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.

Parent Coffee Next Friday

Please join us next Friday, March 24th from 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. in the Pavilion for warm coffee, snacks, and a conversation about social emotional well-being! Saklan Mom, Jaime Pham, will share about the role that emotional well-being plays in overall health. Jaime works in social media with a focus on mental health. She will lead us in a brief meditation and then discuss the youth mental health crisis, social media, and share how she incorporates EQ and emotional management into conversations with her fifth grader. Kim Parks, Saklan’s Director of Teaching and Learning, will share about Saklan’s Social Emotional Learning program as well.

If you can’t make it in person, please join us on zoom.

This is a can’t miss parent coffee event and we hope to see you there!

#SaklanSEL

Fiesta Silent Auction is Open

The Auction Fiesta 2023 silent auction is now open! Along with the items from the greater community that opened yesterday, the student collaborative art, legacy baskets, and fun teacher experiences are now open for bidding!

Student Collaborative Art

Each class has an art item that they worked on in the auction. View the slideshow below to see some of the beautiful work the Saklan students created!

Legacy Baskets

To learn more about the legacy baskets that the 8th graders created for the auction, check out the video below!

Click here to view the items & bid!

Once you are on the Online Bidding page, click the Start Bidding button and finish creating your account.

HOW TO BID:

  1. Search for packages by name or number by using the magnifying glass or by choosing a category under the menu.
  2. You can Bid the next increment or Bid More than the next increment. If you choose Bid More you can set your max bid. If your max bid is the highest, the system will automatically bid in your favor until you are outbid or until the auction closes.
  3. To “watch” a package, select the star icon on the package.
  4. You’ll be notified if you’re outbid at any point before the auction closes and you will see an Outbid notice at the top of your screen.
  5. To get back to the main screen, click the house icon.
  6. To view the packages you are bidding on, click the menu button and select Bids.

This auction is open to the public, but we ask that the winning bidders pick up items from Saklan. Feel free to pass on the auction link – https://saklanfiesta.ggo.bid – to those you think might be interested. 

Thank you for your support of The Saklan School!

#SaklanFiesta #BidEarlyBidOften

Exploring Colors and Feelings

Last week, the second and third graders went on a field experience to the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek. While at the gallery, the students explored an exhibit by artist Erin Fong: The Sensation of Color. They were immersed in colors and connected how different colors can make you feel. They also created some of their own artwork as part of the exhibit!

Back on campus, the students continued their unit on color in art class where they asked the question “can colors make us feel different emotions and help us connect with others?” The second graders learned about color mixing and the different groups of colors on the color wheel. Afterwards students painted hearts as they engaged in an activity where they found their “complementary” (opposite) and “analogous” (neighbor) colors, among other color wheel based discoveries.

The third graders also learned about color mixing and the color wheel, and painted their hands to make the unique color wheel you see below!

#SaklanCreative

Celebration of Colors

On Wednesday, the Owlets we had a special visitor. Rachel, one of the Owlet parents, joined the class to teach them about the holiday Holi. She read Festival of Colors and the Owlets learned that Holi originated in India, and is a celebration of spring and all the beautiful colors that come with it. Traditionally people celebrate Holi by making colorful powders out of flowers, then throw the powders everywhere! The Owlets celebrated in their own way by throwing colorful confetti in the air.

They also made a collaborative “tree of life” using bright flowers instead of paintbrushes. Its colors represent how beautiful the world is when there’s variety, diversity, and individuality.

Where Spanish is Spoken

Third graders have been learning about the countries where Spanish is spoken in the world. There are a total of 21 countries and more than 500 million people who speak Spanish in the whole world. 

The students did some research on some specific countries about population, typical food, music and dance, favorite sports and two famous people from that country, and then presented their findings to the  class.  

They had a great time and were really excited about this project!

Parent Coffee on March 24th

Due to the rain, this week’s planned parent coffee was postponed until after the next CLAS. We hope you will join us on Friday, March 24th from 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. in the Pavilion for warm coffee, snacks, and a conversation about social emotional well-being! Saklan Mom, Jaime Pham, will share about the role that emotional well-being plays in overall health. Jaime works in social media with a focus on mental health. She will lead us in a brief meditation and then discuss the youth mental health crisis, social media, and share how she incorporates EQ and emotional management into conversations with her fifth grader. Kim Parks, Saklan’s Director of Teaching and Learning, will share about Saklan’s Social Emotional Learning program as well.

