• Minimum Day: Dec. 7
• Winter Break - No School: Dec. 23 - Jan. 6

The Bell Crew is diving deep below the Earth’s crust (and into science books and websites!) to answer some of their questions: How are mountains made? How do mountains change shape?

Students have learned that the surface of the Earth is made up of tectonic plates that push and pull against each other to create the landforms we call mountains. Terms like “folded mountains," “fault-block mountains,” and “dome mountains" are becoming part of the vernacular in the Bell Crew.

Bill Hammond, a geology professor from the University of Nevada/Reno, came to speak with the crew about the formation of our local mountains and the role that earthquakes, volcanoes, and erosion play in changing the shape of our landscape.

The first graders are putting their writing skills to the test to record information gathered in their research. There is rumor of an upcoming scientific convention led by local geologists as young as six and seven years old. Stay tuned!

The Seaborg crew is diving deeper into literacy! They are attentive and engaged during our daily read alouds. The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder has been a nice fit for our history expedition, as the books really show the students what life was like in the 1800s. 

Family Letter Journals help keep parents in the know about what we're doing in the classroom. These sentimental journals show the growth of these young writers and create a special written dialogue between students and their family members. 

This week in their journals, students wrote a poem about November, inspired by author of the month, Cynthia Rylant. At the heart of all our classroom activities, Literacy skills and lessons are embedded everywhere and are at the heart of all our classroom activities. 

“Some old fashion things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat!”- Laura Ingalls Wilder

During the fall semester, students in the Welch Crew have been working in the classroom with artist Sarah Frieberg with Arts for the Schools. The Visual Arts Program with Arts for the Schools helps students learn multiple art modalities. Some of the activities our crew is working on include the color wheel, Alma Thomas inspired paintings, Local Tahoe landscapes, and using watercolor washes with repetitive texture techniques after examining the works of Frances Gearhart. The Local Tahoe landscape art pieces will be featured in an art show later this year. Here are some of the pieces Welch Crew students have produced.

Akers Crew is in the depths of their Bills and Gills Expedition. This month we learned about food chains, food webs, and food pyramids. Students used this knowledge to create card and cup games, using words like "producers," "consumers," "decomposers," "predators," and "prey," along with amazing accompanying illustrations. They're excited to share these card games with everyone at Celebration of Learning!

The Brisbin Crew had fun sharing their Food Webs and Food Chains Games with each other before the break. Using constructive discourse, the students worked together to create games that showcased their learning from the Bills and Gills Expedition. They will soon launch into a deeper study of local birds and fish species.

Students have been comparing and contrasting concepts in life science by researching local species and how energy moves through organisms in our own backyard. The Brisbin Crew "MiniBombs" have worked on collecting research on these concepts and completed protocols for organizing their research. Creating a crew anchor chart, students then worked diligently to craft informational and expository paragraphs that are color coded for structure and word choice and include a local example of these concepts. Then, they revised these pieces using a writer's checklist and conducted a peer review. Their final drafts are works of art and will compliment their games.

Our 4th and 5th grade Scientists are diving deep into their learning by using strong Habits of Work and are using the Sierra Norms to move them forward productively this year!

In the dawn of civilization, humans began to create "community." As an extension of the investigation of how the six traits of civilization show up in four ancient civilizations, the Worster Crew learned more about how we support our community in Truckee. The crew took free public transportation from school to Raley's where we went shopping for non-perishable food for donations. After donating the food to the Sierra Community House, we were given a tour of the facility and a description of all the services that they offer our community and how much it helps when we all give a little back. 

Math: After gathering goods, we all shared the price of our item and students were tasked with estimating the total. Back at school, Judah was crowned "King of Estimation" and honored with cheering and bowing from the rest of the class. :) 

Gratitude: A big thank you to local business "Coffee And" for hosting us during the chilly morning layover. Students were grateful for a warm drink and shelter during our morning silent reading session while waiting for our connecting bus. 

The Santos Crew has been taking a trip around the world as we learn about what was happening in each region during the Middle Ages. Then we looked at how goods, ideas, and cultures spread from region to region and how the world became more interconnected. Ms. Lobo taught us various art techniques that originated in various regions through African prints, Middle Eastern tessellations, and European perspective drawings. We experienced spices from India, a re-enactment of the gold-salt trade in Africa, and how to use the Mayan calendar. We also designed a personal citizen's code modeled after a knight's code of chivalry and the Japanese samurai code. Nice work crew!

The Masur Crew has been hard at work this month! We've begun working on our social action projects, where students pick an issue and develop and implement a project that addresses a real need in the local community. Our first step in researching our issues was to choose a book that relates to our social issue, and present persuasive speeches using information from our books to convince others to take action on our issues. Keep an eye out for ways that you can support the 8th graders in our social action in the spring!

We are getting ready to kick off our final case study and finish our Planet Earth Expedition. This month, we wrapped up our "It's Stratified" Case Study, where we sought to answer the questions: Why does Earth have such a varied landscape? How do we know Earth's surface has changed over time?

We've learned about the rock cycle, how to identify rocks, relative and absolute dating, and fossils. Next month, we will dive deeper into Earth's history as we construct a model to depict its geologic history.

We had so many Thanksgiving-inspired activities in PE before the break, including a “Build a Turkey Relay,“ where students completed a challenge, and then picked a piece of gear to help their team build a turkey!

Great teamwork, communication and creativity, crew!