As they shared in their live Flag presentation last week, the first graders have been learning about writing sentences. They learned a song to help them remember the rules for writing a sentence, including: starting with a capital letter, leaving spaces between words, and adding a punctuation mark at the end. Check out the video of the first graders singing the sentence song at last Friday’s Flag .
First Grade Presents Live during Friday Flag
Now that they have writing a sentence down, the first graders are working on putting together multiple sentences to create stories. They learned that each story has a beginning, middle, and ending, and have been practicing adding all three sections to their writing. The students are also working on adding more details to their stories. Stay tuned for more story writing from first grade in next week’s blog!
Lately, we have all had a lot on our plates. The ramifications of COVID-19 impacting our day-to-day lives. Family dynamics that have been stretched. Forest fires and smoke, causing us to stay indoors and cancel school. And now, an election that seems to emphasize our differences and pits us against others. Daily, we have to navigate our own emotions, fears and anxieties, as well as those of others. Many days it feels beyond our capacity.
A head of school colleague shared this piece with me last week, and it just seems to fit so well with where we are today, and what we need.
Peace
Turning to One Another
There is no greater power than a community discovering what it cares about.
Ask “What is possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking.
Notice what you care about.
Assume that many others share your dreams.
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Talk to people you know.
Talk to people you don’t know.
Talk to people you never talk to.
Be intrigued by the differences you hear.
Expect to be surprised.
Treasure curiosity more than certainty.
Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible.
Acknowledge that everyone is an expert about something.
Know that creative solutions come from new connections.
Remember, you don’t fear people whose story you know.
Real listening always brings people closer together.
Trust that meaningful conversations can change your world.
Student’s in Ms. Jessica’s class have been learning about collaboration, which is their social and emotional learning theme for October. The Owls learned that collaborating means working together to make or do something. It also means using teamwork and listening to each other’s ideas. The students tried out their collaborative skills with a few activities. The first collaborative activity was to build a structure together during circle time. Each student took turns adding one or two blocks to the structure until it was complete. Sometimes pieces fell when they tried to add them, but they encouraged each other to try again!
The children also made a multi-step, collaborative art piece to celebrate fall. First, the Owls used eyedroppers to drip red, orange, brown, and yellow watercolor paint onto giant coffee filter paper. They were surprised to see the color spread quickly over the paper and blend together! Next, each Owl helped cut out leaf shapes from the painted paper. They chose whether they wanted to cut out pre-drawn leaf shapes, or create their own unique shapes.
Finally, the leaves were attached to the tree bulletin board in their classroom. The Owls were proud to see how their individual contributions helped create one big masterpiece!
The third graders enjoyed learning about famous cartoonist Rube Goldberg. He is well-known for the elaborate crazy contraptions he drew of complicated chain reactions that performed a simple task. The class learned that Rube wanted to be a cartoonist, but instead went to UC Berkeley and became an engineer to please his father. Eventually, he did follow his passion and pursued a career as a cartoonist. His engineering background came in handy though, because it helped him to create designs in his cartoons that could actually work, even if he only drew them to make people laugh.
The class’s excitement to read books about Rube Goldberg tied in nicely with a weekly theme in their reading program: Inventors, explored through the genre of biography. The class was able to relate the reading strategy of finding “cause and effect” in their stories with learning about the chain reactions in Rube Goldberg’s contraptions, since a chain reaction is really just a cause and effect.
The third grade students were then inspired to use the engineering design process to create their own Rube Goldberg machines. Each student came up with their own design for a contraption with at least 4 chain reactions to complete a simple task. They used great perseverance to keep trying and redesigning their machines until they worked. Here are some videos of their machines in action!
Earlier this week, the second graders went on a walk along the trail, looking for inspiration for a fall art project about leaves they were working on in class. The students really enjoyed the opportunity to get out of their classroom and into nature to observe the world around them.
The students collected leaves they found on the ground and brought them back to the classroom. The students observed the various colors and shapes of the leaves, and used them as models for leaves they drew and colored. This project was not only fun, but also a great way for the second graders to further develop their observation skills, which are important for being scientists and artists!
Due to remote learning and working from home, posture has taken a toll on families. The November Friday Social will focus on how we can benefit from improving existing ergonomics to prevent back aches, growing pains, headaches, migraines and sciatica. And while these issues may not present themselves now, it is also important to develop a good postural foundation to avoid future spinal issues such as scoliosis and tech neck.
Few people realize there is a connection between posture and mental wellness. Did you know that if someone has poor posture, especially at a very young age, the biomechanics of the posture limit the amount of oxygen to the heart and lung regions? This then means that they are not getting the proper oxygen to think clearly and make healthy decisions. Mood is then also negatively impacted because the lack of oxygen makes one fatigued, sad/depressed and unmotivated.
Dr. Christina Alba
Join the PA for our November Friday Social on November 6th at 3:30 PM to learn more! We’ll be welcoming an expert, Dr. Christina Alba of Rivulet Chiropractic, who will talk about the importance of posture and moderate this community discussion. The Zoom link will be shared closer to the event. Email ewilliamson@saklan.org to receive the link.
