Painted rocks are a way to spread joy and kindness through art. These are also known as kindness stones or rocks. The rocks are painted with an inspirational message or a cheerful design and left in nature. When people find them they can take them home for inspiration, put them in another spot, or place them back where they found them. Earlier this year FWM students from different classes painted some kindness rocks of our own, and this week Upper El students placed them around the playground for younger students to find. We enjoyed participating in this activity and were excited to see several had been found the day after we placed them.

It’s been a few weeks since we had a community meeting and students were enthusiastic about having one this week. We had many items on our agenda (eight) but only had time to brainstorm, discuss, and make a decision on one. Our topic was wearing shoes in the classroom. Throughout the year of having regular community meetings, the students have become very good at the process. They show great respect for one another and everyone gets a chance to share ideas and feelings. It’s a wonderful process to observe amongst these fourth and fifth graders.

We had some great lessons this week. Fourths learned about finding the area of a parallelogram in geometry and fifths worked with measuring the circumference of a circle. We learned about five different ways seeds move in our biology lesson. History lessons focused on our closest living relatives and shared characteristics in fourth grade and the Neolithic Lake Dwellers in fifth grade. We enjoyed having Lit Circle outside this week on a hot spring day.

We are spending a lot of time outside now that the weather is nice. Don’t forget to send in sunblock and bug spray for our outdoor learning and time in the woods!

There is NO SCHOOL on Monday for a faculty professional development day. Have a nice long weekend!

There is no description, no image in any book that is capable of replacing the sight of real trees, and all the life to be found around them, in a real forest. Something emanates from those trees which speaks to the soul, something no book, no museum is capable of giving. -Maria Montessori

Happy Earth Day! We felt inspired this week when we watched Greta Thunberg’s TED Talk about climate change from 2018. After watching and discussing, the UE students journaled reflections about her message, what they thought they could do, and what they wanted to see adults do to take action for the Earth.

We always enjoy our time in the outdoor classroom, and thanks to the Middle School students, this week we were able to explore a little more of it! This week, the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders spent time clearing and beautifying trails in the woods surrounding the outdoor classroom. We enjoyed walking and running the trails during recess.

We have a special guest in our classroom this week. Goose the bearded dragon is visiting us for a few days. Many of us enjoyed observing him throughout the day and we are looking forward to spending more time with him next week!

We’ve come to the end of another fun week filled with lessons, work, and play.

During geometry this week, we focused on some follow up work from last week’s lessons. Fourths applied the formula for finding the area of a rectangle and fifths drew and labeled parts of a polygon and parts of a circle. In our biology lesson this week we learned that there are three different ways plants can reproduce: asexual, sexual, and vegetative reproduction or propagation. We focused on vegetative reproduction during this lesson. Some different ways plants propagate are through bulbs, corms, rhizomes, tubers, and runners or stolons. We have lots of independent and cooperative research going on in class right now! We enjoyed the presentations on pangolins and bottlenose dolphins this week. We also wrapped up many written assignments this week in math, grammar, comprehension, and vocabulary and gathered in small groups to discuss them at the end of the week. In Literature Circle, each group will finish their book over the next few days and we will discuss the endings in our meeting on Wednesday. There are no new role assignments this week.

Last week I sent home book orders with those who wanted them. I will be placing the order on Friday, April 16th for any who are interested. If you would prefer to shop online, the link to our class page is here.

We spend as much time outside as possible and are going to be visiting the outdoor classroom regularly. If you would like your child to use bug spray before going in the woods, please send some in (if you haven’t already done so) with their name on the bottle. We will store it at school and apply it before hitting the trails!

We had a busy and fun last week before spring break while enjoying this beautiful weather. We were able to eat lunch outside twice and had our chapter book read aloud in the Zen garden one day.

At the beginning of the week, we did some small group grammar work with fourths learning about singular, plural, and possessive nouns and fifths focusing on regular and irregular verbs and verbs that show past, present, and future tense. In geometry the fourth years had their introductory lesson on area and fifth years learned three ways to find the area of a regular polygon. Our large group biology lesson on the vital functions of plants focused on defenses plants have against animals and weather. In geography we did a group experiment; creating a simple convection current by heating one end of a tub of room temperature water and cooling the other. We added red food dye to the hot end and blue to the cold end and watched as the blue dye dove down and crept along the bottom of the tub toward the hot and the red floated across the surface towards the cold. Some students requested directions and brought them home to try this experiment with their families. In literature circle we decided that it was time to experience some new roles and everyone was very excited about the ones we added. The new roles are: Illustrator, Word Finder, Setting Selector, Connector,  Character Captain, and Discussion Director. Descriptions of the roles and directions for completing them are attached to the assignment on the HUB.

Finally, it was wonderful to spend part of our last day before break making sandwiches for St. Vincent DePaul Mission. Everyone was excited to give their time to help others. Thank you so much to all of you who helped by donating the items needed for this great work!

I hope you all have a wonderful two weeks with your beautiful children!

The first week of March has been full of lessons and discussions and we have been busy with lots of focused work in the classroom. It feels really nice to get back to our daily work cycle routine, having individual lessons in math and small and large group lessons in our other subject areas.

In geometry this week, fourth years learned a theorem based on equivalent figures; that all triangles having the same base and height are equivalent. Fifth years learned to apply formulas for finding the area of a rhombus.

Our biology lesson on the vital functions of plants this week focused on the support that plants need. We learned that some plants are supported by water flowing through their stems and leaves, inflating their cells, others are supported by a woody stem, and other plants cling and climb for additional support.

In geography we looked at ocean currents which are caused by wind and were introduced to an activity that students will do to demonstrate this concept, creating or own “ocean current” in a basin of water using rocks to represent continents and islands.

In history, although we will continue to learn about our ancient civilizations as part of our reading and writing workshop, group lessons will pick up with the work we were doing before our research presentations preparation. Fourth years are now learning about Humans’ Closest Relatives, and to kick of this unit of study we learned about the classification of the human animal. Fifths picked up where they left off on their work with Modern Humans with a discussion about Kitchen Midden Folk of the Mesolithic Era. 

In addition to their lessons and assigned work, almost all of the Upper El students have chosen to work with a friend to research a topic of their choice; a testament to their intrinsic motivation and love of learning!

We are all looking forward to making sandwiches for St. Vincent DePaul Mission next Friday. Please look for the sign up email to contribute to the supplies needed for this important work. Thank you to Kristina for organizing this and thank you very much for your continued support!