LittleLeopard News

May 2012

BURNSIDE PLANTATION
TRIP WITH FORTH GRADE!!! Written By: Jenaya

This is Jenaya reporting the forth grade eld trip to Burnside Plantation. At the plantation we learned about Mary and James Burnside. ! There were many cool things there; horses, old houses, a barn, and a summer kitchen, just to name a few . There were three different horses named Raven, Gorge, and another one. They were all police horses.

! We made part of a mini barn in the actual barn. We learned about the tools they used back then. We also learned how they made the barn because in the 1800s it burned down and they had to re- build it. We got to eat bread with apple cinnamon sauce and learned about how they cooked bread and made whipped cream. We also got a chance to mix the whipped cream. I hope next years forth grade can have a chance to go. Pictures on Page 3

First in Math
An online math program with games to practice all areas of math skills. It can be played both at school and home.

Top Monthly Class

4th Grade Mrs. Scarponi (+4,604) 3rd Grade Miss Ely (+10,988) 2nd Grade Mrs. Laslo (+6,486)

Students with most First in Math stickers earned:

Dane W. +2,351
Teacher with most First in Math stickers earned:

School Total 212,378

Miss Haller 6,490 David Heard Memorial

A memorial was dedicated to the life David Heard with the planting an American Red Bud tree in the front of the school and the start of a book memorial titled David Heard Warrior Collection. Children enjoyed listening to teachers talk about how David affected the lives of others and saw a slide presentation about him. A guest appearance by Melissa VanFleet whom sang Firework and Fame was also greatly enjoyed. Each child and adult that was in attendance was then able to sprinkle glitter on the tree to represent how Davids

First graders showed their FAME sportsmanship when they teamed up with the EAHS ambassadors on May 23rd at EAHS for a culminating activity for their partnership in literacy this year. This outdoor activity gave the students the opportunity to visit the high school campus, buddy with the ambassadors to play kickball, meet their special pen pals friends and enjoy a baseball picnic lunch. A special thrill was to have Troy Hein umpire the game! They came ready to play in their green and yellow baseball uniforms sporting the logo, Little Leopards Step Up To The Plate! ! Our Little Leopards showed their March Pride with plenty of friendly smiles and laughter on the eld. Many special thanks to Ms. Capecci, Mrs. Steinberg, Mr. Koch, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Pokrivsak and his staff, Mr. Hein, March Schools PTA , teachers and staffs for all their hard work and planning in making this event so special for the rst grade students. ! Check out the Easton Express Times for pictures as well as page 3 of this newsletter.

T ake Me Out to the Ball Game

Take me out to the Ball Game, 1st Grade

4th Grade Burnside Planation

Box Top Update

The Little Leopards at F.A. March continue to Make Themselves Proud by collecting Box Tops! Each month, a new collection sheet is sent home. Every student is encouraged to ll up their collection sheet and return it to school. For the month of April, the F.A. March School community collected 1,160 Box Tops bringing our total to 12,340 Box Tops! All families and community members are encouraged to keep collecting over the summer. Thanks for all of your hard work!

The Math and Science of Bubbles

Putting It All T ogether
! Mrs. Costellos Third Grade class was able to bring science and math together in one lesson. First they created 3-Dimensional Geometric shapes such as cubes, rectangular and triangular prisms from pipe cleaners. The following day, they used their 3-D gures as bubble blowers. These were no ordinary bubble blowers though. ! When the 3-D gures were dipped in bubble solution, the outline of the shape appeared within the center of the 3-D shape. The students were able to recall from the principles learned in their FOSS Water Investigation that surface tension was at play here! Surface tension pulls the water into a dome-like, spherical shape. The water moves into the smallest shape possible. With the 3-D bubble blowers, the shape repeats the outside shape. The students were very excited by the experience.

Liquid Nitrogen Demonstration by Mr. Kish, LIN Ambassador from Air Products.

PTA Scholarship Winner

This years 2012 recipient of the March PTAs J. Eric Van Arman Scholarship is Erik Ritter. Erik Ritter will be following his fathers footsteps and attending Rochester Institute of Technology. While there he will be pursuing a degree in Computer Science and a minor in music. He will be receiving this scholarship on Wednesday May 30 at the Academic Excellence Ceremony. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

