Dear Families,
It was a busy and admittedly surreal week. The week started out as business as usual, and ended with a celebration for Pi Day and preparing for distance learning.
To recap the learning that we did this week, we dug deeper into fractions. Not only thinking about how to represent a fraction, but also equivalence and comparing fractions. We remind Temescalians that the numerator indicates how many pieces there are, and the denominator indicates how many equal parts there are in all. It may be counterintuitive, but the greater the denominator, the smaller each equal share will be. We often use the example of splitting a pie. If you are sharing with our whole class, including the teachers, the pie would be cut into 26 pieces. We do, however, highlight that you need to first check and see if the original pie is the same size as the one it’s being compared with to see if you can even compare those fractions. We then gave Temescalians the challenge of making the “whole shape” if they were given a fraction of the shape. For example, a red trapezoid represented 1/2 of the whole shape. Temescalians needed to create shapes that would represent the whole shape. Many came up with the traditional hexagon that one would think of, but there are so many other 6 sided shapes that could also be made from a trapezoid. We did the same exercise using the blue rhombus to represent a 1/3 of the whole shape. Finally, we asked Temescalians to create possible hexagons with green triangles that represented 1/6 of the whole shape.

We refreshed ourselves about land acknowledgements, and why they are important for the people who were originally on this land first. We used the native-land.ca website to get a better understanding of what a land acknowledgement is, as well as look at a map to help us better understand the many people groups whose land we currently occupy. We also watched a video from #HonorNativeLand to hear perspectives from native people.

We also pulled out the map that CCA students created for our class a few years ago to examine the people groups that used to live in our lands, and how their territories encompass current landmarks. The Temescalians demonstrated that many of them remembered a lot about the different Ohlone people groups that occupied this area long ago. It was also a nice refresher and introduction for those who may have forgotten or are new to this information.

We welcomed Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino from Cafe Ohlone. Medina and Trevino shared their vision to celebrate their Ohlone culture by bringing traditional foods to the mainstream and celebrate the richness of their culture and foods.
Read this article that features Medina and Trevino from KQED.

Talking about their vision of “decolonizing your diet”.

Learning different words in Chochenyo like turtle, dog, and rain.

We heard a traditional story about the Blood Monster and how Coyote helped the Ohlone defeat it. This story taught the values of not running away, trusting in others, and doing everything in moderation.

We celebrated Pi Day a day early but measured Pi around the classroom. Ask your Temescalian what object they measured with their 7th grade buddy. We found round objects to measure around to find Pi, but here is a list of other pi related activities that you can do at home!

Temescalians had the opportunity to come up and recite as many digits of Pi that they could remember. Some Temescalians have great memories! Some strategies were to memorize smaller sections of the sequence and add to what they knew. Others found assigning the digits of Pi to a song helpful. This video was popular with our crew this week.

We invited Julianne in to join the Pi fun as we drew Pi Puns! Kids came up with the best Pi Puns: pine tree, pineapple, pithon (python), papiya (papaya), picicle (popsicle), pirate, porcupine, pipe, spider, spi (spy).

Thank you to all of the families who brought in a plethora of pies! Temescalians chose up to 3 different flavors. We used this opportunity to talk about fractions, yet again.

A few other glimpses from our class this week:

Celebrating a Temescalian’s birthday!

We started our local plant/animal research project.

Choice time!

Cursive “c”

What is the difference between weather vs. climate?

We love when Paula Farmer drops by!

Thank you for all that you have done this week to celebrate and prepare your Temescalian for these upcoming weeks of distance learning. Please refer to this link for the Family Distance Learning Plan. Jackie and I will be rolling out greetings, assignments, etc. in the coming days! Stay safe, stay healthy, and we look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks, either virtually, or when we are all back together again!

Warmly.
Lisa and Jackie