Classroom Peek Week of 3/9 - 3/13

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons were happening inside of TCS classrooms this week! 

  • Red Room had several art projects this week to help them better understand the colors of a rainbow. First, they made rainbow faces with cellophane, craft sticks and paper plates. Most of the children choose the color blue. After a lesson on the order of the colors of the rainbow, the children went to work attempting to recreate the ROY G BIV pattern on their own.

  • Blue Room learned about building and construction. Their centers ranged from creating our own houses, using blocks to build structures, and learning about a variety of tools that are used in creating homes and buildings. In their art center they created their own buildings using a variety of colored construction paper shapes and Popsicle sticks. They also got a visit from the dentist and viewed a really fun and informative video about Geena the giraffe and the importance of brushing and flossing daily. 

  • Green Room have been exploring various ways to catch a leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day. They listened to two different books about catching magical creatures; How to Catch a Unicorn and How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace. In art, they painted with green and yellow paint. Every leprechaun is after a pot of gold, so on Tuesday, the children cut out a pot and used yellow construction paper for their gold coins.

  • Yellow Room celebrated March being Women's History Month, by reading about and talking about important, strong and determined women in American history such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amelia Earhart, Sally Ride, Hillary Clinton... to name a few! The children were asked to draw a woman they admired because she was strong.  A few said mom, a few said their sisters, and one said Hillary Clinton! For Wednesday's art center, Ramsey's family supplied masks and other materials, such as jewels and foam shapes, for the children to create their own Super Hero masks.

  • Kindergartners worked on book reports reviewing all the story elements they've learned so far - author, illustrator, main character, and setting. They wrote sentences using their sight words, made flashcards, played sight word hot potato, and just continued being awesome readers! They also practiced their addition with fun skill and strategy games that got them really thinking!

  • Third Grade students were happy to read this week because we used a phenomenal app called Epic to facilitate their learning. They read a children's National Geographic story about Sacajawea. She was the female member of the Shoshone tribe who was known for leading the Lewis and Clark expedition across the western half of the continent.  They have added a third digit to long division. Although, the steps to understanding long division can be arduous, the students are starting to feel more confident with this process.

  • For Fourth Grade, success comes with repetition and practice, and in this case, the luck of the Irish! We plotted coordinates from ordered pairs, and each picture had a St. Patrick’s Day theme. They celebrated Women’s History Month learning about the many accomplishments of women who’ve made big contributions to our country and world. As part of their discussion, they used primary sources, The Los Angeles Times newspaper and Time Magazine, to jump start the discussion and independently our students read, wrote, and reported to the class about some fascinating woman that helped shape all our lives. 

  • Sixth Grade Math enjoyed a fun and DELICIOUS lesson on fractions by demonstrating them following a recipe, preparing the recipe, and then enjoying it with their class! They were encouraged to use recipes that showcase their family’s heritage.

  • Eighth Grade Math was busy prepping for the upcoming celebration of Pi Day (3.14) on Friday. They were working on the math lessons that the Seventh and Sixth Graders were tasked to teach the K thru Fifth Grade students.

Classroom Peek Week of 3/2 - 3/6

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons were happening inside of TCS classrooms this week! 

  • Blue Roomers learned many wonderful and fun facts about dinosaurs this week!

  • Yellow Roomers are studying weather and the four season. They read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and cooked meatballs on Thursday, made weather charts and did a fun language-arts activity where the kids drew what they would wish would fall from the sky!

  • Kindergartners had a sight word hunt, focused on reading comprehension skills. Their Captain Calendar Lyra (and teacher assistant Ethan) supported their friends as everyone came up to read their sight words. They practiced sounding out words and illustrating them.

  • First Graders continued their celebration of the 100th day of school this week. by creating  a collage using using the 100 items each student brought for math activities. The students also created a 100 Day monster.

  • Second Grade started their introductory unit on simple machines. Each student got to reach into a surprise bag and pull out a gadget. The students had to name it, tell what is is used for, and point out the parts such as lever, wedge, inclined plane, wheel and axle,pulley, and screw.

  • Third Graders concluded their reading of “Charlotte’s Web” with Holly this Friday. The kids loved sharing this time and love of such a great story with their Head of School. Thank you, Holly! The children are in the proofreading process for their animal stories, and discussed how using descriptive language could help the reader visualize the setting or what is happening to the characters in the story. 

