Category: General

Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week

From May 10-May 14, Saklan will be celebrating Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week. This year has been like none other–both in the challenges faced and the successes achieved–so it feels especially important to celebrate our Saklan teachers, and let them know how much we appreciate the work that they do.

In addition to surprises and celebrations put on by the Saklan Parents Association, we will also mark the occasion with a half-day on Friday, May 14. Please note that this will be a noon dismissal day for students.

Huge thank you to the Parents Association and in particular Sandy Lo for organizing the week’s events. We are all looking forward to a week of appreciation, and showing Saklan teachers just how thankful we are for the work they do!

#SaklanCommunity

Pioneer Day

On Tuesday, April 27, the third grade class traveled back in time to 1888 to experience life as a pioneer student. Each student took on a new identity by choosing an old fashioned name and came to school dressed in their finest pioneer attire.

Mrs. Rokas, with the help of Ms. Meredith and Ms. Joy, brought traditional pioneer activities into her own classroom. The day started in the classroom with the three R’s: reading, writing and arithmetic. Students read from McGuffey Readers (published in 1879), practiced their cursive writing using quill feather pens and ink, and practiced their math on slate boards with chalk. They also had a spelling bee!

During morning recess, students played like pioneers. They walked on can stilts, used jump ropes, and played hopscotch and jacks. Afterwards, they listened to pioneer stories from Ms. Meredith under a shady tree and made some pioneer crafts with Ms. Meredith and Ms. Joy: tin punch art and yarn dolls. 


For lunch, each pioneer student brought authentic pioneer food in baskets, pails or tied to a stick. After lunch, students sang pioneer songs and learned square dancing with Mrs. Chaffey. Next, they made butter in mason jars and tasted the delicious homemade butter on biscuits brought by Kaylah.

The day ended the day with group games: tug-o-war, sack races and three-legged races.  

The third graders really embraced the pioneer spirit and enjoyed their time travel back to 1888! Huge thank you to Mrs. Rokas, Ms. Meredith, and Ms. Joy for bringing this day to life for the third graders!

#SaklanHandsOn

Be Resourceful

During April, Saklan students have been learning how to be resourceful as part of our ongoing social-emotional education. This lesson was especially relevant for the month that includes Earth Day, as there are always opportunities to be more resourceful when it comes to helping our planet.

Some key ways that students can be resourceful are:

  • Think outside the box
  • Take initiative – if you see something you can do, go do it
  • Be creative with materials, problems, and tasks

After learning more about what it means to be resourceful, students had the opportunity to come up with ways they could be resourceful in their own lives, and display it on a “helping hand.”

#SaklanSocialEmotionalLearning

Saklan Community Rallies for the Monarch Butterfly

A few weeks ago, Saklan’s sixth graders set up an election with the goal of helping an endangered species in need. Plastic buckets were set up outside the main office–one bucket for each of the five animals chosen–and the Saklan community had a week to vote with their wallets for which animal they wanted the class to symbolically “adopt.”

When the votes came in, the monarch butterfly was the winner.

Saklan’s choice of the monarch butterfly is serendipitous, as the school has partnered with the Moraga Garden Center to plant milkweed and nectar flowering plants, which support monarch larvae and adult monarchs.

The school’s efforts were recently highlighted in Larmorinda Weekly, with the two sixth graders who chose the monarch butterfly for the “Vote with your Change” election featured in the post. Recognition well deserved!

#SaklanHandsOn

Third Grade Spanish

In third grade Spanish class, the students are learning about the 21 countries in the world where Spanish is spoken. They also learned that there are more than 500 million people in the world who speak Spanish, a number that continues to grow.

To fully appreciate the diversity of Spanish-speaking countries, each third grader picked a specific country to learn more about. They explored their chosen country’s typical food, music, dance, and sports. They also researched two famous people from their chosen country.

Third graders put together poster boards display all they had learned, so they could share it with their fellow students.

