April 2016 Edition “Spring has Sprung!” No, these aren’t Easter Bonnets; they are Vocabulary Word Hats! Mrs. Renaud’s fourth grade class had a lot of fun with this creative Language Arts project. Their mission: Design a hat that represents a vocabulary word. Their creations ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous! Can you guess which Fourth Grader got the word “conceal” ??? Another Reason Why to Teach Cursive Writing: Studies Show that Cursive writing improves comprehension! A 2014 study published in Psychological Science (Mueller and Oppenheimer) compared the memories of university students who took handwritten notes to those who took notes on lap- tops found that writing longhand better helps you learn new information. Those who wrote out their notes processed more of what was being said during their lectures, probably be- cause they had to condense information to keep up, rather than mindlessly type the speaker’s words verbatim. In subsequent tests, handwriters recalled information from the lectures bet- ter than typists.
Transcript
April 2016 Edition
“Spring hasSprung!”
No, these aren’t Easter Bonnets; they are Vocabulary Word Hats!Mrs. Renaud’s fourth grade class had a lot of fun with this creative Language Arts project.Their mission: Design a hat that represents a vocabulary word. Their creations ranged from thesublime to the ridiculous! Can you guess which Fourth Grader got the word “conceal” ???
Another Reason Why to Teach Cursive Writing:Studies Show that Cursive writing improves comprehension!
A 2014 study published in Psychological Science (Mueller and Oppenheimer) compared thememories of university students who took handwritten notes to those who took notes on lap-tops found that writing longhand better helps you learn new information. Those who wroteout their notes processed more of what was being said during their lectures, probably be-cause they had to condense information to keep up, rather than mindlessly type the speaker’swords verbatim. In subsequent tests, handwriters recalled information from the lectures bet-ter than typists.
Our primary French classes enjoyed a guest speaker who shared about her French-speakinghome country, Morocco. Thank you to Sonia Maria for sharing with us! Part of our WorldLanguages Program includes the study of world cultures. The students in French class learnabout Morocco and the other nations that are part of la francophonie, the community of 29French-speaking countries throughout the world.
In addition to these studies, students in all grade levels study World Cultures and Geography,and showcase what they learned at our school’s International Day at the end of the school year.Brookfield offers the choice of French or Spanish, where all students attend language class fourdays per week. The result is early fluency and global awareness.
Our fifth grade class had agreat time exploring theMarin Headlands this monththrough the Nature Bridgeprogram. They spent threedays on the trip and comehome happy and exhausted!
Our students enjoy this trip, aswell as a class trip to Yosem-ite during their 7th and 8thgrade years.
What do you get when you challenge a bunch of bright, creative middle school students to put on a Shakespeareancomedy? You get a really fantastic production! Thank you to our students for all their hard work, and especially toour English Specialist, Ms.. Clurman, who guided them through this project so successfully! Video excerpts of theplay are available to view on our school Facebook Page, Brookfield School, Sacramento.
Our Primary students had fun get-ting up close to some wild animalsduring a visit from Nature’s Crit-ters. These creatures are rescueanimals who can no longer survivein the wild.Nature’s Critters uses these visitsto educate school children abouthabitats and respect for wildlife.Thank you to the BPA for hostingthis great activity.
Learning about Shakespeareand Twelfth Night
JT and Charlotte are pictured sharing a special comicbook they designed to teach the Pre-first class about theplay the middle school performed on Shakespeare Day.Each year, the middle school students prepare creativelessons to introduce our younger students to Shakespeareand to explain the plot of the play that is performed.
Our 7th grade studentshad to use their knowl-edge of energy, accelera-tion, gravity, and variousphysics principles todesign and build theirown working rollercoaster models. Eachgroup developed theircoaster around a differ-ent theme: Winter Won-derland, Candyland,Around the World, andOuter Space. Here arethe coasters under con-struction.
The students took theirroller coasters to GreatAmerica in hope of com-peting with other studentprojects at a special daydedicated to physics, butunfortunately, the coast-ers were damaged intransit. Oh well, at leastthey learned a lot frombuilding them, and en-joyed RIDING the awe-some real coasters at thepark.
This is project-based andcooperative learning atits best, and most FUN!
Thank you to our Sci-ence Teacher, Mr. Blum,for guiding the studentsthrough this project.
Project-based Learning:Design a Roller Coaster
Our Middle School Mentor Groups worked together to create original salads and desserts for judging. Each entrywas judged on presentation, nutritional value, originality, and of course, taste! Congratulations to Mr. Blum’sgroup for winning Best Salad and to Mrs. Camm’s group for winning Best Dessert! It was a fun competition!
BESTSALAD
BESTDESSERT
Here are some amazing creations from our all school Health Class Activity. Stu-dents rose to the challenge of creating a visually interesting nutritious snack.
A listing of “Best of Show” and Class Winners will be published in the next issue of this newsletter.
Both the 1st and 2nd Place Winners for the 2016 AATF Poster Contest are BrookfieldMiddle Scholars!Congratulations to 1st Place Winner, Lauren K. and 2nd Place Winner, Avery G. for taking thetop two prizes! Their posters are truly beautiful!
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