Kenyan boys choir

Welcoming the Kenyan Boys Choir to TBS

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The WE Day organization has organized a performance of the Kenyan Boys Choir for our students and our community. Families are welcome to join us Thursday, March 29, at the Realm Charter Middle School (1222 University Avenue), 9:30-10:15a to enjoy the concert with our students! The Kenyan Boys Choir performed at the inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama. All 12 choir members will perform a series of traditional songs from Kenya and a blend of popular covers of the songs we know and love today. From the WE Day organization: “We would love to honor the awesome work that The Berkeley School community has done over the years by offering an opportunity for you to host a show with the Kenyan Boys Choir at your school!” No need to RSVP; just join us over at Realm if you can!

Student Walkout

TBS Joins National School Walkout

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On Wednesday, March 14, students from The Berkeley School joined the National School Walkout to honor the Parkland school shooting victims and demonstrate that high schoolers aren’t the only ones speaking up and taking action for school safety.

Students (3rd-8th grade) observed 17 minutes of silence in honor of the 17 victims of the Marjorie Stonemen Douglas High School shooting exactly one month ago before participating in the nationwide walkout at 10:00a.

In conversations with their teachers, students from The Berkeley School expressed a desire to show solidarity with the #NationalSchoolWalkout campaign and represent TBS as a part of this important movement. 8th grader Leeam Levy: “We are hoping to communicate our sorrow and disappointment that something like this could happen in school, a place where children should feel safe. The purpose of the walkout is to honor the victims, and show that young people can have a voice in their community.”

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Bobcats Win East Bay Basketball Championship

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Our TBS basketball team clinched the East Bay Independent Schools Championship with their 59-45 win on Tuesday against French American. With still two more games to go, they’ve already accomplished their goal to win the championship! Coach Craig says this season has been his most rewarding coaching experience yet. No offense Bobcat alumni! Coach Jared points out that “resilience has been a major theme this season. The players really understand what it means to show resilience in the face of pressure.” And resilience (one of our Portrait of a Graduate qualities) they showed! Kudos to the team! Catch them in action at Strawberry Creek Park for their last home game, next Tuesday, March 6 at 4:15p.

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100 Days Smarter!

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The 100th day of school is a festive one at The Berkeley School! Students on our preschool campus spent the morning counting 100’s of objects… 100 drops of water, 100 buckets of sand, 100 hand prints, 100 Cheerios, and 100 minutes of fun! Kindergarten students in the Sweet Briar Creek classroom counted by 10’s to create their own snack sacks and make wearable 100-cereal ring necklaces. Yummy! They also compiled a list of 100 things that make them happy! First and second graders wrote books about what they could lift 100 of, and what they could NOT lift 100 of, same with what they could eat 100 of and what they couldn’t. The students also did numerous exercises that needed to be completed within 100 seconds and practiced jumping around a giant 100s grid. Third graders honored the 100th day tradition with stations in math that were all about 100. They wrote about what they would do with $100 and/or what it might be like to be 100 years old. They also competed in a race to complete 100-piece puzzles!

Harmonee on computer

Guiding Our Students’ Future in Science & Technology

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By Sima Misra, Director of Teaching & Learning

Many of you know our school’s mission by heart: “Ignite curious minds, awaken generous hearts, engage a changing world.” That lays out a path to guide our students’ future. We have two vision statements that help us picture aspects of our destination: our Science Vision and our Technology Vision.

TBS Vision for Science & Tech Education
Our Science Vision guides our teaching of science and engineering. Its goal is to inspire and lay a path to enable all our students to be responsible, scientifically literate citizens who recognize challenges and opportunities facing our modern world.

Spearheading the drafting and implementation of our Technology Vision is our EdTech Specialist Susan Winesmith, who coordinates closely with Loa Ortiz in leading the Info Literacy/Tech team (Librarian Rebecca Greco, IT Director Jose Arellano, and myself) and the technology arm of the ECC-8th grade Science & Technology committee.

Recently, we shared our new Technology Vision, guiding not only the teaching of technology skills and habits necessary for 21st century learners, but also how we think about technology at TBS and the ways that teachers, students, and staff use technology to enhance instruction, express themselves creatively, solve problems, and support family-school partnerships. These vision statements also provide us with concrete ways to prepare students to become civically engaged citizens capable of addressing society’s challenges.

