Last Friday, K-5 enjoyed a performance of Mozart’s opera, “The Magic Flute”, as presented by Cerrito Creek as part of their music intensive along with members of the San Francisco opera. We prepared for this special assembly in class by discussing the storyline, as well as what we already know about opera and how to be an audience member. Some students experienced opera for the very first time and were struck by the feeling that came up with the intense music and feelings. We were all riveted and so impressed!
Student Council elections happened in Temescal last week and meetings will begin this Thursday from 8:30-9:00 am. The purpose is to give voice to students to make decisions that improve or enhance the school community. It is meant to connect students to community as a school, and give students a voice in issues that concern them. We use hopes and dreams of all students in the beginning of the year to drive the initiatives of the council, as well emergent ideas from students, and community engagement.
Students reflected on what it means to be a student council representative and the requirements before throwing their hat into the ring. Then the class had a blind vote . . . one student council representative and an alternate were elected.
What does it mean to be a student council member?
- responsible for being the student voice of your class
- being a problem solver and an idea maker
- understanding what it means to be a strong community member (ask them what this means)
What do I need to be a student council member?
- ability to give full attention to a 30 minute meeting about important topics
- ability to listen to other ideas
- ability to consider what’s best for the whole community (as opposed to what my class wants and what I want as an individual)
- ability to work with multi-age group (2nd-8th grades)
- ability to report back to my class about the Council meeting
- belief in TBS and ability to get other kids involved
- ability to bring ideas to Student Council meetings
- come reliably at 8:30am every meeting morning
We are wrapping up our work with subtraction for now and will return to the concept of regrouping with subtraction at the end of third grade . . . this is developmentally a stretch for many students at this time. For example, when tackling a subtraction problem like 73-9, students will sometimes subtract 9-3 in the ones instead of borrowing from the tens column. Ask you child about the subtraction poem, which will help to reinforce this concept.
We enjoyed a special visit from Bliss who read Chicken Sunday to the class as part of our author study on Patricia Polacco. We continued to identify and discuss characters, setting, and the themes from the book. We noticed common threads, like the theme of families and traditions, and also learned about the author’s life and how she lived in Oakland for a time.
In reading workshop we continued buddy reading to practice fluency and shared our ideas on what makes reading out loud entertaining. We recommend students read for at least 20 minutes daily and take time to read out loud with expression, voice, and paying attention to punctuation. In writing workshop we are noticing increasing writing stamina during Rocket Write and created a mind map of small moments to generate topics for narrative writing.
Who knew studying seeds and how they disperse could be so exciting!? Floating, drifting, exploding, and hitching a ride on or through animals, seeds are very well designed to propagate and survive in a wide variety of environments. We predicted which seeds would do best in the environments right next door in Strawberry Park, and then we went on a seed hunt to discover, observe, draw, and label seeds around the park.
For Super Science and Art we created sunflower botanical-inspired collages and the results are stunning! Come see them glowing in our windows. Also take a look at our Dia De Los Muertos skeleton self-portraits the Temescal artists drew in the art studio, which are displayed in the classroom.
We had our first birthday celebration in Temescal where photos are shared for every trip/year around the sun, as well as giving appreciations and asking questions to learn more about the birthday child. A special treat tops things off . . . yum!
Remember to bring in a pumpkin to carve by this Wednesday if you haven’t already. We would love to have a couple more grown-up scoopers from 1-3 pm that day. Sign up on the wiki to join us in the goopy fun!
Don’t forget that Friday mornings you are welcome to join us in the classroom from 8:30 to 9:00.
