These last two months have been very special in second grade. We have been working on our Family Heritage Unit. The second graders and their parents have completed several projects: a family tree and discovering where their ancestors came from, making a paper quilt square telling about their family, finding out the origin of their first and middle names, and interviewing a grandparent about what life was like when they were young. In class the children read many stories about families from other countries.
They made passports and wrote Immigrant Kid stories pretending they were coming to America in the early 1900’s. They also read the book Molly’s Pilgrim and created a clothespin ancestor doll. One of the final activities was to bring in a memory box filled with personal items, but not revealing their identity. There was a lot of excitement trying to guess the owner of each memory box. It has been so fun sharing all our family heritage stories with each other.
Overnight, multi-day field trips like this one are a part of what makes the Saklan academic program so rich and engaging. Allowing our students to have hands-on and real-life experiences is a way that we broaden their understanding of the topics they study. We believe that these experiences are part of the curriculum, and as such we build the cost of field trips right into the tuition. This is different from many other schools where overnight field trips are an additional expense. At Saklan everyone participates and field trips are part of the learning fabric. In January, 7th grade will spend a week in Hawaii; in March, our 5th graders will spend three days at the Marin Headlands; in April, our 4th graders will go to Coloma overnight to study the Gold Rush. Throughout the school, trips enhance the learning experience of our students. The teachers at Saklan are to be commended for the extra effort it takes to make it all possible.
FRIDAY BLOG 
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