Summer Camp Marketing Far

SUMMER CAMP AT THE CHILDREN'S SCHOOL

This sunshiny winter has us eagerly planning for a rich and fun-filled TCS summer camp program! Wondering what's in store? Come find out at our Summer Camp Fair on Wednesday, March 12, from 3:00 - 4:30 p.m. when camp teachers and vendors will be on hand to share information about their camp offerings. Invite your friends to attend and learn about the fun to be had at TCS this summer! Our Summer Smarts program is a wonderful place to enhance learning in a fun-filled setting.

Summer Camp registration will be available online and in the office in early March. 

Congratulations TCS Basketball!

Patricia va a California

Please watch the trailer ANB, LC, and AB made for the book, Patricia va a California. 

Pobre Ana & Patricia va a California

Sixth grade students began the year by reading one of two novels by Blaine Ray. One group is reading Pobre Ana and the other group is reading Patricia va a California. Both are short novels written in the present tense which also include the cultures of Mexico and Guatemala. We are reading the novels together in class, acting out scenes in the chapter and conducting chapter chats. By doing so, it helps reinforce the grammatical structures and vocabulary learned in each chapter. Below are some pictures of the students acting out scenes from Patricia va a California as well as learning to dance la cumbia, which is something Ana learns how to do in the novel, Pobre Ana. 

Restaurant Reviews

This week the students began working on writing restaurant reviews. They started by reading several restaurant reviews and breaking them down into the categories they felt most important to this writing process. They identified important topics such as service, atmosphere, and quality of food. Next, they created adjective "word walls" for each category to help expand their vocabulary for the reviews. Finally, they worked collectively to create a set of minimum requirements for their reviews. Tomorrow they will do a taste-test activity and begin outlining. 

Egypt Unit

Before the break, the students were hard at work creating 3D maps of the Nile river. Since returning, they presented their maps to their classmates. They were required to demonstrate their knowledge of Egyptian geography, as well as label several man-made sites and monuments. Also during this period, students had the opportunity to experience what it felt like to be a scribe in ancient Egypt by recording dictations from their oppointed "nobles" using their own forms of hieroglyphs. 

Students experiencing how a day in the life of a scribe may have felt. Because of their elevated status in society, "nobles" sat above their scribes. 

Biomes of Africa Laboratory Experiment

Continuing on with our study of ecosystems and biomes, the students first made travel brochures for the  six land biomes and two aquatic biomes in our world. We decided to specifically look at the land biomes you find in Africa to determine what plants would grow best in the three types of biomes you find there - grassland, rainforest, and desert. We decided to "mimic" these biomes as best we could by monitoring the amount of sunlight, water and type of soil each of the three biomes receive. We planted three different types of seeds in each biome to determine which type of seed would grow the best in each of the three. The seeds we grew were California poppy, Cat grass and green beans. Below are some pictures of the 6th graders observing and recording the growth of their plants. After almost a full month of growing, we collected our final results and compiling full scientific lab reports. Some of the results we got were drastically different than what we had originally hypothesized! Check it out!

Champurrado

Sixth graders learned how to make champurrado, a chocolate-based Mexican drink similar to hot chocolate. It is a popular drink served during Las Posadas and typically served alongside tamales or churros. They were in charge of finding their own recipes, dividing up the tasks and cooking the champurrado.

Becky's House Toy Drive

Keeping with the spirit of the season, we are collecting any new toys for Becky's House, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. We know it is late notice, but if you have a toy you would like to donate you can drop the toy off in Justin's room between now and Friday. Rita Albert will pick them up after school on Friday and deliver them to Becky's House.

http://www.ywcasandiego.org/get-help/beckys-house.html

Mapping TCS Project

As some of you may know, our map of the TCS campus is a little outdated. The NMY buildings are superimposed onto the map and the basketball courts are still part of the parking lot. The 6th grade students had been studying maps and scale models in science as well as area and perimeter in math so what better way to wrap up our unit than updating our very own TCS map! We took a few days to measure each of the buildings on campus and then we got down to work. The students found the perimeter and area of each building and determined what the scale would be to have all the buildings fit on a blueprint paper. The electronic group used the measurements to come up with a to scale model of TCS using Scratch. Below are some pictures of them getting down to work!