The best part of rainy days? The muddy puddles that follow. Our friends had so much fun splashing in the mud, as was evident from the laundry we've sent home lately! Wearing boots and spare clothes, they laughed and danced in our outdoor classroom's expansive mud area. In the mud, they can play, create, or dig to their heart's content. Our teachers have also set up a mud kitchen, where students can engage in sensory, role-playing, imaginative,...
Throughout the school year, students in Juniper Room have been working in the outdoor mud area, "saving the world from hot lava." Lava has become a large part of the students' daily outdoor classroom experience. Alexander shared with the class that he had made and erupted a volcano at home with his mom and dad, so teachers asked his parents to come in and help the class make their own volcano! Together with Alexander's parents, the class made a huge...
On Wednesday, January 24, the sixth graders of Gillispie School visited the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, California with the intent to further our knowledge on the Holocaust and other issues of injustice. Our class has been avidly studying the Holocaust as well as civil rights, reading books such as Miracle’s Boys, The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. This field trip offered us the opportunity to see directly how...
Grade 1 students have been studying dinosaurs in Science class. Their lessons have brought about many questions, specifically centered on how we know so much about dinosaurs given that they are extinct. During a class discussion, students were introduced to the term "paleontologists," and they learned more about this researcher's important role in the discovery and classification of ancient fossils. Each student had the opportunity to be a paleontologist for a day during a hands-on project where they carefully...
This is a great example of the type of project-based learning across disciplines that helps students further deepen their understanding of the curriculum! As an Art, Science, and Technology cross-study, Grade 6 partners have been creating their own topographical maps of an imaginary island. In Art class, the students hand-shaped their island out of clay and included eight real geographical features such as a waterfall, mountain, sandbar, etc. Once their clay models were finished, the students sliced the models, decided...
Our Preschool classes held their annual Fall Feast in the gym recently. Students made hand-printed placemats and table decorations for the event. The meal was potluck style, with each family bringing in a dish specially requested by their child to share. During the event, families wrote down things they are thankful for on cut-out feathers that were attached to a shared turkey display. Shared mealtimes in Reggio are held in high regard, and our educational philosophy values children, educators, and family...
As a kick off to the school-wide food drive, Grade 4 students recently visited Feeding San Diego where they sorted, packed, and weighed potatoes, pears, and squash donated by local farms. By the end of the three-hour shift, the children had packed 2500 pounds of food. The food was later delivered and distributed to the organization's mobile pantries around San Diego as well as the UCSD diabetic wellness program. Feeding San Diego feeds over 65,000 people a week, and...
This week, the Grade 5 students participated in Gillispie's annual Explorers Fair. Each student researched an explorer from the Age of Exploration and became that explorer for a presentation for families, teachers, and fellow students. The students shared letters they’d written to gain funding for their expeditions, quill pens they made to write the letters, maps of their proposed routes, and technological innovations that helped navigators of the era. Students entertained their audience as they informed them by dressing...
Working on this year’s goal of building empathy, at a recent assembly kindergarteners through second graders discussed the importance of practicing kindness daily. I challenged these children to perform two acts of kindness—one at home and one at school—that were to cost nothing monetarily and where nothing was expected in return. Some heartfelt examples are described below. One kindergartner explained, “Last night when my brother wasn’t feeling that good, we went to go get ice cream and...
Learn by Doing Fine motor skills are those that involve a refined use of the small muscles which control the hand, fingers, and thumb. With the development of these skills, a child is able to complete important tasks such as writing, feeding oneself, buttoning, and zippering. These abilities gradually develop through experience and exposure to a variety of toys and materials. This includes the ability to grasp, pick up, release, imitate, and copy patterns. As a provocation, Preschool...