Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of Zaq Roberts, Associate Head of School at The Berkeley School in Berkeley, CA. I blog about a wide variety of topics, from classroom moments I witness, to administrative events and conversations, to the educational blogs, videos, and books I am reading and watching, and how they are influencing my thinking. I hope this eclectic approach will give you insight into the many ways that I am engaging in advancing the school and strengthening our program, and I welcome your thoughts and comments!

This blog takes its name from a quotation by Archimedes that reads "Give me a lever long enough, and I can move the world." The TBS mission speaks directly to the need to engage a changing world, while many of the experiences in our program focus on the development of students' agency and authority. TBS is the lever by which we all - administration, faculty, students, and parents - can together move the world to be more humane, compassionate, and responsive. To borrow an important Montessori phrase, it is our way to remake the world.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Scenes from today's classrooms


Blackberry Creek (K/1) & Cerrito Creek (4/5) - During buddy time, students were doing collaborative drawings; each piece of paper was divided into quadrants, and each buddy needed to contribute some drawing to each quadrant. This helps students practice skills of interdependency and creativity.





Laurel Creek (K/1) - Water Day, with a variety of water-related games such as Sponge Dodgeball and Water Balloon Toss. This was a student-selected "holiday", a tradition in our K/1 program that replaces simple birthday celebrations with activities and events that help children learn about each other's interests. 






Sweet Briar Creek (2/3) - During math workshop, students used Hundreds Boards to see the patterns created by doing "Multiples of" work, puzzled through logic problems, compared fractions using Montessori fraction tiles, and watched a Kahn Academy video showing what's actually happening during the standard algorithm for subtraction.






Temescal Creek (2/3) - During a writing workshop, students worked on taking notes for the Informational Texts they are creating. They consulted research sources and wrote their notes into graphic organizers preloaded with questions around topics including diet, interactions, lifespan, anatomy, and habitat.






Strawberry Creek (4/5) - Student worked on painting props, backdrops and staging for their end-of-year performance of understanding about California history, coming up next Wednesday.






Bonus: Video of Sweet Briar Creek practicing If I Had A Hammer


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