This week, we welcomed the beginning of May, combined our knowledge of fractions with time telling, continued our local plant/animal research writing, had some fun with May the Fourth, and enjoyed time with buddies!
We were surprised by cones of flowers from the Sweet Briar crew to celebrate May Day. This thoughtful gesture brought the whole community such joy, so we thought we’d write them a thank you card!
As we continued our unit on time telling, we reviewed the different parts of a clock and built a clock using Montessori materials.
To think about time in a different way, we used fraction pieces to get a better understanding of how the clock is broken up. Paula shared a story that she wrote about Alexander (of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day variety) and how he used to have a whole day to spend. First, we looked at the pieces in each set. There were green whole pieces, red half pieces, blue quarter pieces, and dark green twelfth pieces. We determined that a whole piece represented one hour, or 60 minutes, the half piece was 30 minutes, the quarter pieces were 15 minutes, and the tiny twelfth pieces were 5 minutes. As Paula read about how Alexander spent his day, we kept track by using the fraction pieces to add up the time that he used. We noticed that we could trade in the half pieces for whole pieces, and there were different ways to represent the same amount of time. As we continued through the book, Temescalians thoughtfully discussed how they knew how much time Alexander spent. This was especially helpful when Temescalians had different answers. Their ability to backtrack and trace their process helped clarify how much time was actually spent, and the skill of using evidence was put to task. This exercise was an intersection of reading comprehension, understanding the relationship between fractions, how to add on increments of time, and defending arguments with evidence.
We practiced different ways to tell time that was represented in analog: with the time in numbers and words. The challenge was also to use the words “half past” or “a quarter past” as applicable.
The Temescalians are finishing up their drafts of their research writing and are in the stages getting teacher checks and starting to type out their work! Stay posted for news about a Celebration of Learning!
A highlight for many of the Temescalians is our Rocket Write. We challenged them to check for subject-verb agreement AND infuse their writing with awesome words! The Temescalians rose up to the challenge!
We celebrated May the Fourth with a few costumed staff and Star Wars puns:
Norman, the Middle School Drama teacher, led the 7th grade buddies through exercises of improvisation and the Temescalians got a kick out of each exercise! The first one was storytelling but the twist was to pick up where the previous person had left off and not get stuck while trying to tell a cohesive story. Then he had a set of volunteers come up and create a shape with their bodies. Can you guess what each one was? Finally, he had one volunteer sit with his/her back towards the audience and try to guess who was speaking. The challenge came when the speaker disguised his/her voice! Needless to say, laughter ensued as the 7th graders and Temescalians went through each exercise.
A few other views from the week:
Julia and I had such fun at the Wrap Party! It lived up to the theme this year and it was “Out of This World!” Thank you so much for coming out, dancing (and perhaps singing) the night away, and supporting the school! If you weren’t able to make it this year, be sure to come out next year! A good time is always had by all! These are just a few glimpses of our evening fun!
Finally, we have a few events coming up!
Spring Sing information:
- 6:00 – 6:15 Teachers in Classrooms/Parents drop off children to classrooms
- 6:20 Students settled in Depot for warm-up with Owen
- 6:30 Performance in Social Hall (waiting students watch live stream in Depot)
- 7:30ish. Performance ends (Parents pick up K-3rd graders in classrooms, 4th/5th graders in Depot)
Temescalians, please wear black tops and dark bottoms! Feel free to wear your own Black Lives Matter shirt or another that expresses support for human rights in keeping with the theme of the performance!
We have a field trip coming up next week so look in your homework packet for that field trip slip! We’ll be taking BART so please sign up if you can chaperone! (We’ll try to give preference to adults who have yet to join us on a field trip!)
We can’t believe there are only 5 more weeks of school left! Please look at the Events section to the right for upcoming events!
