:

1. Discussions: Children share about and identify what they know, what they have learned, and what they still want to learn about a topic.

2. Fieldwork: Investigations on or off campus, interviews with people who have relations to the topic, explorations using all five senses to acquire new information through direct experience.

3. Representation: Drawing, writing, dramatic play, building models and so much more can represent children's understanding of their  experiences relating to the topic.

4. Investigation: Interviewing parents, family, friends and experts outside of school can answer questions the children have on the topic.  Looking at objects, noticing details, drawing, building, looking at books and online or using iPads are all ways of investigating a topic.

5. Display: During the course of the project, the children can work on different individually chosen activities collaboratively in small groups, to represent aspects of the study. Individual work will be displayed on bulletin boards and wall displays.  

(We are working from the book The Project Approach (book two), Managing Successful Projects, by Sylvia C. Chard, PhD)

Here is the beginning of our story about our topic: FLOWERS...chosen by the children during a discussion about the season of Spring.

Once the children and I talked about what they thought of when they heard the word "Spring", we were able to narrow the topics down to four areas that were mentioned several times throughout the web process: trees, insects, flowers and weather. Further discussion proved interest in and curiosity toward the topic of flowers was taking the lead.

Together, we webbed a KWL chart.  What the children already knew about flowers, want to know about flowers, and what they want to learn about flowers. We will continue to add to this web.

looking at books about flowers

exploring many different types of flowers from all over the world on the iPads

Let's make some flowers!

The children did "Prior Knowledge and Personal Experience" drawings about flowers, using  creative thought and different art mediums such as; beads, tissue paper, oil pastels, chalk, dotters, etc.

Here is what our first of many"story boards" looks like.   

We are on our way!  We would love for you to be part of our investigation! If you have knowledge of, interest in, or experience with flowers and would like to share with our class, please let me know.  Send me an email or call the ECC and we will enthusiastically bring you into our explorations and share experiences with you.

Other exciting explorations in Junior Kindergarten:

Last week we.....

explored the garden and found beautiful signs of life in caterpillars and Monarch butterflies. This week we will read about and watch the life cycle from the very beginning, a little white egg on a milkweed leaf.

As part of mini spring themes about insects, birds, and worms, we did a little shadow dancing with headbands, class-made puppets and light.  Our Exploratorium is slowly being transformed into a spring extravaganza, complete with a paper mache`tree, soil table, bird's nest and more.

 Another yearly sign of spring is that the Junior Kindergarteners visit the Kindergarteners for "Buddy Reading".  However, since last week was Reading Week in the Lower Division, we were lucky enough to get two great experiences with reading buddies.  One, was with Ms. O'Mullane's 2nd grade class where the 2nd grade children read for our class.  The second was where Ms. Conroy read to ours and her class as a whole, frequently stopping for Kindergarten and JK partners to turn and talk with each other about the story. Fantastic reading experiences!

This week the children will continue with project work, putting together their own alphabet book with drawings, dictations and inventive spelling, counting with and adding and subtracting objects, and so much more!

Happy Spring!!!

What a BEAUTIFUL WORLD!

The world never looked as good as it did through the eyes of our children as they created masterpieces of art from all seven continents!  Activity Day, the culmination of a month-long study of art around the world, was a BEAUTIFUL day! I hope that you and your child enjoyed it as much as I did.  Not only did the day offer a chance for the children to relax and have a lot of fun along with friends, family and teachers, but it also was able to showcase the many artistic talents of each and every one of them.

They certainly leave the world just a little bit better, every day!

Family Sculpture Project

The sculptures were amazing! I want to thank  all of the wonderful parents in our class for taking on this project with enthusiasm and  as an opportunity to enjoy art with your child.

Just look at those beaming faces! Each child was so excited and proud to tell me about their sculpture and show it off in our Activity Day museum.

  

 Ellen  "The Sun" made

a mobile of her family and her life using ideas she loves.  

Kaelie  created a family portrait using clay, sewing stuff and creativity  

 

Braden made a robot.  He used colorful yarn for the hair and started to draw faces on the top but changed his mind and put stickers on instead.

Sally made a fairy with her arms stretched out to fly.  She used play-doh to cover a cup for the fairies' dress.

 Sierra made a colorful, happy sculpture using rocks she made from play-doh, sticks, chenille stems and pompoms.  She even added a "love monster" her mommy made.

Elle has been "filling buckets" at home and at school.  She made a beautiful rainbow and butterfly bucket filled with love. 

Ava made a turtle, "The Stanton Indian Turtle".  Her favorite animal is a turtle and she used styrofoam and tape which she spray-painted silver to put her creation together. Then she decorated it!

Nicholas made a robot! Her name is Princess.  She is very colorful and has buttons made of buttons! She has hands too.

