Author: The Saklan School Friday Blog

The Saklan School is a private Pre-K through 8 school located in Moraga, CA. Our mission is to think creatively, act compassionately, and live courageously.

Library Part 2 – Saklan’s Infamous READ Poster

Last week, we highlighted our parent volunteers and their work in the library. Last week, we received our READ poster from the printer featuring last year’s Auction winner Lilia Ghassemi. Lilia is an ardent reader who loves reading because it allows her to imagine herself in different situations. She is a fan of both comedy and drama.

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One of her favorite books is Click’d by renowned author Tamara Ireland – a story of girls, coding and an ethical dilemma. Lilia is currently reading Switched at Birthday by Natalie Standiford. The novel is a story of two young girls who have the same birthdays but nothing else in common. Thank you, Lilia for supporting reading at Saklan!

#saklanreads

Create a Culture

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Each school year, 7th grade begins the year with the Create-a-Culture Project. This project offers the seventh grade students a wide array of activities that immerse them in all the elements that make up a culture. The main objective is to increase students’ understanding of what makes culture unique, as well as to help them see and appreciate the similarities and differences that exist among cultures. Students work in cooperative groups of three by designing a fictitious culture and deciding its history. Through that they will learn how cultures develop, change, and grow.

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The Create-a-Culture Project is divided into five sections: making decisions, creating the culture, project ideas, culminating activities, and the Culture Fair. They have been working creatively and cooperatively problem solving issues that arise. Ultimately, each student group has compromised and worked collaboratively to bring forth a completely original culture.

We are inviting all seventh grade parents to a culture fair on Tuesday, October 8, 2019 at 10:30am. The fair will allow parents to see and understand each of the six created cultures, as well as enjoy yummy food. We look forward to celebrating and showcasing all of the students’ hard work.

#saklancreative

All About Me

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As part of their All About Me Theme, Hoot Owls have been learning about different kinds of families. Based on the book, The House That Jill Built by Phyllis Root, the students built their own homes both real and imagined. They were encouraged to draw their family members inside. Many Hoot Owls also constructed a narrative about their families while working on this activity. 

In addition to learning about different kinds of families, Hoot Owls also learned that skin comes in lots of different beautiful colors. They read The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler and The Colors Of Us by Karen Katz. Just like in the book, The Colors Of Us, the students mixed red, brown, yellow and white to make their own unique skin colors. Later, they used mirrors to study their facial features. The Hoot Owls paid special attention to their eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hair to create their first self-portraits of the year!

#saklancreative

4th Grade Inventions

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The 4th graders were in the Science lab for the last three weeks to study about electricity and currents. They learned about static and moving charges, which items are considered insulators and conductors, and built both a number of series and parallel circuits.

In conclusion to that unit, the students got to work with our new STEM kits and build their own inventions.

From Segways and vehicles to alarm clocks, hair curlers, treatment delivery systems and musical hovercrafts – it was really fun!

#saklanhandson

1st/2nd Grade Louise Nevelson Textured Sculptures

Students started off learning about one of the five basic senses: touch. With their eyes closed and open, they experienced different sensations in feeling textures such as fur, sand paper, felt, rubber, fake grass, etc. They described what these textures felt like and whether they enjoyed or disliked those sensations and why. After the discussion on where such textures are on this planet, they were introduced to sculpture artist Louis Nevelson.

Louise Nevelson is most known for her monochromatic (one-color) large sculptures using found objects. After looking at some of her artwork and discussing what they see through the arrangement of objects, the students were excited to build their own sculptures. They were given a variety of materials with different textures to create a sculpture that has many layers and surprises to it.

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The final steps include choosing one color that will cover the entire sculpture and giving the work a title. They will revisit Louise Nevelson’s sculptures and see how she used her titles to give meaning. The final step of making will be a mini critique so their peers have an opportunity to ask questions and the artist has time to explain their artwork and process.

#SaklanCreative

Story Elements with Fifth Grade

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The fifth graders have just finished reading the book Frindle by Andrew Clements and learned about story elements. The students made character trait posters which exemplified character traits for the two main characters. In addition, the students learned how to support the character’s traits by locating text evidence in the book.

Students enjoyed learning more about story elements and creating their posters with a partner. Awesome effort, fifth graders!

#SaklanHandsOn

Community Helpers

For the month of September, the Owlets have been learning about community helpers.

Last week, the children had a guest expert, Officer Baiza come in and talk to them about being a CHP Officer. He showed the Owlets his cool CHP truck, what he had inside his truck, and they even got to pretend to drive it. It was a lot of fun.

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Then on Friday, the Owlets visited the Moraga Gardens Farm. The children saw what farmers and gardeners do, and what it takes to run a garden or farm. The Avant family even let the Owlets eat lunch in their backyard, play with their toys, and meet their chickens. It was another fun day!

#SaklanExperiential

Saklan’s Library Guardians

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This summer, a few parents and the PA approached the school offering to dive in and help with a Library makeover. They have been busy since the start of the year thinking and working (even giving up a Sunday) on reorganizing and beautifying our Saklan Library. After consulting with teachers, they have started to revamp the library to look and feel more like a bookstore, making access and organization easy for students to understand. They have sourced a new cataloging system and digital check-out software. With those tools, we will be able to move forward with ordering new books that will fill some of the gaps our library has (especially in the areas of diversity and global thinking). Keep an eye on this spot as they have bigger plans for the library, including a Birthday Book Program and family discounts at local booksellers.

Dear Guardians, Saklan thanks you!

#SaklanVolunteers

Head’s Corner

Family Groups are Our Superpower

To be more exact, Family Groups are one of our many superpowers at Saklan. For those of you who are new to Saklan, Family Groups are a long practiced tradition that helps our students build positive character traits. While working on character may not be something unique to Saklan, I believe it is how we do it that is powerful.

Late into each spring, as a faculty, we start a conversation about the character traits we want to help students develop the following year. Traits like gratitude, compassion, honesty are among some of the characteristics we picked for this year. While the classroom teacher focuses on the monthly trait, our Family Groups are where the deep work happens. Each family group is made up of students from different grade levels, with the older ones taking a lead role. Every month, we set aside time for the older students to teach the younger ones about a particular trait.

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This student to student approach serves many goals. To start with, our younger students truly enjoy being taught by older students. The activities feel more authentic when an older peer is leading a discussion on character than when an adult is facilitating. More importantly though, is the impact the Family Groups have on our older students. To teach something, one needs to understand it. Our older students need to think deeply about what a trait like gratitude means not just to them but to a six-year-old. Working with younger students helps them develop another superpower, empathy. Adolescents struggle with seeing the world through the eyes of others, but working with younger kids helps build that empathy muscle.

Lastly, as adults, we can reinforce the trait by following three simple steps. We model the character trait we are working on not only by setting the example but by owning our shortcomings. Secondly, we celebrate when students exhibit the behaviors we are seeking. Not by just saying “good job” but by letting them know we admire how they have behaved, or how we are proud of them. Thirdly and crucially, we put students in situations where they can practice the behavior. For instance, if we want them to show gratitude by writing thank-you notes, we set aside the time and materials for students to do this.

This month’s character trait is friendly, with our Family Groups meeting on the 25th. Help us help them by discussing what they did during Family Groups that day – and seeing how you can model, celebrate, and enable friendliness at home.

Warm regards,

David

#SaklanConnected