Max's Baby Book: Alt School 2017-2018

First Day First Grade

Golden Kitty shoes

Dear Families,

Sharing some first day of school photos with you...Enjoy! It was such wonderful first day - there were lots of hugs, stories of summer adventures and opportunities to connect with old friends and make new ones. I look forward to a wonderful school year with all your children.

Yesterday, Our class did a lot of research to figure out which dog breed we should name our class. The votes are in! And..... it was a tie between Golden Retrievers and Huskies, so we are now the Golden Huskies! The class felt good about the name and agreed that the characteristics for the two breeds matches our team.

Hi Sarah and Ole!

I wanted to let you know how Max has been doing so far in school! Max has been adjusting very well in class and works very hard during independent time and tries his best with any activity. Max utilizes his work time very efficiently and always completes his work on time. I’ve really enjoyed seeing his creativity during various activities that we have done in class, like his rainbow lollipop that he created on his book box. This week we started small groups for Reading and have been focused on building our reading muscles and stamina. Max has already shown great focus and stamina while reading, and I look forward to challenging him with more reading tools and comprehension strategies!

Sometime this week, I'll be setting some goals for Max to focus on in class. I'll be sharing these goals with both you and Max, so that you're aware of what he’s working on and so that Max knows what he's working towards. He'll also be using our new documentation tool to show evidence of mastery towards his goals. Then, I'll share them on Stream for you to see!

Keep up the good work, Max!

- Bri

Hi Sarah and Ole,

I wanted to give you a quick update on Max's behavior today and yesterday. He's been having a hard time staying serious on the carpet and during work time. On the carpet, Max would make silly faces or noises to his friends. Once he starts laughing about something, he has a hard time calming down. Even after warnings, he would still continue to laugh when it's the teacher's turn to talk. During work time, Max would draw silly faces on the back of his paper and show to his friends instead of working on the assignment.

Since Max is in Bri's small group, it's been happening more frequently when she's teaching the class. She's had to give a couple of one-on-one talks about his behavior. Today, her conversation with him involved knowing when to be silly and when it's serious time. She mentioned that being silly really affects everyone in the class, since we're losing learning time. After the conversation, Bri had Max fill out a Think Sheet (this happened after lunch), so that he understands what he could do instead of being silly with his friends. We monitored his behavior in the afternoon. I was pretty disappointed to see that even after our talks with him and after he filled out his Think Sheet, he still had a rough time self-regulating on the carpet.

I wanted to bring this to your attention, so we could work out some sort of system to support him with his behavior in class. Bri and Max have already made an agreement that they would check in every morning to make sure he has the tools he needs to stay focused through out the day (example: fidgets for him to use with clear expectations on how to use it as well as frequent check-ins with Max throughout the day to reflect on his behavior). Please let me know your thoughts and if there's anything else we can do to help Max!

Karen and Bri

Hi! Just sharing some great photos of Max these last few weeks. You can show him these pictures and I'm sure he'll have a lot to say and share with you ;) I miss teaching Max but love how he still invites me to sit in his table for lunch! Enjoy the photos!

Hi Sarah and Ole,

Here's the most recent small moment writing Max finished. We've been focusing on how to make stories come alive by making our characters move and talk in our writings and adding moving words and quotations. I've noticed it's difficult for Max to remember details of small events so it's been hard for him to write seed stories. If you have him read this weeks small moment story to you, you'll see it's more of the watermelon, and doesn't include much detail about the 'light side/dark side' game they played at Sidd's b-day party. I also let him use the drawing writing paper in hopes that his drawing would spark some more details of that game.

When he reflected on this piece of writing, he gave himself 3 out of 3 stars. He was very proud of his writing and drawing, but knows he needs to try to incorporate more details, as well as moving words and quotations. We've started a new small moment writing piece, this time with a planning sheet, so I'm hoping this will help him as well!

Thanks! -Bri

Hi parents!

This week we went on our first field trip to Bay Area Natives Nursery. The kids had a fun time picking out pumpkins for our pumpkin Math project. Everyone also enjoyed hanging out with the chickens. We got to name our 3 pumpkins for our Math project - Big Bertha, Wobbly William, and Tiny Tim.