  • Seventh Graders were putting science to work by examining microbes in our very own TCS stream!

Read Across America Day!

Friday February 28th was Read Across America Day! TCS celebrated the day with classroom readings with TCS parents, a fun reading activity in Middle School, and followed by a special reading by TCS parent, Anthony Montgomery on the Dream Court. It was the perfect way to close our book fair week!

Classroom Peek Week of 2/24 - 2/28

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons were happening inside of TCS classrooms this week! 

  • Blue Roomers were 100% ready for TCS Book Fair week! In Music, everyone took a turn singing favorites such as the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and even 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!! The children practiced taking turns and demonstrated their personal expression. In honor of Read Across America week, they participated in a Process Art activity based on the book, The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. The Dot tells the story about a girl named Vashti who doubts her artistic ability, until her teacher encourages her to just make a dot and see where her imagination takes her.

  • Kindergartners took a fun field trip to the LA Zoo! They had the chance to see some of their favorite animals, which are also the inspiration for some of their favorite book characters.

  • Second graders celebrated read across America by completing book reports and posters of their favorite books. Jake even dressed up as Thomas Jefferson. Take a look at our outside showcase! 

  • Third Graders did a lot of reading on their own throughout the week, and had several special guest readers. A big thanks to Noel King (Gus' mom) for reading to our class on the 100th day of school.in math. In math, the students used spinners to generate 3 or 4 digit numbers to multiply. They also used expo markers and student work mats to practice how to multiply when dealing with money. They are still working to remember where to put their commas, decimals, and money symbols.

  • Fourth Graders were introduced to the concept of Author's Purpose. Learning about this will enhance our student's comprehension and help them understand what the author intended. They discussed each component as a group and then tested what they learned. As a group challenge each student choose an example of author's purpose and put it in the right category. It was a game show win! Then, in groups students read passages, and determined which of the author's purpose categories best matched what they had just read.

  • Fifth Graders benefited greatly from this week's book fair. They continued their reading of Bud, Not Buddy. As the information they encounter has more challenging vocabulary, students are learning to mark the page and look up the definition later. They focused on personification and did an exercise to learn how to identify them in their own essays. In math, they took this week to begin a few weeks of review. 

  • Middle School Music & Art electives came together Tuesday afternoon to do a listening/visual exercise. They played songs in different genres and the kids drew what inspired them while listening!

  • MS Art Elective took a field trip on Thursday to the Broad in the Los Angeles Art District.

  • ES Gardening Elective continued tending our beautiful gardens.

2020 Night School

Friday afternoon/evening was our annual Night School! The children enjoyed activities at centers around the school, had dinner together, and experienced learning that can only happen at night—from searching for planets in the night sky to exploring the school with flashlights!

Classroom Peek Week of 2/18-2/21

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

In preparation for the PreK - 1st Night School, our students have been preparing their classrooms and play areas to reflect the mystery and fun of learning at night!

  • Red Room learned about germs and good hygiene practices. In these pictures, the children made their own "germs" out of playdough, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. They decorated their own soap dispensers.They put pom poms,knick knacks, and sparkles inside the clear dispenser to make hand washing more fun. 

  • Green Room friends have been getting ready for Night School this week. “Camping we will go” is our theme. The children made tents to sleep in, tear art bears, glow in the dark fish for the river, and nighttime skies in a jar. 

  • Yellow Room have been learning about space this week! They transformed part of the classroom into a outer space complete with children painted planets, stars and aliens.

  • First Grade had a great time continuing their study of money. The students bought items using several ways to show the same amount of money. They enjoyed playing several money games. The kids were especially interested in learning about the Presidents on the Heads side of the coins and the meaning of the Tails side. 

  • Third Grade is learning about the Animal Kingdom. As a result, they visited the Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar. They listened to two lessons regarding animal classifications and life cycles, and they got to be up close and personal with the discussed creatures. We also saw animals such as: sloths, squirrel monkeys, fennec foxes, lemurs, and a red tailed boa constrictor.  

  • Fourth Grade had a fun game during their language class. Their pregame warm up was a directed lesson on prefixes and suffixes. It is important we have a good understanding of words that have prefixes and suffixes, so the best way to do that is to get our students involved in the lesson “by doing.” The students were grouped and looked for a match to their prefix card, with the suffix round after that. Once they all found their match, they needed to go to the area of the room where the labels matched their cards. Their second game had the teams write on a game sheet as many examples of prefixes and suffixes as they could in a given amount of time. They did a great job!