Chloe was so proud of her ocean sculpture with homemade sea creatures attached.

Lee was all smiles over his colorful shell sculpture which was enthusiastically sprinkled with glitter to make it beautiful!

Tadhg happily reminisced about a family camping trip with hisphoto-riffic sculpture.

 Tre loves to "fill buckets" and make his family smile! He included his family and pets in his happy bucket sculpture.

Joey and his family love to swim in their pool.  Joey created a very special pool sculpture to share the joy he finds with his family at home.  He used his creativity and fun household items to do so.




A very special museum displayed all of the fruits of the children's creative labor last Thursday and the sculptures will find their own permanent spaces in the ECC to continue to make us smile throughout the school year.


Enjoy these Activity Day pictures!

Snacks are always more delicious when they look good on the plate! These snacks were works of art! The children built their own sculptures using fruit, marshmallows, Twizzlers and toothpicks before gobbling them up!  MMMM...Edible Art!!!

After enjoying a sculpturiffic snack, the children were accompanied by our parent docents  in enjoying the JK museum.

Art Obstacle Course!
Movement and activity is pretty par for the course in Junior Kindergarten. But, when you can add paint, balloons, golf clubs, paper and sand to the mix as well, it's bound to be a hole in one with the kids!

Culinary arts were also discovered as the children studied art from around the world.  It seemed only fitting that we added a chance for the children to create art with their food to serve their parents on Activity Day.  They prepared egg rolls from Asia, apples drizzled with honey from the middle east, pitas  hummus and tzasikki, turkey and cheese pinwheels, plantains and more for a fabulous feast on a fabulous day!

We hope you enjoyed the wonderful lunch show featuring your children.  It was the highlight of our day! The children are AMAZING!

Have a wonderful spring break! 

Antarctica and Africa!

Antarctica

The snowy, blowy cold of Antarctica could have frozen our plans for learning about art from all of the seven continents, but with a little fancy,"happy feet" work we were able to "chill" and do some learning too! 

Penguins!  Playful, funny, and beautiful.  These amazing creatures taught us quite a few great lessons last week. The children loved watching the youtube videos, looking at books  and hearing stories about those finely dressed feathered friends of Antarctica.  Later, they created their own penguin, using a water bottle, black tape, construction paper, cotton balls, and their creativity.  Fine motor skills were sharpened with tearing, cutting, and wrapping and each child told a story about their penguin, using prior  knowledge and what they learned in school as their guide. You will love reading the stories and seeing their perky penguins when you visit our Exploratorium and see the Antarctica display.

You will want to check out the white sculptures, and "Snowy, Blowy" art that the children had fun experimenting with last week as well, all featured in the Exploratorium!

Relay For Life

The school kicked off the Shorecrest race for the cure for Cancer with the annual Relay For Life hotdog lunch fundraiser.  It was great to picnic together in the sun for a good cause.

AFRICA

Wednesday, we continued our journey around the world with a visit to Africa.  After reading about awesome traditions and beautiful art originating in parts of the second largest continent, the children got to try their hand at replicating some of the art styles.  They learned about the ornate jewelry that came from Egypt and how hieroglyphics were carved into beads, etc. telling stories and more about the people who wore them and their beliefs. Each child made their own beaded necklace from salt dough, etching their own symbols onto and/or painting each bead to be unique. The children will have the opportunity to wear the necklaces on Activity Day.

African Masks

African masks are a very important art form that takes on a spiritual sense.  The children learned that each mask is representative of the inner self.  Masks are used for many meaningful rituals in Africa.  The art of mask-making in our JK class also taught the children a good lesson in symmetry as well as tapping into their inner creativity. You can see how the children are scrolling through the iPad pictures of African masks we pulled up on Google.  They loved seeing the many masks in all different sizes, shapes and colors coming from the heart of Africa.

iPads are very helpful for showing the children examples of and allowing them to scroll through many African masks. 

Learning about and creating art from around the world has been a wonderful experience.  This week, the children will travel to their last artistic stop on the globe, the continent of Europe.  They will experience painting on tiles and tracing and cutting out silhouettes of themselves, among other creative activities all in preparation for our Thursday Activity Day.  We are all sooooo excited about the upcoming day of art that is the culmination of our whole month of learning about Art Around The World.  I can't wait to see the family sculptures that I know you have all been working hard on these past weeks.  They will be showcased in our classroom...the museum and cafe of Activity Day.  Please have them to school no later than Tuesday this week so we can properly prepare them for the big day!  Thank you, to all of you, for your hard work!!!  

*See you on Thursday! Prepare to be blown away by all of the amazing artwork of your amazing children! The children will have Tie Dye t-shirts that they made last week to wear on Activity Day.  They can wear comfortable bottoms that day too.

I hope your spring break is full of joy and happiness!

Happy Spring!