This is a can’t miss parent coffee event and we hope to see you there!

If you can’t make it in person, please join us on zoom.

#SaklanSEL

Solar System Exploration

Many Hoot Owls have been excited about space all year long, and so they were very excited to begin to learn about our solar system in class. They started with the center of our solar system, the Sun. The Hoot Owls all worked together to create their favorite star, then put it up in their classroom to help learn about the order of the planets moving away from the Sun.

Next the Hoot Owls started to learn about the rocky planets. They used different painting techniques for each planet to highlight their differences. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun so they started there. The students learned that Mercury is full of craters caused by meteorites, and then painted Mercury with sponges to give it a bumpy look. Hoot Owls also practiced writing, “Mercury.”

Next, they learned about Venus, and discovered that it is very hot and has thousands of volcanoes and poisonous gases and storms. Hoot Owls practiced writing “Venus” before drawing volcanoes, storms and gases with oil pastels. The Hoot Owls’ drawings showed through the watercolor paints that they added at the end. They also reviewed the terms solid, liquid and gas.

Earth was next! The Hoot Owls created clouds with shaving cream, and used eyedroppers to add blue and green paint that represented the oceans and the land. They used paper to make prints of the shaving cream. The class talked about the seven continents and located them on the globe. They also read the book Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years  by Stacy McAnulty.

The last of the rocky planets was Mars. The Hoot Owls painted the ice caps on Mars. The students learned that Mars is red due to iron covering its dusty surface. They also learned about Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in our solar system. The Hoot Owls used a Q-tip to “draw” or remove the paint to create the volcano.

Up next, the Hoot Owls are excited to learn about the gas planets!

Spirit Fridays

Join the Saklan Student Council in showing your school spirit! For the next couple of months, every Friday will be a Saklan Spirit Day. All students and teachers are invited to dress up for the following spirit days:

Friday, March 10: Pajama Day – Wear school-appropriate pajamas and normal shoes (no slippers please)

Friday, March 17: St. Patrick’s Day – Wear green

Friday, March 24: Identity Day – Wear anything that shows something about who you are and/or what you are passionate about

Friday, April 14: Color Out Day – Wear Blue from head to toe & support Autism Awareness Month

Friday, April 28: Funky Fashion Day – Wear mismatched and fun fashion

Friday, May 19: Beach Day – Wear typical clothes for tropical/warm weather (no swimsuits please)

Participation in these spirit days is optional. If students choose not to dress up, they need to wear their uniforms.

#SaklanSpirit

6th Graders Expand their Understanding of Volume

Recently, Saklan’s sixth graders worked to expand their understanding of volume beyond the equation: volume = length * width * height.

The students experimented with cubic units as they explored a situation involving offices with unusually shaped bases. They quickly were able to determine that a multiplier could be used to extend the height of the office towers much more efficiently than counting. And after a class discussion of why the area of the office tower’s base was the same as the volume of the office tower when it was one unit high, the sixth graders came up with a better formula. Volume = Area of base * height.

An interesting side note: At a math teaching conference that Saul Zippin, Saklan’s Middle School Math Teacher, went to a few years ago, he attended a session about middle school students finding the volume of a parallelepiped (a parallelogram prism) that had one of the sides weighted so it would stand up, as shown in the image below. 

Researchers from the University of Illinois had filmed their students finding the volume of the prism and their outcomes. All of the students used the V = l X w X h idea. Some found the height from their desk to the top (the correct way), while about half measured the side that was the slant instead of the actual height. When it was time for questions, Saul asked how many of the students found the area of the parallelogram (the base of the prism) and then multiplied that by the height. They said that none of the students in their research did that. Interested in how Saklan students would solve this, Saul made a class set of the 3D shapes, weighted the base and asked the students to find the volume. Every student found the volume correctly! Most turned the parallelepiped on its side, found the area of the base and multiplied by the height. 

Saul noted that when students are taught to think mathematically using manipulatives and class discussions, they have a huge advantage when attempting to solve problems. 

March SEL Focus: Honesty and Trustworthy

Saklan’s social-emotional learning emphasis for March is honesty and trustworthy. Throughout the month, all Saklan students will discuss what each of these words mean with their class, brainstorm ways to be honest and showcase trustworthiness, and look for ways to put those ideas into practice both at school and at home.

#SaklanSEL

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