Our Path
We began a partnership with BaySci in 2015: since then, that organization has provided K-8 science teachers with ongoing professional development to cultivate students’ skills in research-based Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) science and engineering practices ​(​such as asking questions and defining problems, engaging in argument from evidence, and applying mathematics and conceptual thinking).

NGSS-connected professional development has also helped us solidify students’ understanding of “crosscutting” concepts​, such as:

  • cause & effect,
  • identifying patterns,
  • and scale & proportion.

As well as disciplinary core ideas like:

  • earth & space,
  • life,
  • physical sciences,
  • and engineering.

This October we sent our Middle School science teachers Loa and Jeff to the California Science Teachers Association conference to learn more about best practices in science and engineering teaching and learning. They attended workshops on everything from Earth Science to Engineering, and were excited to bring their new knowledge and insights back to their colleagues on the ECC-8th grade faculty Science & Technology committee. For the second year, Loa is facilitating this group in ongoing work to align the K-8th grade NGSS performance expectations with the current TBS science learning outcomes and assessment practices. This work has been supported by providing each K-5 class with a second Full Option Science System (FOSS) unit, a research-based science curriculum for grades K-8 developed at the Lawrence Hall of Science.

TBS Science Curriculum
Our elementary classrooms now teach the following FOSS units:

  • K: Forces & Motion; Animals Two by Two
  • 1/2: Plants & Animals; Solids & Liquids; Pebbles, Silt & Sand
  • 3: Water & Climate; Motion & Matter
  • 4/5: Energy; Earth & Sun; Chemistry (Mixtures & Solutions); Living Systems

Both 1/2 and 4/5 classrooms alternate science topics from one year to the next, so that all students receive the equivalent of a complete 1/2 or 4/5 grade science education after two years in the class.

In 6th grade this year, students will demonstrate their learning of earth science in one NGSS-aligned unit by designing a method for monitoring and minimizing human impact on the environment. And 7th and 8th graders are introduced to units by trying to figure out a puzzling, compelling phenomenon, which increases engagement by making science relevant. For example, to introduce density, students puzzle out why a lime sinks but a lemon floats in a tank of water.

TBS Tech Curriculum
Susan teaches a trimester of Digital Citizenship classes in 3rd through 8th grades that emphasize the safe and responsible use of technology, as well as Keyboarding and Introduction to Technology classes in 3rd through 6th grades to give students basic skills with Chromebooks, iPads, and software (such as the Google G Suite for Education) that supports their learning. These curricula resulted from research and surveys by last year’s Science & Technology team, incorporating standards from the International Society of Technology in Education that faculty identified as key for TBS students.

A vital aspect of our Technology Vision is supporting parenting adults in navigating the digital landscape with their students. Toward that end, we hosted two Family Ed events this fall, one for adults with Ana Homayoun, author of Social Media Wellness: Helping Tweens and Teens Thrive in an Unbalanced Digital World, and one for 4th-8th grade students and their families led by child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Jessica Lee and Susan Winesmith addressing questions about family media agreements, privacy and video game use. Ana Homayoun also recommended a new book to parents of children from birth through age 8, The Art of Screen Time: How Your Family Can Balance Digital Life & Real Life by Anya Kamenetz.

Recommended Educational Apps
At our recent Academic Excellence Coffee, parenting adults asked which online educational resources and apps we recommend, as it can be difficult to identify high quality ones. Here are some we currently use at TBS and recommend:

We also recommend DragonBox Math and DreamBox for math learning at home. Many of these resources provide engaging and fun ways for students to practice skills. If you have questions about how we use these tools, please let us know–we are happy to tell you more. Thank you very much for your partnership in service of your children’s learning.

Steve Silberman

TBS Talks: Steve Silberman on Neurodiversity

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At TBS we believe that an inclusive culture flourishes when we make time and space for adults in our school community to connect with others who are walking similar paths. Over the course of the academic year, we schedule various events that allow our entire community to connect in the context of our mission and core values: Math Night, the Art Show, Spring Sings, Fall Fest, and the Middle School Plays are only a few. In addition, we create opportunities for parenting adults to learn frameworks, language, and practices that our teachers use to understand and meet the needs of diverse student groups.

