Names, Geography, Book Talks, and Graphs

Happy Friday Team! I hope everyone has an awesome weekend. Here are some highlights from this past week on Team 3/4.

Max's grandparents visited our Morning Meeting to share some photos, maps, and stories about their adventure by train across Canada.

What a group of readers! Here we're digging into our "Friday" literature. Everything in the library is available- our usual "Just Right" books, plus magazines, comics, and more.

 
Here Lily and Cole take center stage (or center chair) to give a Book Talk. They present a basic plot outline of a great book they've just finished, making sure to not give too much away. Then they recommend the book to a specific audience that they think would enjoy it. "If you like _________, you'll love this book!"

Congratulations to Cole! He facilitated a class meeting in which the class discussed selecting a class mascot for the year. After a spirited debate they came to the consensus that we should design and sew our own stuffed animals and make extras to donate to children in need. The spirit of service is strong on our team this year and I LOVE IT!

Thanks to Genevieve for mixing up salt dough for our California relief maps. The students built the basic landforms, color-coded different regions, and labeled important landmarks. They defined the scale of the map and oriented the cardinal directions for the reader. 

 

Snack time fun zone!

Here's wishing safe and happy travels for Ezra and family. He's headed to Brazil to visit family for 10 days. We'll miss him and we can't wait for pictures and stories!

 After defining a research question, selecting a population sample to survey, conducting a survey, building a tally chart, graphing results by hand, analyzing the data, and coming to clear results, students input their data on a graphing website and watched as it generated some cool charts and graphs.

In addition to data analysis, each student is also working with some of the following concepts: 

• rounding and estimation
• story problems with misleading language or extra information
• beginning algebraic notation
• function tables
• multi-step word problems
• memorizing multiplication facts

Today, I finished reading aloud Morning Girl by Michael Dorris. Like Morning Girl and Star Boy's family does in their 1490's Taino culture, we came up with new names for ourselves in class. We started with a relaxing, guided meditation and we began to reflect on the parts of who we are that we value most. We let those thoughts inspire new Taino-inspired names for ourselves. After we came up with our new names, we shared them with partners and as a whole class. We shared anecdotes from our lives that illustrate those beautiful qualities. The students reflected to one another the ways that they see the qualities behind the new names in one another. It was a sweet morning of self-awareness and loving support. 

Here are some of our new names:

Nature Girl

Rainbow Spirit

Cat

Deep Thought

Son of Victory

Explores the New

Bird Bat Girl

Swimming Boy

Wave Boy

Thanks for another great week of learning with your wonderful kiddos!

Bridging Generations

This school year your child will have the opportunity to participate in a special friendship program called Bridging Generations.  The children in our 3^rd & 4^th grade class will be visiting a San Anselmo senior home, Bello Gardens, several times during the 2013-14 school year.

The goal of this program is to encourage friendships between school age children and older adults, and to use this intergenerational experience in classroom activities.  Skills such as reading, writing, research, interviewing, and art will be developed through these interactions.  Students also will learn to relate historical information to real life experience reflected in the seniors’ lives.

Additionally, this project aims to link the past with the present and to build mutual appreciation between generations.  Students will be educated about aging, dispelling some fears they may have about the elderly.

The children will be prepared for their interaction with the residents by participating in sensitivity training in our classroom.  The Intergenerational Coordinator from LITA (Love is the Answer), a nonprofit serving seniors in Marin, will be visiting our classroom on Tuesday to present information about about senior homes and the common physical and emotional traits of the elderly.  She will also respond to student questions and concerns as they share their personal experiences visiting with older adults.

Our first visit to Bello Gardens Will be Friday, October 11, 2013.

NatureBridge Outdoor Ed 2013!

Wow! What a fantastic trip!

When I think back on the three days that I spent in the Headlands with your kids, I’m amazed at how cohesively they approached their time together, and how engaged and grateful they were for the beautiful, joyful, challenging, hilarious, surprising, invigorating experiences that unfolded for us. 

Here are some of my favorite highlights:

• Teamwork on the volleyball court

• First meeting our awesome naturalist Jo! She was incredibly knowledgeable, engaging, and flexible. I'm so glad that we have a new friend at NatureBridge!

• Hiking to the pond where we collected and categorized the macro-invertebrates that help maintain the healthy ecosystem

• Way to go, girls! Nice work keeping your bunk clean and organized. There are few honors in this world greater than the Golden Pinecone!

• Sweet and silly morning faces after the first night

• Friends!

• Nature charades with our whole Lower Campus community

•  How lucky were we to enjoy that weather?! Sunscreen it up, kiddos!

• This is one of my absolute favorite moments. Jo challenged us to say a friend's name as we passed the squirrel around the circle in under 20 seconds! It took five tries, a lot of collaborative strategizing, and some innovative thinking before we got down to... 17 seconds! You should have heard the cheering!

• Welcome to the Hardcore Apple Club! Can you eat an ENTIRE apple? The trick is starting from the bottom so every bite includes delicious apple. I think these pictures are pretty hilarious. 

• Success! Cole learns the Hardcore Apple Club secret handshake! 

• Jo was a great storyteller. She told us a beautiful story about greed and sharing, illustrated by the gorgeous, bright orange carnelian stones on the beach. We searched until everyone found one and used it to make an unselfish, peaceful wish for the world. 

•   Deeply thoughtful wish-making

•  AND.... we're out. Sometimes you just need a 3 minute nap before lunch.

•  Here we are learning about invasive and native species on ice plant hill. Jo showed us how you can place the end of a piece of ice plant on your tongue and feel it sucking up water almost instantly. "How do you think that that might affect the ecosystem here on the dunes?" she asked. 

•  Love love love :)

•  Checking out the blue whale skeleton on the way the the Marine Mammal Center. One student said, "I knew they were really big, but this is UNBELIEVABLE." It really is remarkable to stand by a skeleton that size and imagine encountering such a massive creature in nature. 

•  We're so grateful that the MMC welcomed us to explore some of the important ways that local people are making a positive impact on our environment. 

• My favorite experience had to be our night hike down to Rodeo Beach. It was a full moon and we talked about perspective as we watched the moon rise higher and higher and appear smaller and smaller in the sky. We snuggled up on our backs to watch the stars as Naturalist Matt told us the story of the constellation Cassiopeia. Then he showed us the "stars in the sand" as we found bioluminescent plankton that sparkles when you move the sand around. 

I have a few more pictures from the service project that we did on Friday that I'm excited to show you tomorrow. Thank you to Ben and Dean for being with us in the evenings to support us in countless, gracious ways. Thanks to all our drivers and to Genevieve for coordinating. And thanks to all of you for the great honor of heading out into the world with your kids. We feel more connected that ever and it's so clear to all of us that this is going to be a year full of big growth for our very loving community.