Hello Families,
Before we launch into this week’s activities, a few quick reminders:
– Monday, October 30 – Please send in cardboard and recycled materials so that we can use them when we create costumes with our Buddies from 12:45 – 2:15pm.
– Tuesday, October 31 – Halloween Parade from 8:45 – 9:15am. Please join us on campus for our Halloween Parade! The kids will snake through classrooms while the parenting adults can view the parade in the yard/solar system.
Please send your Temescalian to school with a change of clothing. They’ll need to change into street clothes after the parade. Remember that Tuesdays are PE days!
We have one parenting adult volunteer to lead an activity (decorating dairy-free cupcakes!) from 9:15 – 9:50am.
– Friday, November 3 – Oakland Ballet’s performance of Luna Mexicana at the Paramount Theatre. We must leave by 8:30am to get to downtown Oakland via BART by 9:00am. If you are running late, please let the front desk know and they’ll contact me. It would make more sense for you to meet us directly at the Paramount Theatre. The performance is from 10:00 – 11:00am. We should be back at school in time for lunch, so please send your Temescalian to school with their typical home/hot lunch.
Now, recapping the week!
Math
We have moved from Unit 1: Addition and Subtraction Patterns to Unit 3: Multi-digit Addition and Subtraction.
A concept that we cover in this unit is rounding as a means to check our answers. If you are being asked to add 45 +19 and your answer is 519, rounding would be a means to checking yourself because 45 -> 50 and 19 -> 20 so the rounded sum would be 70. To better access the idea of rounding to the nearest ten, we use a number line and place the number we are being asked to round between the nearest tens. For example, if we were asked to round 36 to the nearest ten, we made a number line and noted that the nearest tens were 30 and 40. Then we put 36 on the number line and 36 is closer to 40 so 36 rounded to the nearest ten is 40.
The Temescalians were asked to note that if the number in the ones place is 0-4, you round down. If the number is 5-9, you round up.
To shore up our number sense, we revisited place value and had the Temescalians identify numbers in the ones, tens, and hundreds places.
Games that we learned to practice rounding to the nearest tens. Please click on the links to access the online version of these games.
Round Ball Tens
Round and Add Tens
Reading
We started book groups! Each week, each book group is assigned a new set of pages to read out loud to one another and a job to help them track their understanding from the book. There are jobs such as “summarizer”, “connector”, and “illustrator”. Each week, the Temescalians will cycle through these jobs and share out what they have worked on by the end of the week. We hope that by reading in these groups, they’ll practice their fluency, reading with expression, as well as learning the soft skills of supporting one another as they decode and read the words on the page. (We have tasked the kid on the right of the reader to check in and ask if they need “time or coaching”. If the reader asks for time, the group just waits. If the reader asks for coaching, the Temescalian to the right will need to find ways to break up the word or support the reader without just telling them the word. (It is an interesting exercise in seeing what strategies each “coach” has to share with others because this reflects their repertoire of reading strategies as well as how well they have internalized it to verbalize it to a peer.)
Science
To continue learning about properties of water, we examined the surface tension of water. Temescalians were asked to use a pen to write their guesses, and then see how many drops of water could fit on a penny. The Temescalians initially thought less than 10, but were surprised to see that 20-40 drops could fit on a penny!
We then made predictions of what would happen if we put soap on a paper boat in water, if we put soap in a a dish of milk that we had also put drops of food coloring in the center of, and how many drops of soapy water could fit on a penny. Building on what they knew about surface tension, their guesses ranged to the 30-40s, but this time, there were fewer drops that fit on a penny. Why? We talked about the effects of soap on water and how soap breaks the surface tension and doesn’t allow for water to stick to itself as much.
Pumpkin Festivities
First off, thank you to the volunteers for joining us to scoop out the pumpkins to get them ready for carving with Buddies on Friday. So many of them shared that this was the first time that they had to get their hands messy and actually scoop the pumpkins out!
We used planning for our pumpkin carving as a vehicle to talk about emotions and how to convey and read emotions. Temescalians noticed that while the mouth shape is a big indicator, the eyebrows are actually more useful in differentiating emotions in another. Eyebrow shapes could change an upturned mouth from “happy” to “mischievous”.
With our 6th grade Buddies, we drew these faces onto the pumpkins and got to work!
Upcoming Events
October
30 – Recycled Halloween Costume activity
31 – Halloween Parade (8:45 – 9:15) with activities in the classroom to follow (9:15 – 9:50)
November
3 – Field trip to the Paramount Theatre to see the Oakland Ballet perform (We are leaving at 8:30am and will arrive back at TBS at 11:45am)
5 – Daylight savings (We “fall back”)
10 – Professional Development (no school)
18 – VIP Day
20 – 24 Fall Break
December
1 – Report Writing (No school, childcare TBD)
18 – Jan 2 – Winter Break