Everywhere we turn we are getting reminders about how important gratitude is – how it changes our outlook, the way our brain is wired, and our overall disposition. During a year where stress and uncertainty have taken the front seat, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on many of the things for which I’m grateful.
To the ECE teachers – thank you for paving the road for in-person learning, for your diligence and patience and positive attitude when we didn’t have all of the answers. Lastly, thank you for sharing the space that was once all yours!
To the K-8 teachers and specialists – for working your tails off to make distance learning an integrated, full day experience for our students and families. And now for completely starting over with in-person learning, distanced, masked, hoarse voices to be heard through masks – all the while continuing an engaging curriculum. As much as we may want to, we will never forget this year of teaching. Thank you for your patience with schedules, duties, and juggling a truly challenging time. Your hard work has not gone unnoticed.
To the parents – for your support during distance learning, for your commitment to staying safe outside of school so that we could pivot back to in person learning, for being willing to take your children to get a COVID-19 test, for waking up each morning to fill out the Renweb prescreening, for understanding that you cannot come on campus, and for trusting us with your cherished children. We are so happy to have most of the students back on campus this week; their energy and presence has invigorated us all.
To Javier – for your long hours, for transforming the campus so that we could have a safe campus from which to teach, for your always positive attitude and humor, for always being ready to help no matter what.
To my admin team – for stepping up and taking things off my plate, for being supportive and rolling with everything that has come our way, for keeping me accountable and telling me when I am wrong, for handling the details, for trying to anticipate things before they happen.
To the COVID-19 Task Force – for many long hours of information sharing and conversation, for your expertise, for your honesty, for your commitment to Saklan and our students. To the endless rewrites of policy and dealing with the endless changes to what we know about COVID-19. This has been a long, hard journey, but it has been necessary and immensely helpful.
To the Board of Trustees – for your support, trust and time, for ad hoc meetings and grappling with issues that have no good answers. To your dedication, confidentiality, and ongoing commitment to the success of our teachers and our children.
Have you ever heard of a square pumpkin? Mrs. C’s Kindergarten class has! The Kindergarteners have been exploring 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes. They built shapes using playdough and toothpicks, played shape BINGO and the shape game, “I Have Who Has.” Then, the students listened to the story, The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin, where pumpkins are cubed, triangular and rectangular shaped. Later, the children painted their own square pumpkins. The Kindergarteners thoroughly enjoyed this hands-on exploration of shapes that incorporated math, language arts and Halloween!
Creativity is an important part of learning at Saklan. Every two weeks the second graders free-write their own adventure stories based on drawings they create. The drawings are based on the inspiration of a shape they are given. This allows students the freedom to create a piece of their own original, artistic work.
After students have drawn the picture and written the story, they review it for grammar, structure and content. Once reviewed, the second graders read their stories to the rest of the class, and provide feedback on what they liked about the stories to their peers.
The students read their latest round of stories to the class on Tuesday, October 13. Feedback given to the authors included:
“I liked all the sequencing words you used.”
“The drawing had lots of detail and showed lots of things that happened in the story.”
“You read that with lots of expression.”
“It was creative.”
“It was funny, and I like funny things!”
“Your story was very descriptive.”
Check out pictures of the second graders reading their latest squiggle stories below!
The first Parent Ed talk of the 2020-2021 school year was held on Wednesday night with Dr. Chelsey Hague-Zavaleta from Positive Parenthood. Thank you to all those who attended! The topic was “Managing Big Feelings During the Pandemic,” and attendees walked away with some great parenting tools and new perspectives.
In case you missed it, here are some bullet points:
STAY CONNECTED to your child through their big feelings.
PRAISE and PRESENCE are the two most effective ways to make a connection and therefore get your child to cooperate. Look for the things they are doing RIGHT and comment authentically. Put your phone down and be in the moment with your kids. 5 minutes of uninterrupted time is more valuable than 30 minutes of getting up to change the laundry or checking your phone.
As adults, we need to take responsibility for the emotional landscape; children respond to our state. This means we need to TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES!
Don’t try to fix big feelings. Instead, join them. Be present, and validate your child’s feelings.
Practice “3 yesses” to connect with a child who is having big feelings. Say 3 statements that you know they will agree with. “You really wish you were still playing video games” or “You were really looking forward to seeing your friend today.”
About 80% of what we tell our kids on any given day are directions or corrections. Try to focus on having 80% of your interactions with kids be praise/connection.
There is no perfect parenting. We make mistakes, and then we repair – it’s important for our children to learn that.
Visit Positive Parenthood’s website for more information. Positive Parenthood also has a Facebook page where Dr. Hague-Zavaleta often posts videos with scenarios and reminders; it is a great resource for any parent. Ask to join and Dr. Hague-Zavaleta will include you in the conversation!
FRIDAY BLOG 
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