Category: Owlets

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.

You are invited to this year’s Auction Fiesta on Saturday, March 11 at 6:00 p.m. This year’s auction will focus on community building and have several activities (games, photo booth, raffles) to encourage socializing and reconnecting with friends old and new!

This Fiesta will feature a taco bar dinner, open bar, wine ring toss, silent auction, and lots of fun! Tickets are now available online; get your Fiesta tickets today!

The Saklan School’s Annual Auction is the school’s second largest fundraiser of the year. Proceeds from the auction are invested directly back into our student’s educational experiences, in and out of the classrooms.

Can’t make the auction?

There are several ways to participate in this year’s event even if you can’t attend: underwrite a teacher ticket, donate wine to the wine ring toss, or stay tuned for more information on participating in our online silent auction.

Thank you for your support of the auction and Saklan.

#SaklanFiesta

The Owlets continue to learn about a different letter each week, and this week they focused on the letter J. Excitedly, they found a big jar full of jelly beans on Ms. Jessica’s desk! During circle time, the class counted out 10 jelly beans to see what 10 looked like, and then each Owlet estimated how many jelly beans might be in the jar.

In small groups, the Owlets helped sort the jelly beans by color and count how many of each color there were. Finally, Ms. Jessica added all the numbers together to discover that there were 285 jelly beans in the jar!

This activity was not only a fun way to learn about the letter J, but helped the Owlets practice their early math skills like sorting and one-to-one correspondence. Additionally, picking up the jelly beans one at a time was great fine motor practice too.

The Owlets are weather watchers! Here at Saklan,we have been lucky to see so many different weather events over the last week: rain, thunder, lightning, hail, wind, and even some flooding!

With a renewed interest in weather, the Owlets were excited to learn some new science words like observation and evaporation while learning the basics of the water cycle.

They enjoyed a hands-on experiment with shaving cream and watercolor paint to recreate a cloud filling with rain until it got so heavy, it rained down into the cup below. The Owlets also learned that water can be a solid, liquid, or a gas. The class made watercolor ice cubes and painted with them, while observing them melt back into a liquid.

#SaklanHandsOn #SaklanScience

Brrrr! With the weather getting so cold and icy in the mornings, the Owlets have been very interested in winter weather. Taking their lead from the students’ interest, the teachers read Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter by Kenard Pak and No Two Alike by Keith Baker, aloud to the class. The Owlets learned that snowflakes are unique, which means they are all different, just like people! The students made snowflakes using different mediums: pipe cleaners and beads which they hung on their classroom tree, and white crayon and watercolor to make resistance paintings.

The Owlets have been practicing their creative storytelling. They read The Gingerbread Man, and then each Owlet collaged their own gingerbread person and made up a story about them. They also made melted snowmen art and told stories about how their snowman melted. The students were proud to have their art, and the stories they represent, hung up in their classroom!

#SaklanCreative

The Owlet class has been familiarizing themselves with the letters of the alphabet. The students have been practicing finding letters around the classroom, brainstorming words that have the same beginning letter sound, and building letters with different materials.

For the letter Aa, the Owlets read the books ABC by Dr. Seuss, Hooray for Amanda and her Alligator by Mo Willems, and Abiyoyo, a South African folk tale by Pete Seeger. The Owlets built the letter Aa using playdough, practiced their cutting skills on a traced Aa, and made their own Abiyoyo monster (like in the story) from torn pieces of construction paper.

For the letter Bb, the class read the book Burt the Beetle Doesn’t Bite by Ashley Spires, and then created their own bugs with Philippa. The Owlets named their bugs and described their “superpowers” like the bugs in the book. They also read The Bad Seed by Jory John, and then observed some sunflowers and sunflower seeds. Ms. Erin helped the students learn about sequencing and quantifying as they counted the seeds.

The Owlets also read Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and spent a rainy day getting creative with tons of cardboard boxes. The students loved making trains, mountains, cars, robots, and many other fun things!

For the letter Cc, the Owlets read the book Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards, and then made caterpillars out of egg cartons. They also learned how to play Candy Land! This game helped the Owlets practice many social-emotional skills, including: taking turns, following rules, and being a good sport whether they won or lost the game.

#SaklanSEL #SaklanHandsOn

During the month of October, the Owlet class has had multiple opportunities to meet some community helpers in our own community. The Owlets visited the Saklan Library for the first time last week and met the librarians Ms. Joy and Meredith. The students listened to Meredith read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and then she and Ms. Joy helped each student pick a book to check out.

On Wednesday, the Owlets had some very special guest experts visit their class from Aloha Pediatric Dentistry in Orinda. Hannah and Omar, both dental technicians, demonstrated proper teeth brushing and flossing, showed the class x-rays of teeth, and played a game where students sorted snacks that are good for your teeth and not so good for your teeth.

The class also learned about doctors and how they help our communities. The Owlets read Doctors by Dee Ready and learned about some of the tools doctors use, like x-rays and stethoscopes. The students got to look at some real x-ray pictures of human bones, and use real stethoscopes to listen to each other’s heart beats! After hearing their hearts beat, the class watched this video to learn what happens inside our bodies to produce the thump thump sound.

The Owlets are very grateful for the wonderful community helpers that are all around us!

#SaklanCommunity #SaklanGuestExperts

The Owlets have been getting excited for Halloween! Ms. Erin read a silly, spooky story called Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds and the students had fun making their own creepy carrots to hide around the classroom and playground.

The Owlets also got to observe pumpkins of different sizes, shapes, colors, and textures. Philippa opened a small pumpkin to show the Owlets what was inside. She read the book Pumpkin Circle: The Story of a Garden by George Levenson to teach the class about the life cycle of a pumpkin.

Each Owlet got to plant their own pumpkin seed, which they will tend to and (hopefully) watch grow!

#SaklanHandsOnLearning #SaklanCreative