Save the Date! Our second Summit Swirl Fundraiser is next week, Wednesday May 4. It's a minimum day, and Summit Swirl has generously offered to give us a percentage of all of their frozen yogurt sales that day, so don't forget to drop by get and your fro-yo on! Summit Swirl is located in the Savemart Shopping Center.

Great Skate silent auction donations are rolling in — thank you to those who have offered items or services! We are still looking for items to be included in the auction, so if you have an idea and are wondering if it might be something we could use, please don't hesitate to ask! Items can be dropped off with Anna in the front office, or we can make a gift certificate for you if appropriate.

The Great Skate 2022, scheduled for June 10 from 5-9PM, is shaping up to be the most fun event of the year for SELS! Costumes are encouraged (but not required) and the theme is Disco Party - more info coming soon!

Together We Are Crew, Not Passengers

-The SELS PTC

The Bell Crew has been knee-deep in soil, poetry, and non-fiction texts — learning all about the parts of a plant and how they help a plant grow. Students prepared the soil in our SELS garden, planted seeds to grow under the grow lights, and made scientific observations of seeds sprouting in baggies in the window. We are ALIVE with science in kindergarten!

The kindergartners have also taken on the Great Shoelace Challenge!! They are trying to earn colored shoelaces by demonstrating their independence with shoelace tying. It’s wonderful to hear the encouragement and to see the sharing of techniques from other crew mates.

Last but not least, the Bell Crew braved the stage and led the first SELS Community Meeting in two years. With voices proud and loud, they shared their favorite poems, songs, and activities with the whole school community. April has been full of growth and excitement in the Bell Crew!

In April, the second graders focused on several poets to honor National Poetry Month. As a crew, we have been enjoying a variety of poems and intentionally weaving in our design principles, the SIERRA Norms, spelling patterns, and more. Students that have a special poem or poetry book were asked to share with the crew. Poetry writing in all forms has been a fun new way for us to explore our relationship with word choice and rhythm. We welcomed special guest Mr. Manahan to recite the Lorax by Dr. Seuss, showcasing not only poetry but also our April design principle of learning from the natural world. “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” -Robert Frost

The Welch Crew has spent this year learning how to calm ourselves down in situations that are out of our control. Each day, we write a Positive Message in our Daily Planners as a way to remind ourselves how unique and special we are to each other. We also spend a few minutes each day after lunch completing an intentional Mindful Moment. This includes ambient music along with a guided breathing exercise to help students refocus their energy and attention on the afternoon of learning ahead.

In collaboration with Ms. Lobo, students have been designing and creating their own Breathing Buddies to share their mindful breathing techniques with in class. As the year winds down, each student will create their own Meditation Story to use on their own. Our Breathing Buddies will be on display during Celebration of Learning in June. Come visit them!

The Akers crew had a great April with the start of buddies, enjoying outside spring weather, author’s chair and expedition projects.

We love meeting with our buddies! During our first meeting, we played board games outside and had a blast. We followed that up with a fantastic presentation of puppet shows, and this week we will go to an Arts for the Schools Performance with our first grade buddies - such fun!

We continue to love our Friday tradition of author’s chair; students love sharing and hearing the creative stories their peers write. We are working on our case study about the Earth’s four spheres. Students have been put into groups to create a children’s book modeled after the Magic School Bus series about a specific sphere (hydrosphere, atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere).

Students in the Brisbin Crew have been leading Morning Meetings and are bringing such creativity and joy to our Wednesday mornings! They are exploring theme via anchor texts; students chose books from home to showcase in their presentations and outline the author’s message.

We've also been truly enjoying time with our Bell Crew kindergarten buddies, and this week launched our annual rock tumbling lab together. We learned about various rough cut gems and the processes of weathering and erosion, as well as Moh’s Hardness Scale. Next, we'll observe the rocks and their tumbling process.

Check out the Earth Day banners that our crew displayed at Palisades Tahoe! Five schools participated in the project this year. The SELS warming stripes banner was displayed alongside ACMS, TEA, Creekside, and Forest Charter school banners. The students worked hard to put their climate science knowledge, and a lot of craftsmanship, into the banner project this year.

The Santos Crew has been hard at work in all areas of study. We've been unraveling the mystery of DNA by building models of the double helix structure and the viruses that hijack human cells to replicate. We also solved a simulated crime scene by figuring out how genetics inform our blood type, and bred a whole colony of aliens to see how genetics are passed down.

The crew is working on leadership skills by running their own morning meetings. Students had to identify areas we wanted to grow in as a crew, and then design activities that would build the crew up with these intentions. This translates very well to our math work when we work in teams to solve real-world problems. Let's build these skills and grow together!