On Thursday, January 25, we’ll host the latest of these events when we welcome Steve Silberman, award-winning science writer and New York Times bestselling author of NeuroTribes, to the University Avenue Campus to talk about neurodiversity. Steve Silberman will be in conversation with TBS learning support expert Stephen Cahill to unpack the insights his historical, sociological, and groundbreaking book provides for the future of neurodiversity in education.

kindness pledge

Taking the Kindness Pledge

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The week before our Thanksgiving break, students in the Explorers (Transitional K) classroom committed to a Kindness Pledge. The Kindness pledge comes from the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, which calls for people to commit to a 14-week kindness challenge. Each week has a different theme inspiring us to different acts of kindness. Our first week was “Be Kind to Community.” We talked about who our community is and how we could be kind to them. We took a walk up the street to buy flowers then gave them out to passing neighbors and store owners. We got a lot of smiles!

The week of Fall Break was “Be Kind to Family” week. Before break, we talked about being kind to our family and what that means. Students reported that they fulfilled their pledge by washing dishes, cleaning clothes, setting the table, making bed and brushing their teeth. Others reported that they gave my tablet and legos to my brother, made cookies for my parents, gave hugs and kisses, let papa sleep. Amazing!!

This week the theme is, “Be Kind Online”. The Explorers drew pictures of things they appreciate about their families and wrote notes to them which we then e-mailed.

This week we also continued to be kind to our community by kicking off our annual food drive! The director of the Berkeley Food Pantry, Dharma, visited our class on Monday to talk about the food pantry, who it serves, why and what kinds of food we can donate. The Explorers then went to their respective classrooms and presented about the food drive, sharing wha they learned and gaining the support of their peers for the food drive. They also made the signs to put on the baskets in each class to collect the food. Look at our Explorers leading the food drive!

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7th Graders Combine Math & Action

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Seventh grade students recently completed a math project involving partnering with MathAction, a group that aims to empower students to solve real-world problems through mathematics. In this project, they designed a model for water distribution in a refugee camp, considering both practical constraints and human concerns. They first learned about the current refugee crisis and what the water requirements would be at a refugee camp. Using specifications from the United Nations, they then designed a model for water distribution. In this project, they utilized their scaling skills in the creation of the model, as well as their estimating and proportional reasoning skills.

And finally, while it was great to see students experience “math in action”, the greater lesson is a human one. In addition to sharing their model with other schools, students also attended the “Forced from Home” exhibit at Oakland’s Lake Merritt amphitheater. This gave students the opportunity to see life through the eyes of a refugee. At the start of the exhibit, students “role-played” refugees and were assigned home countries. Our docent instructed us that we had thirty seconds to take five things with us as we were fleeing the country; we could choose from money, family photos, cell phone, motorcycle, passport, water, clothes, etc. This simulation forced students to consider what they would take if they only had seconds to decide. Terrifying, but also humanizing, as I think it helped us better empathize with the experience of a refugee.

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Culture Walk With Precita Eyes

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Strawberry Creek made their way by BART to San Francisco to take a Precita Eyes Mural Tour on Balmy Avenue. Precita Eyes is an inner-city, community-based, mural arts organization whose muralists work to enrich and beautify urban environments and educate the public about the process and history of community mural art. They are celebrating 40 years of bringing art into the daily lives of people through a process that celebrates their beauty, discovers their creativity, and reflects their concerns, joys, and triumphs. Students asked questions, shared interpretations, and learned the very important purpose and impact of the art they got to see. Ask them about it!

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Eric Carle Animals

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Students from the Magnolia classroom have been busy exploring color, color mixing, and texture this fall. We’ve also been reading books by Eric Carle and looking closely at how he creates his pictures. We made “Eric Carle” paper for use in collage and other art projects. We have been inspired to combine these two interests into a Halloween costume project. Students painted Halloween costumes inspired by “Eric Carle animals”. Eric Carle is the author and illustrator of many books including “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and the children have excitedly generated a list of possibilities for their t-shirts: polka-dot kangaroos! pink rabbits! green rhinoceroses! patchwork dogs!

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