Category: Specialists

Rorschach Ink Blot Paintings

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The Kindergarten explored the famous Ink Blots used for personality tests. It was quite impressive to hear the images the students saw. Just to name a few: unicorns, bugs, faces, people, monsters, and animals. Once the students were excited to create such interesting paintings we got started!

It was at first a little hard to not paint anything recognizable to the eye when handed paper and a paint brush. Once they started to fold, press, and unfold their paintings, the wow factor came in and they couldn’t stop. We even stepped on our paintings! Sean found that the pattern on his shoe transferred to the painting when the paper was folded in half and when he unfolded it, it created this amazing symmetrical pattern. The students love this project because the result is quick and something new and different each time.

#SaklanWellRounded

Pi Day Fun

To celebrate Pi Day (3/14) at Saklan, the middle school students taught a special lesson to the third and fourth graders. Students worked together in pairs to measure the diameter and then the circumference of two cookies. They then calculated their own pi by making the ratio of circumference over diameter. No one got exactly 3.141569, but some groups came very close! The students had a group discussion about their results and concluded that two of the reasons they may not have gotten exactly 3.141569 was because the cookies weren’t perfectly round and using a string to calculate circumference might have led to errors.

To close the lesson, the pairs made memory mnemonics to help them remember the first ten digits. If they had extra time, they worked on writing a Pi-ku. These are like Haikus, but instead of only three lines with the syllable pattern 5-7-5 they can go on infinitely (or at least 31 lines) that follow the pattern of.

Here’s one example:

Saklan is                  – 3

Fun!                          – 1

Let’s eat a treat       -4

Yum!                          -1

Math is delicious.   -5

We can’t wait to celebrate again next March!

#SaklanHandsOn

Spanish Activity with Exchange Students

Blue Block students brought their Japanese buddies to Spanish class this week. In a collaborative activity, the students shared their thoughts on why it is important to learn a new language and its culture.

“¿Por qué es importante aprender un nuevo idioma y su cultura?”

The students drew images and wrote words in three different languages on their posters: Spanish, English and Japanese. While working with a diverse student body, they were able to gain a more profound understanding of their own culture, values and beliefs.

#SaklanWellRounded

Doodle for Google!

The deadline for submissions was due Monday, March 18th and The Saklan School students came up with some fantastic designs. This year the theme was “When I grow up, I hope….” The talent and compassion these students have for the world is absolutely amazing and worth sharing! Here are just a few…

3rd grader, Lilia Ghassemi wants to become a veterinarian so that she can help all animals that are sick and make them feel better.

6th grader, Phoebe Kim writes “When I grow up, I hope people continue to pursue their dreams.”

6th grader, Lindsay Chan writes “When I grow up, I hope no more animals are extinct.”

8th grader, Nate Levy writes “When I grow up, I hope to go to space and discover planets and galaxies.”

What’s next?! We wait to hear back from Google!

53 students will be named winners from their State/Territory. Five finalists will be flown to Google’s Mountain View headquarters, and one winning student from among the five will receive:

  • A $30,000 college scholarship
  • A $50,000 Google for Education technology package for their school
  • Their artwork will be placed on the Google homepage for a day

The remaining four finalists will win a $5,000 college scholarship!

Stay tuned!

#SaklanWellRounded

News from the Sports Court

The Saklan Suns basketball away team played two games this week. Monday’s game was in El Sobrante against the East Bay Waldorf School; and Tuesday’s game was in Berkeley against The Berkeley School.

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The games were an awesome basketball field experience. Good job to all the players who participated! The team has two games left during the last week of March. These games will be played here at home so come on out and cheer on the Saklan Suns! #SaklanWellRounded

Lower School Students See the Play “Brooklyn Bridge”

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On Thursday, March 7th, the 4th and 5th grade embarked on a journey down the hill into Lafayette to visit our local community theater, Town Hall Theater. We experienced a beautiful play called “Brooklyn Bridge,” which on the surface seems to be about a 5th grade girl trying to find a pen so she can write a report, but is really about human connectedness and the small things that bring us all together. The students were able to ask the actors questions after, and for our Saklan students, they were able to tie the experience of actors they saw to their own memory of what it feels like to be on stage.

Different students were able to understand the play on different levels. There were moments of stillness and silence when the meaning of the play reached their hearts, and all of them laughed at the “plant moving people.” Experiencing such beautiful theater so close by is thrilling, and helps our students to understand that they are a part of the larger artistic community in Lamorinda and the East Bay. They walked away joyful, inspired, and empowered. Many thanks to Town Hall Theater for hosting us! #SaklanExperiental

Shooting Rockets

Since February, the 8th grade has been learning physics in Science class. They have been learning about the forces on our planet: gravity, air resistance, friction and centripetal force. They have also been working on putting Newton’s three Laws of Motion into real life scenarios.

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In one example of this, the 8th grade had to create a rocket that could fight air resistance and gravity, and that could exhibit all of Newton’s three laws. After creating different paper airplanes and learning how different designs create different amounts of drag, their goal was to design a rocket that could not only defy gravity, but go the highest in the class.

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They worked in pairs to design different wings and different types of cones for the top of their rockets. When the time came to shoot them off, they used an altimeter to measure their height as they blasted off. While each reached amazing heights, one rocket design made it an astonishing 39 meters in the sky (approximately 128 feet), a first for the 8th grade rocket experiment. Congrats, Max and Harrison on your design! #SaklanHandsOn

Field Experience at San Francisco Symphony

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On Tuesday, March 5th, the Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades went out to explore our Bay Area community by traveling to the San Francisco Symphony. They attended a concert called “Play Me a Story,” designed to help students identify different sounds made by each unique instrument, and connect them to characters or events in a story. The students and teachers then heard a program that introduced them to the Overture from “Barber of Seville” by Rossini, “Elephants” by Camille Saint-Saens, and “Scheherezade” and “Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korskov, amongst others.

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The musicians in the symphony expertly demonstrated to our students how a flute can be a bird, how and oboe can be a duck, how a group of violins can be a swarm of bumblebees, and how a trombone and trumpet conversation can be a battle! Everybody’s favorite moment was when the percussion section played us the story of a ship crashing against the rocks!

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Introducing children to instrumental music at an early age is so important, but amongst the laundry list of reasons, one stands out; helping children experience the Symphony in person helps them understand fully that music is played by humans, not by computers, phones, or Alexa. Going outside our school gates and realizing that it is with our own bodies and brains that we create beauty helps our children realize that they too can create art, music or something beautiful, and that it is not out of their reach. For Saklan students, the experience helped them understand concepts reinforced every day in their classrooms and allows them to make a career connection into the greater community.

We 💜 SF Symphony! #SaklanExperiental

Third Annual Hula Hoop Contest

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Saklan’s Third Annual Hula Hoop Contest concluded last Friday. We started with twenty participants and after two contests the finalists finished off with a double hula hoop finale. Nine competitors used two hoops.

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After about ten minutes there were two people left: Chloe in fifth grade and Jack D. in second grade. The tiebreaker used three hula hoops!

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In the end, Chloe was the two hoop champion, Jack was the single hoop champion, and Lilia (third grade) was the no hoop champion. Good job to all those who participated! The contest was a fun way to spend time outside during recess. #SaklanWellRounded