2nd Annual Science Fair

On April 30 we held our 2nd Annual Science Fair which was a BLAST! We had approximately 40 students complete science projects. During the day, grade levels rotated through four science centers which were the student science projects, a science activity, a liquid nitrogen demonstration, and March for March. At the science activity, students learned about aerodynamics by making straw rockets (3rd and 4th) and paper helicopters (1st and 2nd). The liquid nitrogen demonstration was presented by David Kish, a LIN ambassador from Air Products. Mr. Kish demonstrated the different properties to students through engaging experiments and questioning, having students discover the answers themselves. That night 66 families came back for our 1st ever Science Fair Night. Families were able to make slime, observe and touch different animals (giant millipedes, leeches, a snake, etc), learn about robots, and add animals to our wall habitat. These centers were planned by Lafayette students. Everyone had a great night and walked away knowing one new science fact they didnt know before. We would like to thank the students of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Mr. Drummond of Lafayettes Biology Department, and Ms. Villanueva for their helping in making this night possible. We would also like to thank Mrs. Newquist and Mr. Newquist for their help. We would also like to thank Crayola would helped make this possible through their Crayola Grant.

Miss Ely and the Students of Room 215 present......

Poetry Cafe

Third graders in Room 215 are ready to celebrate everything they have accomplished in third grade. The year has been lled with many memories and exciting moments. At the end of every year, Room 215 holds their Poetry Cafe at the Easton Public Library. This year, the event will be held on Thursday, May 31 from 6:00pm-7:00pm. When families arrive, they will be greeted with refreshments and a gallery of artwork created by the students for the night. Miss Ely will start off the night by giving the Room Parents a thank you gift for all of their hard work and dedication to the students in Room 215. In addition, we will honor all of the teachers, parents, and families that have helped us to achieve our Third Grade Hopes and Dreams. Students may feel nervous, but they are excited to share their cinquains, haikus, and quatrains they have written. Each poem is written about a third grade memory, item, or topic. Students have practiced these poems many times and are ready to share out! As in a traditional poetry cafe, the audience snaps rather than claps after each reader. The celebration wouldnt be complete without a picture slideshow of the school year. Miss Ely likes to show the parents just what their children have been up to in third grade. Finally, special prizes are rafed off (which are donated by Miss Elys family) and each student leaves with a special keepsake. The special keepsake is a Memory Book that is lled with pictures of the year, reection sheets, and work completed throughout the year. In addition, Miss Ely and each parent writes the student a letter sharing their proud feelings! Third Grade Poetry Cafe is truly a night to remember! Thank you to every person who has supported and loved Room 215. Happy summer!

BIG Brother/BIG Sister Reading Club

We have many families in our school with big brothers and sisters who are eager to help their younger brother or sister learn to read and practice reading. Several of these students have eagerly volunteered to be in our Big Brother/Big Sister Reading Club. After school, they practice letters and sounds, rhyming words, reading sight words, reading stories and books and even help with writing! It is so wonderful to have so many teachers at our school!

Leopards Leap into Summer Learning with Reading and Math Packets
With summer quickly approaching, the kindergarten and rst grade teachers have been gathering materials for their students to take home for the summer. With lots of reading, writing and practicing math, we expect our students to return to us ready for their new grade. Kindergarten students have become video movie stars and will be given a video at the end of kindergarten to watch each day. Letters, sounds, writing, rhyming and counting activities are included as a fun way to review the skills taught in kindergarten. A special packet was put together for our new kindergarten students who will attend F.A. March Elementary School next fall. Inside their new backpacks were many special educational treats which included a video made by kindergarteners showing what they should know before they come to kindergarten, pencil, a rhyming book, an ABC book and they were also allowed to pick out a book from PTA. We are so excited to have new students come to our school.

Health and Fitness

The school year is moving quickly and most of the holidays have come and gone. The students of March Elementary are all working hard and learning health and tness skills that will help and last them a lifetime. We always talk about getting enough rest and sleep as well as exercise and discuss healthy eating choices and habits. This year we also have added discussions of the bones and muscles of the body. We started the year with circuit training, which included checking, and counting heart beats as well as how to do a proper warm-up and cool down with all our activities. This includes stretching for the upper and lower body, push ups and sit-ups/curl-ups for strength along with jumping jacks, jumping rope, mountain climbers, line jump and many more activities that they can do and use all year long. We moved into soccer skills activities stressing the footwork of all students and than moved into catching and throwing skills using soft baseballs and soft softballs along with foam and rubber footballs to work on hand-eye coordination skills. All classes practice and the fourth grade are tested twice a year on what is called the FITNESSGRAM by The Cooper Institute. This is a comprehensive and computerized reporting system, which allows individualized reports for each student on exibility, cardio-vascular endurance and muscular strength. All students did a wonderful job and showed good effort. Next were basketball skills, oor hockey skills, bowling, tennis and an introduction to racket skills, and volleyball bump and set techniques. Finally we move to various track and eld events such as 50 and 100-meter sprints, long jump, high jump and turbo jav to work on various skills and movements and at all times teaching, showing and stressing teamwork and sportsmanship. This all relates back to our positive behavior program called F.A.M.E. and our district wide AGF program of having all students learning how to grow up to be healthy, successful and productive citizens of society.

