Guest Blogger- Skyler!

Last week we had a pioneering campfire with the tables tilted on their sides for the “wagons”, and a candle for the flame with logs and rocks surrounding it. We still have the wood and candle on the floor! We all had a good time. We sang songs and Devin told “scary” stories, one of them was when Devin and her friends were staying alone in South Dakota during winter and Devin’s dad tricked them into thinking that a ghost was knocking on the door! J On 1/17/13, we painted Martin Luther King Jr. No, let me correct you, we finger-painted him!J Using black and white paint and our fingers to paint finger-sized dots paint sections of a picture of him, and we’re soon going to put it up on our wall. -Skyler

The following photos of the Team 3/4 artists were shot by Skyler. Such interesting perspective!

I'm very excited about how our Dr. King portrait turned out. I think it's really spectacular and a beautiful way to honor such an important man. You should definitely come check it out in person. This week, we read a MLK biography by Mary Winget that I love because it's filled with incredible photographs. We also discussed non-violent resistance and the context of life in the segregated South that necessitated such a passionate and powerful response. 

Skyler also took these photos of a sculpture workshop taught by Alex! The whole class was very grateful to Alex for bringing in the clay and teaching us some techniques for molding emotive faces. 

Way to step up, Alex! 

Guest Blogger- Max!

Hello my name is Max. I’m the team 3^rd and 4^th grade blogger at ccs for our class. In my opinion our class learns  and has fun at the same time. Like when we wrote to authors and some of us got responses. Some of us even got signed pictures! It feels good to get letters from famous people it makes you feel like they care. We pay attention in class. And we help each other. We have a wide expanse of books in our library.

The photos below were taken by Max!:

Welcome Back!

Welcome back! I have to tell you, it feels so great to be back in the class with these awesome kids! Thank you all so much for the most gracious gifts. I was very touched by your thoughtfulness. It means so much to me, truly. 

It felt great to get right back into the swing of things. The 3rd graders had a very exciting day today. They started... drumroll please... MULTIPLICATION! 

We'll work with modeling multiplication as repeated groups, repeated addition, arrays, and areas before starting the amazing 9-Lines visual imaging curriculum.

The 4th graders are translating the work we've been doing with finding the area of rectangles to their first algorithm for ***multi-digit multiplication***!

If you didn't hear, we ended the day on a very exciting note. We wrote letters to our favorite authors months ago, and some of our students received replies! I'll wait to tell you more because Max is going to share the excitement as our first student blogger of the year! I've added a job to the job board and now one student each week will be responsible for writing a blog post and taking and uploading photos. Today the kids brainstormed the types of topics the blogger could write about and you can look forward to posts about projects in class, adventures on the playground, sample student work, and the ways we see kindness in action in our community.

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!