Meet the architects and builders of fabulous homes around the world in the first grade class!
We discussed what homes have in common, learned a lot about countries, climate, culture, and resources.
Homes Around the World
Category: First Grade
Earth Day
This week, we celebrated Earth Day with a series of activities at school that involved our Family Groups. The program included a presentation by Classroom Safari – an educational and entertaining adventure into the wild. The animal ambassadors shared interesting facts about the animals diets, enemies, and special adaptations that help them survive. The students were excited about learning conservation and seeing animals from around the world. After the presentation, the students in Family Groups discussed what the idea of Responsibility has to do with animals and Earth Day.
Earth Day was organized by our wonderful Science Teacher, Vickie Obenchain, and supports our program of environmental education to make Saklan students aware of the issues that are confronting our planet.
Japanese Exchange Students
Yesterday, 15 Japanese exchange students and 2 teachers from Shanon Seminar School spent the day at Saklan!
In the morning they were paired up with our 7th grade students. Our 7th graders presented PowerPoints about American culture like sports, music, food, etc. The Japanese students then shared family stories/experiences of World War II which tied in perfectly with the 7th grade history curriculum. Both groups participated in a Science class together and ate lunch together.
After lunch, the Japanese exchange students spent time with the Kindergarten and first grade classes, making origami and playing. “This was the best day of the year!” said one enthusiastic first grader at the end of the day!
Hopefully this is just the first of many global exchanges to come to Saklan!
Day 100 in 1st Grade
First Graders celebrated their 100th day of school by making “100 Days Smarter” cheerios necklace, wrote numbers 1-100, rolled the dice to reach a 100 and many more! Students enjoyed their celebration and are proud of their growth after 100 days of school.
Mr. Metzger the Storyteller!
To end our Penguin Unit for the month of January, Mr. Metzger visited the first grade class and read a book called ” The Lost and Found Penguin”. The book is a profound story about the importance of friendship between a boy and a penguin. Thank you, Mr. Metzger!
Kindergarten & 1st Grade Art
The Kindergarten and first grade classes tapped into their expansive imaginations while looking at Rorschach inkblot tests. After discussing what they saw in the symmetry, they created their own Rorschach paintings. They were pleasantly surprised with the results every time!
Invention Exploratorium
The first grade class learned about simple machines. They each invented their own machine and then created those machines using various scraps of recycled materials. During their presentation, they had to explain how this invention would work and why it was helpful. Great job first grade!
Constellations, What A Sight!
These creative constellations, fashioned from marshmallows and Q-tips, were made by the imaginative first grade class. The first graders presented all the facts and stories behind their individual constellations. The “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” was a great tune performed by the class to wrap up their “out of this world” space unit.
Here are some of the pictures from their field trip to the Chabot Space and Science Center.
First Grade Field Trip to Safeway
First grade students have been learning about communities. One of their topics was producers and consumers. Last week, they went to Safeway to take a peek of the products in a grocery a store, see how some of them are made, and to meet people who provide services and deliver fresh goods in stores in our community.
Family Groups This Month
This past month, the students at Saklan have been learning about Self-Regulation. On Tuesday, our 8th graders led their first family group meeting of the year around this topic: helping the students to recognize or identify when they need to help themselves to achieve a goal, task, assignment and being able to get themselves back on track. The students watched a video staring cookie monster, where he must fight his urges to eat his cookie partner in order to save a princess. The students saw that sometimes not one solution is enough.
Each family group was then given one issue that might happen at school, and came up with tools that could help them overcome that, so they can get back to the task at hand. These included: when a child is stressed, when they can’t stop giggling, when they are angry or upset (at a friend or situation), or when they are having a hard time focusing. Each family group made a poster showing their tools on the cookies, surrounded by their own cookie monster! Come check these out in the breezeway!
FRIDAY BLOG 
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