Winter Light, Advice, Music, Egypt, and Wagon Trains

It's been such a sweet week, full of kindness and celebration. We've been spending lots of time with our other lower campus friends. Here we are, supporting Axel as he walks around the Solstice Candle, welcoming the light back into the winter darkness. 

Thanks Jai for telling us the epic story of Diwali and chanting with us.

Here's Mila! What a fantastic job of facilitating the class meeting last week. She led a discussion about when it is and is not an appropriate time to draw in class.

We were so lucky to have three students from Javier's class come by to present their learning about ancient Egypt. Here Hannah is teaching the students about papyrus.

The students offer their wise perspectives to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students at my previous school. We sent each other questions on which we wanted some objective advice. Topics ranged from feeling teased, to difficulty in certain subjects in school, to having different rules at home than your friends, to divorce, to feeling lonely, and more. Here you can see the class writing and discussing their responses to their new friends' problems.

One of the Egypt presentations was on pyramids and tomb raiders. The kids are playing his homemade board game.

 The class is measuring out the size of a typical covered wagon in the 1800s. The students were surprised to see they were so tiny!

The class is split into wagon trains and here they're presenting the route west that they've chosen, the draft animals that are appropriate for the terrain ahead, and the roles they'll take on for their team during our imaginary journey west.

What better "dance move of the day" than the covered wagon bounce?! The wagons definitely didn't have any shock absorbers and the terrain was rough. Only the very young, the very old, and the injured would ride in the wagons. Everyone else walked almost the entire 2000 miles.

The wagon train groups know that it's important to get to Oregon before the winter snow falls. The guidebook recommends you try to arrive by the middle of October. Here you'll see the students working together to figure out when to start their journey west. The first step? Walking a mile to figure out how long it takes so we could do the math and find out when we need to leave to get there in time to ready our new land for the winter. 

We moved class into the sanctuary yesterday afternoon for a concert, sing-along, and G.G. gift opening. The kindergartners couldn't resist the opportunity to hear such accomplished musicians in action. There is so much talent in this class!

Alex led an exciting class meeting today. The class voted to do another round of gift giving in the spring. Great job, Alex!

It was so fun to visit our friends next door in the room 6 bear cave. The 1st and 2nd graders shared their dioramas and some interesting facts about bears!

Thanks for sharing such beautiful Hanukkah traditions with us, Hannah! We learned about some of the history of Hanukkah and how diverse celebrations are for different families. It was wonderful to hear about the ways some of our Team 3/4 families celebrate. Each student rolled a candle and we sang around the menorah.

I can't wait to see everyone at the winter celebration tomorrow. It's so beautiful, definitely one of my favorite CCS traditions!

Floor plans, Balderdash, and What's it REALLY about?

You’re Invited!

Let’s gather in the classroom at 2:20 on Friday (12/14) to hear the students recite the poetry they’ve been working with for a couple weeks now.  Let me know if you can make it!

-Devin

Writing in Response to Reading: What is this story REALLY about?

Today in Writers' Workshop I told the students that I’d be sharing some stories about riding a Ferris Wheel. I walked them through four story ideas, each taking place on a Ferris Wheel, but with very different messages. One was about conquering a great fear, one about connecting with a father, one was about wanting to cling to the joys of earlier childhood, and one was about enjoying peaceful moments alone. We saw how it wasn’t enough to say, “The story is about a Ferris Wheel ride.” We needed to ask, “What is this story really about? What is the significance the author wanted to highlight?” Then, we noticed the craft choices the author made and thought, “How does the author’s decision to title the story like this, to start at this point or elaborate this section, convey a meaning that resonates? How can we find evidence of the author’s purpose in the choices he or she made as a writer?”

After the lesson, the writers got to work investigating the real significance of Dear Mr. Henshaw, Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles (a BEAUTIFUL picture book about civil rights in the '60s), or their independent reading book. Here are some samples. I've highlighted the students' use of the sentence starters I've taught them to help push their thinking. 

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I think Spiderwick is really about how it doesn't matter what other people believe in, it matters what YOU believe in. The reason I think this is that it is about faeries and sprites and trolls and the people in the book talk about how they believe in magic, but about 55% of the people in the world do not believe in magic. It is good to believe whatever you want because you are free. 

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What general ideas about life and relationships are wrapped up in this story? Sometimes you won;t realize how special something is until it is gone. Abby Lovitt learns when one of her horses Jewel (the one that she calls Pearl) dies. Since she learned that Pearl felt special to her. 

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I think this story is really about how powerful connections can be between people like between Lily and her grandma and how she misses her dad because he is going to war. The thought I have about this is Lily's grandma doesn't really like Jewish people. She doesn't hate them, but she is uncomfortable. The reason I had this thought is Albert might be Jewish and that's why Grandma doesn't like Lily hanging out with him (it says he has a secret sewn into his coat). I think he escaped from World War II to save his life. Another thought I have is Lily might be depressed because of all the war going on. Maybe Lily thinks that it is going to now be a good summer because they are in Rockaway. 

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The book showed two boys with different skin color playing through the book. John Henry is more mad than sad that the pool was closing because of the new rule. He has angry tears. 

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This story tells you don't be greedy, it just makes a problem. I found this out because Set wanted to be king, but then he's going to destroy the world. 

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Alex and Gloria share their work as writing partners for this unit:

Math

For the last couple of weeks, all of the students have been in a geometry unit centered on quadrilaterals, so we've been able to work together as a whole class on some projects. Here you'll see students playing a game designed to reinforce skills for finding the area of a rectangle using multiplication for 4th graders and counting the interior squares on a grid for 3rd graders. Thus, the third graders have some useful background to bring to their multiplication studies that will begin first thing after the Winter Break. 

For the next two weeks until the break, 3^rd graders will work with rounding, estimation, and money.

4th graders will continue to solidify their understanding of area and perimeter of rectangles before moving on to work with more complex shapes. They will design a tree house floor plan, find areas of rectangular and non-rectangular rooms and multiply their square footage by the price per square foot of their chosen flooring material. The third graders will participate in this project as well, with individually differentiated directions that most likely focus on finding perimeters of complex shapes and adding and estimating large sums. 

Class Democracy and Leadership

Skyler rocked it out as ambassador last week! He greeted a prospective family tour and remembered to check in with me after they left to tell me their eye colors (and thus prove that he made that all-important eye contact!). He facilitated a meeting in which we decided on a system for students to receive extra homework should they so desire. The kids can select a math challenge sheet and a creative writing prompt from the second drawer in the math station. Skyler received fantastic feedback from his peers after the meeting and I have to say, the feedback becomes more gracious, specific, and perceptive every week. I also notice that the students participate much more actively and thoughtfully in the meeting discussions after acting as facilitator. Isn't it a powerful perspective to try on a leadership role, and then step back? The kids are clearly more respectful and engaged in meetings after taking on the challenge of being ambassador. Way to go, Sky!

Alphabetizing and Dictionary Skills
We had tons of fun working with our dictionary skills and then playing a round of Fictionary (Balderdash).
Listen to these hilarious made-up definitions:
posthumous- noun. a very poisonous mushroom found in Australia. Known for its bright orange color
posthumous- noun. a scientific word for email
Yucatan- nnoun. a type of Native American hut
zoophyte- adj. disgusting, gross, odd, different in a bad way
status quo- noun. Jupiter's name before it was declared a planet
And my personal favorite:
status quo- verb. when you update your status with a quote
:)

Let me know if there's anything you've been wondering about life in our classroom that would be a good topic for my next post!