Upcoming Events:
Thursday, March 5 & Friday March 6: Parent-Teacher Conferences
March 20th: Chinatown field trip- you can sign up to chaperone here!
March 26th, 8:30-9:15: Parents are invited to come view the opening of our Marine Ecosystem classroom transformation.
March 27th, 1:30-2:00: Another time parents can come view student learning.
April 15th: Angel Island field trip- chaperone and driver sign up here!
May 13th: Duxbury Reef tide pool field trip
May 20th: Coloma Field Trip- sign up to chaperone and drive here!
Check out the work we did this week in Cerrito:
Cultural Studies
This week in Cultural Studies, students looked at the history of California, as well as the future of it! For our historical study, we watched 2 videos about the Spanish missions. The first video told the story of Father Junipero Serra and the Spanish missionaries from a pro-Spanish, Eurocentric perspective. As we watched the video, students took notes on the main ideas, and then for homework wrote a Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then summary about the Spanish. Later in the week, we watched another video about the missions, but this time from the Native American perspective. We took notes again, and discussed how much information was noticeably had been left out in the first video in regards to the Spanish treatment of Indigenous people, and the white-washing of history.
Students watch the video and take notes on the Spanish Missions.
We jumped forward to the present day for our final section of Cultural Studies, and started a discussion of voting and elections. We completed a KWL (know, want to know, learned) chart to find out what kids already know and want to know about elections (much more than we expected, to be honest!). Finally students took a poll in which they read the official statements of 3 political parties—A, B, and C with the parties’ names removed, narrowed down the values of each party, and then voted for which party they most connect with. The kids seemed to really enjoy this “voter registration” activity.
Writer’s Workshop
Students continued to build and elaborate on their Fort Ross journal pieces through 3 activities. First, we used thesauruses to help us add descriptive adjectives to our writing. Secondly, we did an activity in which students used their 5 senses to analyze the touch, taste, sight, smell and sound of a tangerine, and then incorporated sensory language into their journal entry. Lastly, Cerrito added details and description of a place. To scaffold this activity, the class collaborated on describing the Cerrito classroom, which ended up with a comic final version:
Reader’s Workshop
This week, book clubs worked to finish up our books. Next week we will create ways to present our books to one another.
5th Grade Math
5th graders wrapped up Unit 3 this week, which cumulated in an assessment on Thursday. To prepare for the assessment, we learned a new [to most] division strategy called partial quotients, and then practiced converting metric system measurements and rounding. We also played math jeopardy for the first time, which students enjoyed.
Max and Sophie play Division Showdown together.
4th Grade Math
Science
This week, students dove into studying the kelp forest. In small groups, they shared reading about the Monterey Bay sanctuary and the diverse wildlife. After synthesizing their reading sections, we created a whole class ‘Boxes and Bullets’ note-taking summary poster. Next week, we will begin our investigation of the larger marine ecosystem and students will select the open ocean animal that they will research and construct out of recycled materials as part of a collaborative classroom open ocean ecosystem.
You must be logged in to post a comment.