Hello Families,
It was so nice to see families back in the classroom at Back to School Night last week. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I am also including a link to the slideshow I referenced during the evening. I will also share the folder of handouts with those of you who were not able to join us for Back to School Night at parent teacher conferences.
Temescal Creek Back to School Night slideshow of information
This is a gallery of the Temescalians working on their map of the classroom that they left their grownups who came to Back to School Night, and a snapshot of the parenting adults that evening.

Reading skill: Summarizing Fiction
We partnered Temescalians up to read to one another. In these partnerships, they practiced reading out loud while considering what it might take to give an interesting performance. They also practiced the skill of listening and respecting when their partner might need time or coaching when they came across unknown words. This week, we used the structure of “Somebody Wanted But So Then” to help us summarize what we read. Ask your Temescalians to use this structure to tell you about the books that they are reading!

In writers’ workshop, we read The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and followed this mentor text to help us describe our nature objects from the summer. The structure of each page was focusing on an item, the author decided what was important about it, used a few sentences to describe the item further, and the reiterate what was important about the item. This exercise stretched the Temescalians as they tried to find ways to describe the item they brought in. They also had to decide what was important about that item. We had an interesting discussion about how what is important to one person may not be as important to others. This work could also be used to talk about fact vs. opinion. What is important is an opinion. Its descriptions are facts. Come by the classroom and take a look at our own “important thing about” collection in the nook of our classroom.

We also practiced descriptive language by creating mini riddles describing an item out of a set of objects. We had two rounds of this exercise. One where the items were very different from one another (pumice stone, coral, polished geode slice, wood, and a polished stone. The second round featured items that were very similar to one another. We took turns using a few sentences to describe the item we had in mind. The key to this was to make it specific and not too hard to guess without saying, outright, what it was. Again, the idea of opinion came up, but we could generally agree with the descriptions generated by the class.

In science, we have been learning about properties of water, specifically surface tension. Last week, we tried to see how many drops of water we could fit on the top of a penny. The answers were surprising for some (20-40 drops). Why do so many drops of water fit on a penny? The structure of a water molecule lends itself to being “sticky” to itself.

We also saw how surface tension would keep water from escaping an open jar. (Ask your Temescalian how it worked!)

Inversely, we looked at what might make it harder for surface tension to occur. In the examples of “milk fireworks” and “soap boat”, we saw how soap broke the surface tension and caused motion in the liquid that was hard for the naked eye to detect. For the “milk fireworks”, we put drops of food coloring in a dish of milk. The fireworks happened when we introduced soap to the mixture. Try this experiment at home! We tried using 2% milk and half & half, and the half & half had a bigger reaction. Would using an alternative milk have the same reaction?

Finally, knowing what we know about soap and how it interacts with water, we tried to see how many drops of soapy water would fit on a penny. The results were surprising, but also expected because of what we had learned about how soap breaks the surface tension of water/liquid.

Click on these links for more demonstrations of what we did in science this week!

Our cursive practice is underway. We have learned the foundational strokes used in the Universal Publishing system and we learned our first letters this week: i and t . For some, we wrote our first words in cursive this week: “it”. Check in with your Temescalians as they practice their formation and connections of their cursive letters!

Finally, in math, we have talked about the different strategies to think about numbers when calculating addition and subtraction problems. For number strings like 4 + 7 + 3, we could find the “Make Ten” facts to more efficiently solve the problem. 4 + 7 + 3 = 4 + (7 + 3) = 4 + 10 = 14. We could employ this same strategy to larger numbers 30 + 50 + 60 + 70 + 40 = (30 + 70) + (60 + 40) + 50 = 100 + 100 + 50 = 250.

To practice our addition and subtraction skills, we introduced the games “Target Twenty” and “Blast off to Space“.  Click on these links to play with your Temescalian at home! The “Blast off to Space” game involves not only subtraction, but strategy that requires an understanding of which differences might show up more often.

It is apple season, and seeing how I went apple picking last week, I brought in apples to share with the class, and we did some mindful eating. We slowed down and activated our senses while enjoying the fruits of the fall season.

Other views from the week:

We’ll start Family Reading Fridays in October. Our first one will be on 10/14 from 8:30 – 9:00am. This is time that we invite adults into the classroom to read with their Temescalian. They may also play a math game, read through the Weekly Reflections in the portfolios, or show other work in class to their grownups. This time is not limited to only parenting adults. Extended family may also visit on these Friday mornings.

Upcoming Events:
October
6-7: Parent Teacher conferences (no school, childcare available)
10: Indigenous Peoples’ Day (no school, no childcare)
14: Family Reading Friday (8:30 – 9:00am)
18: Guest educator – Keith Gutierrez to present about Ohlone people
26: Picture Day
26: Pumpkin Carving (bring a carvable pumpkin to the class by 10/24)
28: Halloween Parade (details to come!)

November
4: Assembly
11: Veterans’ Day (no school, no childcare)
18: VIP Day
21 – 25: Thanksgiving Break (no school, no childcare)

December
2: Report Writing Day (no school, no childcare)
9: Assembly
16: Family Reading Friday
19 – Jan 3: Winter Break