Happy New Year! And Welcome Back!
We are excited to be back and ready to lean into the new year. There are lots of exciting things in store this Spring including a 2nd Talent Show, start of a flag-football team, a youth gallery walk, and the continuation of our WOW! enrichment classes. The Winter/Spring calendar is on our website at lablearning.org Please check there regularly for important dates.
Parent Volunteer Meeting THIS Friday - January 10, 7-9pm
Join us for wine, cheese and planning for field trips, edible schoolyard garden classes, classroom support and fundraising. Become a Parent Volunteer for The Lab! Everyone welcome! Childcare provided.
A New Structure for the K-3rd Grade Classroom
Over the break, we did some work on the K-3rd classroom schedule. We have a wonderful mix of ages and skill levels in the Littles class that creates wonderful opportunities for multi-age learning and sharing. But this age diversity also comes with some challenges that require creative design.
To assure sure that all children in the Littles class are being challenged and supported in their own personalized learning and curriculum, we will be adding the use of flexible learning pods to our daily structure.
K-3rd students will meet together for community meetings, recess, and park days, and will work together during our WOW! integrated arts workshops on Wed and Friday mornings.
The class will separate into two separate "pods" - one for emerging readers/writers and one for more advanced readers/writers - for Readers and Writers Workshops, PBL Curiosity Studios and parts of our daily Study Jam. Students will move between the pods based on their reading abilities and independence levels.
Learning pods provide the structure and flexibility to allow our advisor/teachers to further personalize instruction for each child. Younger students will rotate through stations and workshop structures that include individual time, collaborative time and advisor/teacher time. Older students will be provided with more individualized resources, teacher time, and learner-led choice on how to move through the learning activities. We are excited about this enhanced class design for enabling children to have wonderful and stimulating learning experiences at their own learning pace and level.
Winter 2020 Schedule for K-3rd
This Week at The Lab
This week started strong with the launch of a new Readers and Writers Workshop cycle in the K-3rd classroom on Personal Narrative and mini-lessons on "discovering small moments," "finding meaning in everyday moments," and "capturing story ideas." Both classes worked on developing skills in joyful reading - "finding a perfect reading spot," "keeping your eyes and mind in the book," and skills that support engagement and comprehension like "retelling and jump-back."
During Study Jam time, T's students continued to make progress on their Summit Learning Platform and Moby Max, and our K-3rd graders worked on Moby Max and similar platforms for math and social studies.
For Curiosity Studio time, students in both classes are working together to select the topic and theme for their next Curiosity Studio cycle and we will be launching these for both classes early next week.
For the Littles classroom, during their WOW! integrated arts workshop this Wednesday students continued learning about the work of Mexican artist Tamayo, color theory and studied the concepts of "dualities" and opposites in art. See the photos below for a glimpse into the integrated arts workshop on Wednesday. Friday students will begin a mask-making art project.
Upcoming events to watch for
Youth Art Walk Gallery organized by Lab Alum Phoenix Aguilera - Date TBD
Spring Talent Show - Date TBD
Winter field trip -Date TBD
NWEA mid-year testing - February 2020