Monica Ros School

    *** ARTS MONTH BEGINS!  JANUARY 2008 ***

  No School- Staff Inservice   Monday, January 7, 2008

Red Room News - January 22, 2007

Arts Month has allowed us the opportunity to look at objects with new focus. As we consider flowers in a vase we focus on the lines and color before painting a still-life with watercolor. We study various types of Greek vases as we look at their shape and function then draw our own representation on paper before transferring our ideas to our gourd vases. We revisit the customs of the Ancient Greeks as we consider the gods and goddesses. We consider the stories of Midas, Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, and Pegasus and discuss whether they are fact or fantasy before creating wax paper Greek gods and goddesses in our own image. Arts Month provides a wonderful opportunity to express our creativity in so many forms, this month is a favorite each year. This week we will continue work on our gourd vases as we add dye and stain. Please send your child to school in “paint clothes” all week. Tuesday and Wednesday we will be using permanent dyes and stain. Thursday and Friday we will be painting Jackson Pollack style. We will do our best to wear gloves as well!

Arts Month culminates with a spectacular Art Show. Each student is represented with various works of art and it provides for a great backdrop as we celebrate Founder’s Day on January 31^st. Mrs. Ros would be delighted to see the work that continues on in her name. Watch your mailbox for a special Founder’s Day invitation to see your child’s work, to hear each class perform at a brief ceremony honoring Mrs. Ros and a chance to visit the Kindergarten as well.

Tonight is the final workshop in this series of Love and Logic presentations. If you haven’t attended to date it’s not too late to take home some important concepts and tips. Please try attending tonight, you will not be sorry. Meyer Hall 5:30 – 7:30, call the office for childcare 646-8184.

Tomorrow we celebrate Zoe’s 5^th birthday, Happy Birthday Zoe.

The History behind Greek Vases
The Greeks made vases in many different shapes and sizes. Some were made of metal, but most of the ones that have survived were made of clay. A lot of the shapes are considered particularly beautiful, but it is the decoration of these clay vases that is most admired. The Greeks usually decorated their vases by covering them with a very thin layer of a special type of clay mixture. Sometimes, they would paint people, animals and patterns with this mixture, leaving the rest of the pot blank. When the pot was fired, the mixture turned black, but the rest of the pot turned red/orange; this is called black-figure. Sometimes, they left the space for the people, animals and patterns blank and painted all around them, so that the figures would stay red/orange and the background turn black; this is called red-figure. The artists also sometimes added white or purple paint as well.

Many scenes on the vases depict events from Greek myth. We can learn a lot about how the Greeks saw their gods and heroes from these vases. Other Greek vases show scenes from daily life. These are also an important source of information for us today about how the Greeks lived.

Fondly, Nancy_Klimbal and Kathy_Smith

January 5, 2007

Blue Room News

Dear Blue Room Parents,

Happy New Year!  It was fun to see all the children’s eager, smiling faces as they arrived back to school. They all had stories to tell about their holiday adventures. Be sure to look at our “Journal Page” Bulletin board in the front room and see what all the children said about their two weeks away from school. 

The trains, cars and blocks have been so popular with our class this year that we are going to explore transportation for the next month or so. We will sing transportation songs, read a lot of books about cars, trains, planes and more, build car roads and train tracks, we will learn more about maps and how they relate to transportation, we will do some graphing and estimating and best of all; the children will do what they love best, play with cars, trains and each other. 

January is Arts Month at Monica Ros School. In keeping with our Greek theme we are going to make Greek helmets out of gallon milk jugs. Each Blue Room child will have their masterpiece displayed at the Monica Ros School Art Gallery Wednesday and Thursday, January 31^st and February 1^st in Meyer Hall. The art gallery is held in conjunction with Founder’s Day on January 31^st. 

In the morning, prior to the Founder’s Day celebration there is a special opportunity for parents interested in our Kindergarten program to visit the Kindergarten classroom and meet the teachers at 9:00 a.m. on the 31^st. 

SPECIAL REQUEST: Please bring in an empty plastic gallon milk jug for your child’s art project in the next week if possible. We could use a couple extras also just in case a family doesn’t use plastic milk jugs. Thank You! Reminder: We have no school Monday, January 15^th in honor of Martin Luther King. 

With Best Wishes for a wonderful 2007! 

Love,  Mrs. Luboff and Mrs. Weston 

Twinkle, Twinkle Traffic Light 

Twinkle, Twinkle Traffic Light 
Standing on the Corner Bright 
Green means GO, we all know 
Yellow means WAIT, even if you’re late 
Red means STOP…… 
Twinkle, Twinkle Traffic Light, 
Standing on the Corner bright

Dear Kindergarten Parents,

Our best wishes for a very Happy New Year, and we are pleased to welcome your children back to the classroom-we have missed them! January plans to be an interesting and invigorating month for the children. Our winter classroom theme is the investigation of the life cycles of many penguin species. We will explore where they live and how they survive the harshness of their environment. Some of the books we will be reading are The Penguins, by the Cousteau Society, Antarctica, By Helen Cowcher and The Emperor’s Egg, by Martin Jenkins.

As we bundle up to keep warm in the cool morning air, we can only imagine how penguins withstand their icy and freezing environment. We will eat like penguins, waddle like penguins and play penguin games. We will learn first hand how they adapt and endure their environment. The kids will get to enjoy playing with pretend penguins in icy water, and learn how their feathers, air and fat insulate them. We continue reading our chapter book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We are looking foreword to the “Grand Finale” of this endearing book when we celebrate with our Charlie Party.

Arts Month We return to our school wide theme Ancient Greece, for Arts Month. This is a wonderful tradition at our school and we are excited to have the opportunity to participate. Kindergarten and Gradeschool students are broken into multi-age groups which meet twice per week, Tuesday and Friday to engage in a specific art experience. The culmination of these experiences will be on display in Meyer Hall for founder’s day. More information will follow regarding this special event.

Looking Ahead:

No School Monday January 15th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Founders’ day is Wednesday January 31st… details to follow!

Mrs. Fiore and Mrs. Krout

January brings a new unit of discovery as we explore the arts. Our study of visual arts will create many art opportunities, which coincides with Arts Month. We are working with Greek art as we transform ordinary gourds into “Greek vessels”, we are currently working on still-life representation, planning a Jackson Pollack project and silk fabric dying will round up the month. The entire school will use the month of January to focus on the arts. Art projects will be on display for Founder’s Day and remain up the last week of the month.