#SaklanAcademic

Earth Day at Saklan

On Thursday, Saklan students celebrated Earth Day with the help of some animal friends! A petting zoo was set up right on campus, and each class took a turn getting to know the animals.

While the bunnies might have been the biggest hit amongst the students, there were also ducks, pigs, and goats for the students to pet and feed. We were so impressed with how gentle all of the students were with the animals, and how patient all of animals were with the students!

A huge thank you to Ms. O for organizing this special Earth Day treat!

Outside of the petting zoo, some classes incorporated Earth Day into their daily learning. In Kindergarten, students learned about different behaviors that can make our Earth “happy” or “sad.”

In Ms. Ashley’s fourth grade class, students celebrated Earth Day by reading poems they had written for the occasion.

We love to see all our students learning how to care for and protect our Earth and all the organisms who live here!

#SaklanCompassionate

Eighth Grade Field Experience

Following the successful sixth and seventh grade trips, the eighth graders will take their turn at Challenge Sonoma on Tuesday, April 27. Ms. Cashen, Ms. Kim, and Mr. O’Connell will be joining the students for the day.

Finding opportunities to take students off campus this year has been difficult, and it has been so fun to finally be able to give the middle school students a field experience to enjoy. The day will be filled with opportunities for collaboration, team-building, and all-grade bonding.

Thank you to the eighth grade parents for your support, and to the middle school faculty for their commitment to making this happen for the students!

#SaklanFieldExperience

Science Discovery in the Owl Classroom

Some of Saklan’s youngest students are learning all about science! The Owls in Ms. Jessica’s class are spending the month learning what science is, what an experiment is, and the definitions of the words “hypothesis” and “observation.”

To bring their learning to life, the students are conducting an experiment of their own, using celery sticks and white flowers! The class put one of each into cups of water, then added different food coloring to each cup. They also left one cup of water uncolored.

Each student formed a hypothesis about what would happen, including:

“They will grow!”
“They will explode!”
“The water will get hard like Jello!”
“They will suck up the water!”
“They will get hot!”
“A raccoon will take the celery!”

The class will make observations every day to see which of their hypotheses are correct!

#SaklanHandsOn

2021-2022 Days Off School

Planning has begun for the 2021-2022 school year, including a proposed calendar of schools breaks and days off. More detail about these dates and other important school events for next year will be coming, but we hope this outline will help Saklan families as they begin planning for the year ahead.

Aug19: Teachers’ First Day
Aug 25: First Day of School
Sept 6: Labor Day, No School
Oct 8-11: Fall Holiday, No School
Nov 11: Veterans’ Day, No School
Nov 22-26: Thanksgiving Break, No School
Dec 17: Half-Day
Dec 20-31: Winter Break
Jan 3: Professional Development Day, No School for Students
Jan 17: MLK Day, No School
Feb 18-21: President’s Day Weekend, No School
April 4-8: Spring Break
May 6: Teacher Appreciation Day, No School
May 30: Memorial Day, No School

Thank you for your support as we plan for another great year at Saklan!

#SaklanCommunity

Saklan Spring Break

As we prepare for a well-deserved Spring Break, we wanted to remind the Saklan community of a few guidelines and protocols regarding travel and our return to school.

With infection rates where they are, we will not have an all-school virtual learning period following spring break. That means that students who remain in California during spring break will return to campus for in-person learning on Monday, April 5.

For those of you who are planning out-of-state travel, please note that we are still following the guidance of the California Department of Public Health. Your child will have two options for quarantining upon their return to California:

  1. Quarantine for 10 days after returning to California.
  2. Take a COVID-19 test within 3-5 days of returning. With a negative test result, students can return to school after 7 days.

We know this is less than ideal, and are grateful for all that Saklan families have done to make in-person learning successful. With your support, we can continue our streak of all negative COVID-19 test results.

On behalf of the entire Saklan community, we hope your family has a safe, happy, and fun Spring Break.

#SaklanCommunity