Gratitude, Maps, the 1st Californians, and Compasses

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's wishing you safe travels, loving connection with family and friends, and many moments to reflect on the goodness in your life. 

Emmy's Class Meeting
Emmy continued a discussion from a previous Class Meeting about getting a pet for Room 7.5

Students partner- read an article about the first Californians and how they likely arrived in the area 12,000 years ago.
Then we problem-solved a math challenge designed to contextualize just how long 12,000 years really is. For example, we looked at how many thousands, how many hundreds, and how many tens are inside of 12,000. Then we thought about activities that we do twice a year. How many times would you do that in 12,000 years? What about something you do 3, 4, or 5 times a year?

More partner-reading. 

We're working on our road trip projects, using string, rulers, and a map scale to estimate the distances between destinations. 

We needed a meditative moment after Luca's Class Meeting. We discussed the in-class use of Twiddles, necklaces made of interchangeable pieces that can be shaped, molded, torn-apart or snapped together.  Many students find them to be the perfect tool for fidgeting and supporting focus during class. Many students find them to be distracting. It was a long, involved process to reach a consensus around rules for appropriate Twiddle-use and we were equal parts exhausted and extremely proud of the compromising and thoughtful listening that went into our group decision. 

Decorating covers for our CA Road Trip Projects!

Cooper brought in a cool home-made game for math-fact practice. 

CA Road Trip Project peer-review

We went on a pre-Thanksgiving gratitude hike with Peggy's class.  We shared our feelings of gratitude for our beautiful lives and specifically, for one another. We also discussed why it's important to share gratitude with the world and the different ways we can do that. I also introduced some basic compass orienteering skills.

Coordinate grid Tic-Tac-Toe.