Packing for the Trip, Maps, LCM, Bake Sale, and Fossils

It's almost time to hit the road, then hit the trail!

Let me know if you have any more questions about the trip. I'm more than happy to help!

On Wednesday morning students will drop their suitcase/duffel just outside classroom before coming in. There will be signs showing you where to place things and, of course, I'll be there. It’s best to consolidate gear in as few bags as possible. It’s great if you can fit your pillow and sleeping back inside your luggage. 

Students will wear their backpacks into the classroom. Backpacks should have a snack, lunch, full water bottle, and sunscreen inside. We’ll start our outdoor adventuring as soon as we arrive, so I recommend that the kids wear a hat. The backpacks will stay with the students or in the cabin for the whole trip so it’s important that there isn’t food residue left in them after eating lunch on Wednesday.  There will be trash, compost and recycling bins available to clean out  packs after lunch. 

PLEASE LABEL ITEMS CLEARLY WITH YOUR CHILD'S NAME! 

And THANK YOU to Jen, Jenn, and Karen for chaperoning and being there for the kids and me. I couldn't be more grateful. 

Check out some pics of us painting our relief maps:

 

Some of the students playing Least Common Multiple Shoots and Ladders:

And here's our fabulous bake sale! Thanks for helping! It was really fun and successful. We'll send our earnings out into the world when we return from the cabin trip. 

Here students are working through an iPad interactive from UC Berkeley, introducing them to the three major types of fossils and how they form. When we return from Westminster Woods I'll write a spotlight post about the work we're doing with fossils in science!

 

Relief Maps, Presentations, and Class Meetings

Hi Team. Happy Friday!

Our Environmental Ed Trip is right around the corner and we've started talking about it in class. I always feel so honored to take my students out into the world and I know that that work starts in class as we prepare to depart. It's going to be a fantastic adventure and I know we'll come back feeling more connected than ever!

Dena, the Bridging Generations Program Coordinator, is coming to visit class on Monday to present information on senior homes and interacting with the elderly, and to generally help the students prepare to meet their senior buddy next month. She always does a really beautiful job of getting the students excited about making a new friend, answering their questions, and validating the range of feelings the students will have about the first trip.



Below you'll see some pictures of us making salt dough relief maps of California. This activity is an oldy, but a goody and the kids love it. It really helps them visualize and internalize the landforms that define CA geography and set the stage for the historical studies we'll dig into next.

Thanks to Hannah for coming in and sharing such sweet Rosh Hashanah traditions. 

The students gave presentations on the features of different CA landform regions.
We discussed these features of a strong presentation and what they would look like in the context of this specific presentation:

·      Practice! You'll be prepared and sound like it

·      Stand tall (no leaning and fidgeting) with toes pointed at the middle of the audience

·      Eyes on the audience (don’t stare at your poster the whole time)

·      Complete your sentences

·      Use appropriate tone and volume

 Sweet, cozy moments with Just Right books:

 Congratulations to Sabine and Liam who facilitated the first two class meetings of the year! They were such great examples for their peers, selecting topics for discussion that are important to the group and calling on speakers with our "hands" technique. They worked on repeating back a synthesized version of the discussion so that the speakers feel heard and the class has clarity. They worked on using some specific clues combined with their intuition to decide when the group is ready to vote and likely to have consensus. Sabine heard student announcements, then led a discussion about possibly putting on a Halloween haunted house for the rest of the school. Liam's class meeting led to a consensus that the students will put on a bake sale next week to raise money for the victims of the current wild fires. We decided to move next week's class meeting to Monday so we can make a plan for that event. I imagine that it's clear, but I'm so inspired by this part of the 3rd/4th grade program and I already see such impressive growth in our classroom democracy. I love to see the kids using this time to do good work for the school community and those in need. 

Checking out some live animal webcams in the iPads!