As we settle into the groove of routines, we continue to build community and get to know one another.
An integral part of Morning Meeting is to greet one another, acknowledge each other, and share about who we are. Sometimes we use surveys embedded in the Morning Message, other times, we learn about each other in our greetings.
- A morning message asking kids to share what their favorite part of Autumn is.
This week, we introduced a few new greetings: The Crab Greeting and Pumpkin Greeting. It’s always great to start the day with a giggle or two as we crab walked to a fellow Temescalian and high-fived him/her with our foot! The Pumpkin Greeting incorporated sharing our favorite part of Autumn and it was wonderful to look around and see peers signal “me too!” as we shared things like “dressing up for Halloween,” “watching the Halloween Parade to see what other people dressed up as,” “all the pumpkin flavored treats!” 
Our Math work this week has brought us to skip counting, adding, and regrouping! We introduced “Guess My Number” and incorporated questions like “Is it an even/odd number?” “Is it in the teens?” “Is it greater than 50?” to help us narrow down the number more efficiently. The number sense that gets developed as we play these games help individuals notice the many attributes of a number, and begin to see the relationships between them. As some Temescalians focused on breaking 2-digit numbers into tens and ones, others practiced adding while others still practiced adding with regrouping.
As we ramp up with academic subjects, we have also been fostering each child’s sense of who he/she is. We have spent a lot of time talking about strengths and challenges and have illustrated them with our “Grow Your Garden” illustrations. Tying the flower in with our plant study, each Temescalian thinks about who s/he is and creates his/her own self portrait with words.
3-4 petals = strengths
4 leaves = people who support you
Up to 3 weeds = things that get in the way of you being your best self or achieving your goal
5 roots = activities that make you feel good and grounded
1 sun/butterfly = a goal for third grade
Each piece is so different from one another! Please come in some time next week to see our Temescalian garden!
In conjunction with talking about strengths and challenges, we have also started the conversation about your “Inner Coach” and “Inner Critic”. When we are faced with a challenge, we have a voice in our head that encourages you through the experiences (aka your Inner Coach) or a voice that is negative and doesn’t believe in you (aka your Inner Critic). To better illustrate this, we tried to do a plank for 60 seconds. As we tried to sustain the plank, kids were calling out what their inner coach was telling them, “You can do this!” “This is fun!!” “You can do this like a boss!” “You try your best, and it doesn’t have to be perfect!”
It was fantastic to hear the enthusiastic and positive inner coaches that are within the Temescalians!
An interesting teaching moment came up when someone said, “You thought that was hard? That was so easy!” While it is important to bolster yourself up, you also have to be thoughtful of how what you say affects others. We had a quick conversation about how, if you were having a hard time with the plank, hearing that might actually deflate you and make you want to give up.
During our weekly Rocket Write, it was marvelous to see 16 heads bowed over writing journals and hear only the scratching of pencils for the 7 minutes that we write, write, write! As we continue this routine, we hope the Temescalians get more used to the norm of writing and getting ideas onto paper.
To the delight of many Temescalians, we started cursive handwriting this week! Much of cursive is about connections, but the real secret is thinking about aim. Knowing where you want your pencil to end up really helps with letter formation!
Science has been a fantastic time of observations and wonderings! Continuing our Super Science topic from last week, we returned to the celery and flowers we put in jars that had no water, plain water, and different colored water. We noticed that the plants with plain water had a lower level of water than the plants in the colored water. We also noticed that the plain water plants looked more alive.
- “The plants with plain water has less water.”
“Look! The plants in the colored water are dying!”
“Maybe that means that water with color in it isn’t good for plants.”
Then we made observations in our science journals. Kids were making insightful observations about the celery cross section and carnation petals, and had a ball dissecting them too! (Ask them why the blue tube in the celery was blue!)
We had two celebrations in Temescal Creek this week! A birthday celebration and parents talking about Rosh Hashanah.
Reading with Families on Fridays is a lovely way to end the week. Most Fridays, from 8:30 – 9:00, grown ups are welcome to read with the Temescalians, as well as look through portfolios and see what new work is up!
Super Science Friday!
This week’s topic was Bubbles! We made our own bubble solution which sparked the discussion about why we needed to add more than just water and soap to the solution. We also tried to see which implements made the best kind of bubble wand. It was so much fun making the huge bubbles outside, and catching bubbles inside!
*Exciting news!*
We will welcome a new student into the class on Monday! This new Temescalian visited last Friday and he gelled with the class right away. We can’t wait to welcome him into our community!
Upcoming Events:
October
1 – Picture Day
31 – Halloween Parade
November
3 & 4 – Parent/Teacher Conferences (no school)
6 – Field Trip to the Oakland Museum of California (more info to come!)
26, 27, 28 – Thanksgiving Break
We had a spectacular week of learning! We hope you have a restful weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday!