The kids got to go to Mission Bay Park again today. Everyone had a blast climbing the play structure and playing in a different outdoor setting.

Dear Families,

We had such a happy and wonderful Halloween celebration at Dogpatch yesterday! Thanks to our incredible Parent Ambassador Team (Deb, Sharon, Amanda and Evelyn), our hardworking parent volunteers (Jenny, Helen, Jeff, Ashley, Sarah and Gabriella), some HQ volunteers (Benji, Raja and Tommy) and our educators, our day was filled with spooky crafty sessions, high energy dance parties, a Quidditch match at the park and a neighborhood parade around the block. I loved seeing all the adorable costumes - see if you can spot a minion, Napoleon, a mother and son unicorn, Professor Dumbledore, Cleopatra and the Kimochi crew in our pictures!

Field trip to EcoCenter at Heron's Head Park

What will we be doing there?

Every day, we impact the balance of natural cycles on earth. Join us as we conduct experiments to find out how we impact these cycles. Then explore the ways innovations like solar power help us return balance to the environment.

Learning Celebration!

Thank you for admiring their work on the walls, patiently trying to read and decode their written work and stories, going over their portfolios, talking about their projects and showing a genuine interest in all they have achieved these last few months. As I walked around all the classrooms, I was filled with so much joy just watching how proud you all were of the the hard work your children have put into their learning celebration. Enjoy some of these very precious moments!

Kimochis!

As your children have probably already shared with you, this year we are implementing a character education and social-emotional program that teaches children positive habits to lead happy and successful lives. This program uses Kimochis, which are stuffies with feelings inside (feeling pillows). Kimochi means feelings in Japanese, and the curriculum is based on research that tells us a strong social-emotional learning foundation is essential to academic and life success. Research also shows that teaching social-emotional skills in school increases academic test scores by 11%! The lessons in the Kimochis curriculum teach real-life skills, such as communication, self-management, decision making, problem-solving, resilience, and responsibility. These are the skills that help us become successful in life and in school. When children learn to communicate their feelings effectively, they build confidence, self-esteem, and strong relationships.

BIG Thank you for joining us during our Candle Light Lunch last Friday. When we started this DP tradition 4 years ago, it was a small gathering consisting of 16 families and 3 educators wanting to get together and share food and drinks to ring in the holidays. I loved seeing our children interacting with parents and teachers from other classes, and meeting extended families (grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends of family) during this special occasion.

Mission Bay Playground

Favorite exploration area, blocks.

Max learned Chess this year

reading Martin's Big Words on MLK Day

We had some experts come in on Thursday. Two Environmental Educators from the Youth Stewardship Program through SF Parks and Rec came to discuss the history of SF and some native plants and animals in our area. We then created mock environments using burlap, colored felt, pine cones, and sticks. Everyone was able to check out each others work during the Gallery Walk.

On Thursday we took a field trip to Heron’s Head Park as part of the Youth Stewardship Program through SF Parks and Rec! We were lucky with nice, sunny weather, and spent a lot of our time outdoors learning about the history of Heron’s Head Park while searching for native plants and birds!

On Friday we had our Dogpatch wide Community Meeting where we were introduced to a new habit, Gratitude!

self-evaluation

Yesterday was such a gorgeous, sunny day so I decided to take a break from my HOS duties and just hang out with the kids at Esprit Park. There was so much lovely stuff going on - parachute games, nature and tree art, soccer, hula hoop contests, mud pie baking and some great outdoor exploration. Oh the joys of letting children drive their learning!

An email sent from Head of School (Mitzi) to her
management team about Max's writing progress

Valentine's Day

The students had a fun Valentine’s Celebration full of pajamas, pancakes, and dancing! Everyone enjoyed pancakes while listening to different books that teachers read to the students. We also played some fun dancing games that were very challenging like holding a ball between.

Carpool buddies Sidd and Casey

Learning Celebration

Cousin Zoe got to see the celebration

print blocking

Coyote Hills field trip

quidditch

The fire department gave us an amazing presentation about fire safety and how their job is like. Students got to see Firefighter Nicole put on her uniform. She explained each part of her uniform to the class. The class also got to see a real fire engine, AND they got to sit inside it! Now, the kids are extra prepared in case there is a fire emergency!