January 10, 2024

Happy New Year, Cerrito! Students came by with all different feelings and energy levels this week but most were eager to return to friends and routine. 

Community

With a new year, comes a new reset and resolutions. We spent much community time recounting, reflecting, sharing about our breaks, and reflecting on what we wanted the new year in Cerrito Creek to be like. From that brainstorm we identified themes, and settled on a few concrete ideas and areas for targeted improvement. With renewed shared understanding and agreement about what each task should look and sound like, and a new progress tracker to help us towards our goal, students have started making small strides towards tightening up routines so we can have less of the stuff we don’t want (blurting, waiting, arguments) and more time for the stuff we do want (fun activities, hands-on projects, work time). We ended the week with a cozy pajama day and hot chocolate!

5th math

5th graders jumped right back into the math by creating equations for the number 2025 and exploring all the ways 2025 is a numerically special year. 2025 is riddled with square and cubed numbers. Take a look at the questions students came up with and how we introduced the concept of squared and cubed numbers. Next week we begin our new unit on place value and decimals. 

Science

Cerrito scientists are gearing up for their great gizmo project, which will be launching soon. Students exercised the scientific method to figure out how a mystery gadget, Glo Pals, worked. Students hypothesized, drew models, wrote explanations, conferred with partners, and experimented, revising their ideas with the new information. It was a fun way to review what they’ve learned about circuits and electricity, shoring up some conceptual understanding and vocabulary before we dive into magnets next week. We finished it off with a demonstration from Maddox on the Steve Spanglers Energy Stick he got over the holidays giving us another cool toy to explore and explain.