Academic Engagenment

Students in the Brave Bear classroom have been focused in literacy on the topic of the American West. The essential question for this topic is “What was life like in the West for Early Americans?”. Through individual and collaborative work students have been building an understanding of the interrelationships between people and nature. They are identifying characteristics of life and challenges faced by pioneers and Native Americans in the West. As well, they are recognizing that stories can contain important life lessons. As readers and writers, students are building knowledge of topic-specific words and using text features to support their comprehension. As a much practiced skill in literacy, they are identifying the main topics of informational texts and describing connections between historical events. A key piece of our literacy curriculum is writing informative paragraphs using information from the texts that include topic statements, evidence sentences and a conclusion. While writing and drafting these paragraphs, students are practicing their peer feedback skills in order to support each other to produce their best work.

Transformation: Artists Observe and Associate

We were inspired by Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Louise Nevelson and Joseph Cornell. We studied the ways these artists often started their process by closely observing objects and seeing something entirely different within their forms, shapes, and overall designs. It was important to ponder the fact that Duchamp and Picasso were pioneers in calling their combined everyday objects art. The Triangular Trouts were presented with a large amount of everyday and odd found objects that have the potential to look like something else when combined with each other, stand alone, or simply adorned with other materials. Students used their sketchbooks to draw what they wanted to create and write sentences like, I am transforming a … into a…. This way of approaching their art was not new to them as we’ve been appropriating other items like ink blots or abstract line drawings during our warm ups. We have almost completed our Found Object Sculptures, students will add their artist statements and then we are going to exhibit them all at the yearly, district wide, State of the Arts show at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. The opening celebration will be on Tuesday, 2/28, from 5-7PM. We hope you can join us! The artworks will be on display until 6/4.

Community

The Triangular Trout have taken a lot of changes in the classroom with stride. This past month we have worked to create a new classroom agreement all together. We will be taking our extended journey closer to the end of March, where we will hopefully have the chance to bond as a team and work to uphold our new classroom agreement. We have recently started a new unit in Wit and Wisdom relating to extreme environments. We are tying in the idea of extreme environments to our class project. We are hoping to learn more about how people survive in mountainous regions all over the world today and in the past. This project will connect to our journeys. Fourth graders are wrapping up their national parks project. Students have been working on creating a poster with their research on their park. We have also had the opportunity to meet with Park Rangers from Death Valley, Haleakala, Zion, and Olympic national parks!

Student Corner

K/1 What do you want to be when you grow up?

Kaari – “A vet and a ballerina.”

Isak – “Scientist”

Sydney – “Zoo owner”

Leo – “A dummer”

Max – “A grown up”

Benjamin – “An architect”

Lady – “Veterinarian, a cowgirl, an ice skater, candy maker, a baker, and a dancer.”

Vivian – “A doctor and a princess”

Aurelius – “Superhero with powers: super speed, cat jump, bat ears, strength, and a cape.”

Mila – “A mom”

Cyrus – “Writer and an actor.”

Harriet – “Doctor, teacher, and a ballerina”

Grace – “A painter and a dancer on stage, and gymnastics”

Penelope – “Artist, teacher, and a chef.”