Homes Around The World

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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 different countries, climate, culture and resources.

News From The Sports Court

A Call for Old Tennis Balls!

The students of Saklan have learned a backyard cricket game known as bats.  They have become very skilled at using a plastic bat to hit a tennis ball. Unfortunately, during this process many tennis balls have been lost to the creek. So we would like to make a call for old tennis balls. If you have a collection sitting around and you are not sure what to do with them, please consider giving them over to the recess bat games.

2017 Volleyball Season

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Saklan Suns Volleyball Team Fifth Grade thru Eighth Grade

Thursday, May 4 at 4:15PM, East Bay Waldorf vs Saklan

*Wednesday, May 17at 4:15PM, Saklan vs. East Bay Waldorf away

Thursday, May 18 at 4:00PM, Ecole Bilingue School vs . Saklan

*Tuesday, May 23 at 4:00PM, Saklan vs. Ecole Bilingue School away

Wednesday, May 24 at 4:00PM, CCJD vs. Saklan

Tuesday, May 30 at 4:00PM, The Berkeley School vs Saklan

Saklan Annual Book Fair

Thursday, May 18 and Friday, May 19orinda books
8:00 – 10:00AM and 2:00 – 4:00PM
Come and get your books for summer reading right here in our library, and Orinda Books donates 20% of sales back to Saklan!
Special Guest Authors

Lily Williams – If Sharks Disappeared
Mitali Perkins – Rickshaw Girl; Tiger Boy
Lisa Bakos – Wrong Side of the Bed; Too Many Moose
Penny Warner – Code Busters series

Let’s Go On A Letter Hunt

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On Saturday, May 20th from 1:00-3:00, Saklan will host an Author Visit and Reading.  Local authors Sue Tenerowicz and Lynn Champagne will read their “Seussical” adventure book, taking young readers on a marvelous journey of rhyming and hunting for letters from A-Z. Following the reading there will be a book signing and children will go on a Letter Hunt on the Saklan playground.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.  Saklan families are encouraged to attend. Recommended for Pre-K through 2nd graders.

Please RSVP at bit.ly/letterhuntsaklan.  Drop-ins are always welcome!

“Best Of” – Remember to Vote!

Voting is open through May 21 at Bay Area Parent and for the entire month of May at Parents’ Press. Please follow the links below to vote. This is one of the easiest things you can do to benefit our school!

Head’s Corner

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Dear Saklan Community,

One of the important presentations at Flag this morning was the message of gratitude given by the faculty and staff to our wonderful parent community for this week’s Teacher Appreciation Week. This is always one of the best weeks of the school year and we have been astounded, amazed and pampered with the wonderful meals and gifts organized by our parents. We are delighted by the new baking ovens that we can use for our school and extra-curricular programs, and feel truly appreciated with the many touching and personal messages that have sprung up on the campus walls and windows. We are thankful for the wonderful community that supports our efforts and inspires us to do our best in our work at Saklan. A special thank you to the Tai family for offering the food truck on Wednesday, which was one of the highlights of the week.

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This week, I was officially informed by the National Geographic Society that Vickie Obenchain has been recognized as a Nat Geo Certified Educator. Certified Educators are committed to teaching their students about the world and how it works, empowering them to succeed, and make it a better place. This award comes at a perfect time as we have just had an outstanding Earth Day program, organized by Vickie, which saw our Family Groups engage in a series of activities to raise awareness about our planet. This included a visit by the Marine Science Institute that gave our students very close encounters with a series of sea animals. The next time you come on campus please look at the vertical garden of native succulent plants made out of recycled materials. It is on the wall by the middle school lunch area. Also have a look at the Family Group Sustainability posters which are on the entrance way bulletin board. We are fortunate to have Vickie as our Science teacher and applaud her work and latest accomplishment.

Next week, our students in Grades 4-8 will be taking the ERBs. This stands for the Educational Records Bureau Comprehensive Testing Program. This school-wide assessment program has been used at Saklan for many years and is a widely used tool in independent schools for looking at individual and school-wide achievement. While the test gives some measure of the educational program at Saklan, it is important to know that we do not teach to the test. Nor does the test assess many of the skills that we feel important in our program, like creativity, leadership or collaboration, to name just a few. The best preparation for this week of testing for our Grade 4-8 students is to make sure that they get plenty of rest, exercise, eat healthy meals, and get to school on time.

A big thank you to the entire Saklan community!

Have a good weekend!

Peter

Whale of a Time

The second graders have been working on their Whale Unit. They have done many activities in this unit including graphing whale sizes, writing creative stories about their whales, making a “Save the Whales” poster, and writing a short essay about how important it is to protect our oceans.

They also each chose a whale to study and met up with their sixth grade buddies to do some research. One of the special activities of this unit was going on a field trip to MOCHA in Oakland to make a model of their whale.
Each student brought along a parent to help with this project. There were a lot of components to this unit, but as the second graders stated it was so fun! They definitely had a “whale of a time.”