American Ballet Theater

Today we headed to Lincoln Center's Metropolitan Opera House to see the American Ballet Theater's Young People's Ballet Workshop.

The American Ballet Theater Company put on a great show showing both principle dancers, dancers in training, and even public school students.  All of the pieces were inspiring to us as dancers, especially those choreographed and danced by students from local schools - including students our age!

We had a great day experiencing the ballet and enjoying dance.

Dance Share

Dear Second Grade families,

The last few weeks, your child has participated in five 45 min sessions of a FREE dance residency generously offered by Movement Research which is a well known organization located in the East Village that supports contemporary dance. This is their website if you are interested in seeing what they do.

 Bessie, the Movement Research teaching artist, and I would like to invite you to visit the EVCS dance studio for an informal showing of the movement ideas our young dancers have been working on.

 The sharing is scheduled on Monday at 10:10 am. We hope you can join us.

Best,

Ana

East Village Community School Dance Specialist

Advances in Chess

Today we began playing full games of chess!  This involved a LOT of concentration, strategy, and thinking - but it was also a lot of fun!  Over the next few weeks we'll be playing lots of chess to improve our defense and offense as players.

Yoga

Today we had a special yoga session!  We peacefully gathered our thoughts, stretched our bodies, and calmed our breathing this afternoon.  It was a great way to end our day together.

Swimming

Today we began our swimming lessons!  I wanted to first say thank you to all of the parents who came and helped with the locker rooms!  We couldn't have done it without you!

Today we were introduced to our swimming instructors and were tested to see how we felt and acted in the water.  We blew bubbles, kicked our legs, floated on our backs, and moved our arms in the water before we were put into 4 groups.  Now that we have our groups, we'll be able to get right into the water and start swimming next time!

Parents, please send your child's swimming clothes in a separate bag from their book bag - this allows their wet clothes to be put into the bag after swimming without getting our papers and books soggy on the way home.  Please also remember that if you signed up for bringing home lunch on swimming days to bring one - the cafeteria is closed when we return from swimming, so only those students who requested school lunch a week in advance will receive one.  Thanks!

Chess

Today we began chess classes with Bradley!  We learned all about the board, how to name the squares, ranks, and files.  We then studied the pawn.  We learned that there are 8 pawns in the game of chess.  We learned how they can move and how they can both defend and capture other pieces.  We first played a class game against Bradley.  We quickly saw that keeping track of our defense and our offense was harder than we thought!  After that, we played a game on the chess board using only the pawns.  Our goal was to get a pawn from one side of the board to the other.  We had a great time!

Some of us are already skilled chess players, others of us have limited experience with the game, and even more of us have never played before.  By learning each piece one at a time, all of us are strengthening our chess skills to be strategic in our playing.  We will practice each Friday.  This afternoon, during choice time, some of us used what we learned to either keep playing with just pawns or to play full games of chess.  What fun!

This Machine Kills Fascists

We finished our great study of Woody Guthrie today with Bradley!  We made songbooks throughout the semester with the songs we've been studying.  Check them out!  You can sing along at home using the books, since we also received CDs of Woody Guthrie songs today.  We also recorded ourselves singing "This Land is Your Land" today.  Once it's ready, I'll certainly share it.  Enjoy the music at home!

A student illustrates the dust bowl

We had to put our songs in order

We made table of contents

We wrote and drew covers for our books

Town Meeting!

On Monday, November 25th our class will be hosting the school Town Meeting!  We will be up on stage, singing four songs loud and proud.  Since Thanksgiving is fast approaching and our Harvest Festival is next Wednesday, we have food on the brain - and three of our songs certainly show it!

We will be singing some songs we know well and some that are new.  We know This Land is Your Land very, VERY well since we sing it each week with Bradley during our Woodie Guthrie study on Fridays.  We also learned a few new songs, including one that seems to be a fast-favorite.  It has LOTS of new words though.  This weekend, ask your child to try to sing it without using the words.  It's a funny song about one of our favorite foods: Sandwiches!

Sandwiches are beautiful,
Sandwiches are fine.
I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time;
I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch;
If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once.

Once I went to England,
I visited the Queen,
I swear she was the grandest lady
That I've ever seen.
I told her she was beautiful
And could not ask for more,
She handed me a sandwich
And she threw me out the door.

Sandwiches are beautiful,
Sandwiches are fine.
I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time;
I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch;
If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once.

A sandwich may be egg or cheese
Or even peanut butter
But they all taste so good to me,
It doesn't even matter
Jam or ham or cucumber,
Any kind will do.
I like sandwiches,
How about you?

Sandwiches are beautiful,
Sandwiches are fine.
I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time;
I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch;
If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once.

Sandwiches are beautiful,
Sandwiches are fine.
I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time;
I eat them for my supper and I eat them for my lunch;
If I had a hundred sandwiches, I'd eat them all at once.

Musicians Among Us!

Last week we had an incredible assembly with Brent Daniels, an electronic musician.

Check out this link to learn more about the program:  Brent's Website

During the assembly, many kids from EVCS came up and had their voices recorded either singing, speaking, or beat-boxing.  All of us were also recorded clapping, stomping, and yelling, to create the percussion in the song.  It was then all put together by Brent into this great song, 100% created by the sounds of our students!

EVCS Song

We could not stay in our seats for a second during the assembly as we danced, bounced, and moved to the awesome beats!

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Since today is Wednesday, we had music class right before lunch.  Nina, however, was not here today and instead another musician, Shane, came to work with us.  We learned how to use one drum to make lots of different noises by changing our hand-shape and by hitting different parts of the drum.  We created some beautiful beats and rhythms.  After we played, Shane played some incredible songs for us using some very exotic drums, including on that sounded like the ocean and another that sounded like a cow moo'ing when he slid his finger across it.  It was a great morning for the musicians of our class!