Cross-grade buddies

With the shift in classroom grade arrangements in K-3, we decided to take the opportunity to look at when, where, and how we implement cross-grade buddies in our program. We decided "don't fix it if it  isn't broken" was a good approach when it came to the awesome partnership that 4th/5th has had with 1st/2nd (previously K/1st) for the last three years, and to build on that by partnering up the Kindergarten and 6th grade, and also the 3rd grade and 7th grade. Below are some pictures from the first of 3/7 buddy meetings, which happen weekly or biweekly; older students helped younger buddies complete a "you and me" Venn diagram form, and which the pairs then shared with the collected classes. 

Classroom charts and print

Observing in the classrooms today, I was struck by the amount of text and language already appearing throughout the school. From student work to new vocabulary, and from activity instructions to the scribing of children's ideas, the classrooms are already bursting with the language of thinking and learning!

Upper Elementary digs into math and science

One facet of our program is grade level math in the mixed-grade levels; all of the fourth graders gather in Strawberry Creek, while all of the fifth graders meet in Cerrito Creek, for an hour each day. In 4th grade math, students began with a Number Talk, in which they were challenged to come up with as many different mathematical ways to represent the number 36 as they could. As you can see, there was no shortage of ideas!

Fifth grade students were given a slant on the traditional Number Talk, and asked to create the highest number they could using the digits 0-9 with certain constraints (the number can't be even, can't be divisible by 7, etc).

Fifth graders were also asked to explore the relationship between different strands of mathematical thinking including numbers, patterns, and geometry through a coloring activity. This also led to a conversation about efficiency and effectiveness -- what approach to coloring the squares would allow for the fewest number of times a student would need to put down one pencil and pick up another?

In third grade, students returned to the creating-a-compass activity from the first day in more depth; they were asked to make predictions, record their observations through words and drawings, and compare the results of the same experiment conducted multiple times.

Images from the first day of school!

Sweet Briar Creek is the name of the new stand-alone Kindergarten classroom.

In Blackberry Creek (one of the mixed 1st/2nd grade classrooms), students created their own placemats for lunch, which were then laminated.

In Laurel Creek (the other mixed 1st/2nd grade classroom), students got busy with stretching their writing muscles and thinking about the stages of the writing process.

In Temescal Creek, the new stand-alone 3rd grade classroom, students jumped right into their science curriculum with their first experiment: creating compasses out of magnetized needles floating in bowls of water. 

Cerrito Creek students (one of the mixed 4th/5th grade classrooms) were given time to explore the room and then asked to draw conclusions about what they'd be studying based on what they found.

Strawberry Creek students spent some time decorating the name tags that were then attached to their cubbies.