• Minimum Day: March 1
• PTC Coffee Cart: March 17
• Middle School Minimum Day: March 29

The Telfer Crew has been in between expeditions and enjoying extra writing time. We are working hard on three-part persona narratives with a beginning, middle, and end. We're excited to pick a piece to revise and rewrite for our upcoming writing celebration!

We also celebrated the 100th day of school with homemade collections of 100 things, and a fun afternoon of 100-themed activities with the Bell and Akers Crews. We are ramping up to start our expedition on weather for March! 

The Bell Crew has just begun a mini-expedition called Sound & Light Engineers! We used the science practices to ask questions, make observations, and investigate how sound and vibration are connected. Students were engaged and enthusiastic about their discoveries and eager to record their findings in their science notebooks. The first graders made paper-cup telephones and cardboard box guitars to experience firsthand how vibration relates to sound.

We are now exploring light! These young scientists have developed many related questions to drive our inquiry: How does the sun make shadows? Why can you see colors in some shadows? Can you see a shadow inside another shadow? They will use these questions to plan their own investigations.

The Seaborg Crew has been showing their adventure and strength by cross-country skiing four Fridays in a row! Students spend time in reflection after each session and set new goals for the next ski day. 

We continue crew-building by trying new things, laughing at ourselves when we make mistakes, and getting back up again with the encouragement of our crew mates. 

The Welch Crew welcomed Ms. Hansen who is covering for Ms. Welch while she is on sabbatical. Ms. Hansen is having an amazing time, noticing how much this crew loves to read and find adventure in the snow. They showed so much adventure while cross country skiing at Tahoe Donner! Crew mates supported each other, had fun, and made a lot of improvements in just four weeks. 

Sierra Nevada Journeys visited our classroom and had students explore science by learning about matter. They learned about bridges and experimented by making them out of paper. We are excited to kick off our new Anato-ME Expedition in March. 

The Akers Crew experienced quite a few fun activities in February. The students created circuit games using their electrical engineer driving questions, knowledge of forms of energy, and information on how circuits work. We will proudly share them with our buddies soon. 

We continued our quest with SWEP and met them at Tahoe City Cross Country Center for a great day of learning about winter adaptations for animals and enjoying some ski time. We just celebrated the 100 day of school with fun hands-on activities with the Bell and Telfer crews. It was a busy February!

The Brisbin Crew participated in winter snow science exploration with Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP) recently. Students engaged in many activities that looked at animal adaptations of our local species and how they survive in winter. Students have also spent time on their electrical engineering projects for their expedition and are building circuit games as their final product!

While building quinzees (piled and hollowed snow shelters) Worster crew students made many observations and connections to real world applications. They felt layers of different density in the snow as they dug their shelters, and then discussed how snowpack is a record of storms throughout the year. Ideas about thermal insulators and conductors became real as they used gloves to insulate them from cold shovel handles and sleeping pads and bags to insulate them from night time temperatures.

Character lessons were also a focus. From strength to empathy and caring for others, from perseverance to adventure, students told stories upon stories of character challenge and growth. In the end, students were proud of the work they did to get to their personal goal, and the experience made memories that will last as we start our Physical Science of Climate Change Expedition. 

The Santos Crew has kicked off their new expedition, "Is Anything Alive in There?" Students have been designing experiments to test if substances are living or not and determining criteria for living things. They have also been investigating plant, animal, protst, and bacteria cells while learning microscope techniques. One of the best ways to learn is by tasting the fungus and bacteria we use as food. In writing, the students produced some beautiful pieces, writing about themselves in a mirror (how they see themselves) and through a window (how others see them). Great job crew!

The Masur crew has had a lot of excitement this month! While the 7th and 8th grade boys have been participating in Positively Rolling, a mental health program designed for middle school boys, the girls have been working on I Can Learn Anything, a passion project where they get to research and learn about anything they want, from financial literacy to sports to food. We also got a chance to show our empathy and caring by connecting with our kindergarten buddies. 

Academically, the accelerated math group is cruising through Integrated 1, while the 8th grade math group is working on expanding our understanding of geometric transformations by creating tessellated patterns that we are painting on the classroom ceiling tiles.

In ELA, our focus is on argumentative and persuasive writing. For February book talks, students developed persuasive speeches to convince their crewmates to read a specific book. Our writing crosses over into our expedition - students chose an argumentative essay prompt related to our case study, Voices of Native Americans, and focused on collecting appropriate evidence to support their claim. Many students used evidence gathered on our fieldwork to Stewart Indian Boarding School to prove their points. As we wrapped up our Voices of Native Americans case study, students worked in pairs to research specific tribes, and presented cultural artifacts to the Santos, Akers, Worster, and Bell crews.