Fiction and storytelling | Cerrito Creek OLD

One of my least favorite units to teach, admittedly, is fiction writing. Why? Because of the flying panda bear. I’ll never forget the first time I assigned my students to write fiction. I was a young teacher working in Greenwich Village, and the students had been pushing me all year to write in their favorite genre–fiction, and especially fantasy. Much to my chagrin, their efforts were way out there, too abstract and fantastic for the reader to ever care about the characters or connect with the setting or themes. I was discouraged, and the final nail in the coffin was a westward movement railroad story with a flying panda bear protagonist. Spare me!

I haven’t stopped teaching fiction; the students demand it. But I always begin by telling them about the dreaded flying panda bear, and I usually have to keep coming back to it. Part of what we do as teachers is provide a masterful blend of freedom and constraints. Writers do well to have a direction, then improvise within a framework. Tonight, they will write about a boy in a snowstorm. He is brave. But why is he there? Where is he going? Will he survive? What kind of clothing is he wearing? Is someone chasing him? Those questions are all up to the writers, and as long as no pandas are involved, we should see some great writing turn up tomorrow. Have a great week.

Some impressive self portraits by Cerrito students in the art show.

Making nettle ravioli on Friday at the end of a creative, inspired week.

The pasta assembly line.

Uncanny!

A beatifully organized data sheet in a chemistry lab from last week

pH testing

A variation on Rubick’s Cube: can you put together the multilink cubes such that each of the nine colors is represented on each of the six faces? Hard, but many groups met success.

Homework

Monday

Math:

4th graders are to work on Khan Academy
5th graders have a fun, engaging quadrilaterals worksheet. They should use a straightedge.

Writing: write 1-2 pages in writer’s notebook on the following prompt – boy, snowstorm, brave. You get to decided about all the rest. No flying panda bears, please.

Reading: as always

Spelling: a little bit of practice each night.

Tuesday

Math:

4th graders
5th graders finish today’s packet on building boxes

Reading/editing: Read the Chanterelle Ft. Ross edition! Find 10 edits and make them. Underline 3 AAAWWUUBIS’s, 3 interrupters, and 3 FANBOYS.

Read your novel, as usual.

We searched for Spanish and Native Californian place names on the map today and connected them to the history we know. 1 point for a Spanish name, 3 points for a saint, padre, or Spanish explorer name, 5 points for a Spanish word and its definition looked up in the dicitionary, and ten points for Indian names. Students noticed that most of the Spanish names were in the south and on the coast. They also noticed that the most Indian names were in the hard to reach Sierra Nevadas and way up north. Interesting!

Outside lies magic…rotational symmetry in the park. The following images all show various geometric figures that students sought out, measured, and drew this morning. Fun lesson.