Ready...Set.... Drop!
SPLAT!, is what our students were trying to avoid hearing during our Egg Drop this past Tuesday, May 22. Students had to build a container to protect a raw egg dropped from various heights. The students came up with some very invented and smart containers. We had 55 students make projects. Students competed at grade level competitions then nalist were dropped off the top of the building by Mrs. Steinberg and Miss Kordek. All the students who made it to the nal round surveyed. Congratulations to all students!! Some pictures also on the Easton Express Times.

Mothers Day Poetry

March School third graders began writing poems for National Poetry Month in April. Each student has been working on poems to honor their mom or a special member of their family. Students created poems that followed the pattern in the Margaret Wise Brown story called, The Important Book. They also created shape poems, Haikus, rhyming poems and poems using personication. The students published their poetry turning them into books of poems.
!

Music in May
On Tuesday May 8th, the March School community was treated to the sounds of the 3rd and 4th grade choruses. The 40-member 3 grade chorus treated us to a great rendition of Owl Citys Fireies while the 30-member 4th grade chorus encouraged us to hear the world singing with Id Like to Teach the World to Sing. The choruses then combined their efforts and sang three songs together. These included Empire State of Mind and For Good from the musical Wicked. They closed the concert with Dont Stop Believin. The students and parents raved about how great the concert was. On Thursday May 10th, the March band and orchestra took the stage of the EAMS 7/8 auditorium to present a combined concert with the six other elementary schools of the Easton Area School District. The students were very excited to play with such a large group and got a taste of what it will be like to be in the 5th grade band and orchestra. The Orchestra played 4 selections including Two Terric Tunes and Fiddlers Hoedown. The band played 3 selections including In Search of the Lost Treasure Chest and arrangement of songs from the farm entitled Farm Fresh Favorites. Marchs very own music teacher, Miss Klabunde, arranged this piece. The evening was huge success and enjoyed by all who were in attendance.

! The third grade students at F.A. March Elementary School would like to thank the PTA for sponsoring their recent trip to the Lakota Wolf Preserve. The money earned by fundraising throughout the school year goes directly to funding grade-level eld trips. The students are appreciative of the March School PTA for supporting learning outside the classroom. ! The students enjoyed a wonderful eld trip to the Lakota Wolf Preserve on Friday, May 11, 2012. They observed the packs of Tundra, Timber and Arctic wolves from a natural surroundings-observational area. While watching the playful interaction of the wolves, the students listened to an informal presentation where they learned the social structure of the wolf packs, their eating habits, communication, and interaction with man. The children interacted with the wolves, encouraging them to howl. ! In addition, the students were able to observe foxes and bob cats also living at the Preserve. They enjoyed a close-up view of the animals, learning about their survival in the wild. Enjoying a bagged lunch at the Camp Taylor picnic grounds and a visit to the gift shop rounded out the trip. Pictures on the next page.

Lakota Wolf Preserve

Lakota Wolf Preserve Third Grade Field Trip

Reading Olympics
On May 2 we had our 4th Annual Reading Olympics Competition with an approximate total of 230 students at the nal event from all seven elementary schools. Throughout the year 3rd and 4th grade students read books off a specic list chosen by the district librarians. After reading the books they then write questions which will be used in the culminating event. Students compete in teams against each other. We had two teams, 21 students altogether, who participate from March. They did an AMAZING job and had fun doing it! We are all so proud of their hard work. Way to go Little Leopards!!
VISIT THE SCHOOL WEBSITE @ HTTP:// WWW.EASTONSD.ORG /MARCH/ WELCOME.HTML SCHOOL ADDRESS: 429 READER ST EASTON, PA 18042 PHONE NUMBER: 610-250-2531

Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program

F. A. March elementary has been approved with a grant for a Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) from the state. Students will get the experience to try 3 different fresh fruits or vegetables a week. Teachers are excited to help improve and expand the knowledge and tastes of the students and their families.

Articles Contributions:

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M. Kinney J.S. Ely C. Kordek J. Brunetti E. Costello

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L. Klabunde L. Weider 3rd Grade 1st Grade 4th Grade

! J. Repasch

Compiled By: M. Kinney and C. Kordek