  • During Diversity Club this week, the Middle Schoolers continued to focus on identity and what makes them unique. Club members engaged in a discussion about the core cultural identifiers and created their own identity molecule that represents which pieces of their identity resonates with them the most and reflects on how their multiple identities are linked with one another.

  • Friday afternoon/evening was our annual Night School! The children enjoyed activities at centers around the school, had dinner together, and experienced learning that can only happen at night—from searching for planets in the night sky to exploring the school with flashlights!

CLASSROOM PEEK WEEK OF 2/10 - 2/14

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

  • Blue Roomers celebrated love and kindness this week. They worked on various projects to commemorate the Valentine's Day holiday. Centers ranged from designing Valentine place mats, experiencing a love--filled sensory bin, decorating our treat bags for the big party on Thursday and creating Valentine's Day cards for their families.

  • Kindergartners had a great week of learning and celebrating kindness and love! They wrote about love in their journals. They started measurement units this week and things got super hands on! They used cubes, scales, and water and learned about height, weight, and capacity.

  • Second Graders enjoyed making heart animals on their pouches, heart mosaics, and compliment hearts for each of their classmates, and worked very hard on a valentine coupon book for their parents. They have been working on the short e sound spelled with an ea. They are mastering our adjectives and did an activity where the students got to put silly sentences together. They underlined adjectives in blue, nouns in orange, and verbs in green.

  • Third Graders made learning their verbs the main focus this week in language arts. They enjoyed practicing what they learned about the grid system last week while they searched for verbs while playing Verb battleship. In Math, they learned about probability. The students realized that probability is the ratio of times that an event is likely to occur divided by the total number of possible events. They determined whether events were certain, fair, impossible, unlikely, or likely.

  • In honor of President’s Day, Fourth Graders stepped into the Oval Office for a look into the lives of a number of former presidents. They are continuing to develop their independent research skills, as they read, highlighted, and wrote facts about their chosen president. They read Ruby Valentine Saves the Day and discussed predictions and the possible outcome of this story. Together the class figured out that it's a good idea to have Plan A and Plan B in mind, as things can change in an instant. They worked on map coordinates many times. This week our students learned about ordered pairs, connecting and plotting the X and Y-axis on a grid, by marking the intersection of the two coordinates. 

Classroom Peek Week of 2/3 - 2/7

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

  • Yellow Roomers are learning about artists, poets, and other professionals in the African American community in celebration of Black History Month. They learned about African American artist, Bill Traylor who created his art of scraps of cardboard and other found items because it was all he could afford. They learned how art is not just about the end product, but about the experience and personal journey each artist takes.

  • Some of our Kindergarten parents joined in Friday’s meditation session. Chill vibes ahead for the weekend!

  • It was SLIME TIME for the Second Graders with Olive as the Friend of the Week! The Kasower Family taught the students how to make fun and gooey slime. They have also been learning the history and life of George Washington. Each student constructed a portrait of our first president.

  • Fourth Graders completed their study of the 4 California regions. They read The Wonderful Towers of Watts and wrote comprehension paragraphs from their discussion. They looked at pictures on the Web and got a vision of how they wanted to draw their picture.

  • Welcome back to Monty, who is recovering from surgery and back at school with his TCS friends!

2020 TCS Diversity + Equity Fair!

TCS had an incredible celebration of global diversity at our Diversity + Equity Fair on Friday.

TCS wants to give a big THANK YOU to all our students, families, and staff for all the contributions to our fair. It was your time and efforts that helped us bring global and social awareness to our school.

Classroom Peek Week of 1/27 - 1/31

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

  • Blue Roomers created colorful drums in anticipation of the TCS Diversity and Equity Fair which took place on Friday. They read several stories in which various cultures were celebrated around the world, and discussed how many of us look different on the outside, but we all share a similar heart as well as similar feelings. They chose faces with a variety of different skin tones, and created children from other parts of the world.

  • Yellow Roomers decorated paper plates using colored markers and then topped them with clear plastic ones so their unique designs would be clearly visible. The children could hardly wait until Friday to drum at the fair. They learned new songs in music and had guest readers this week included Avery's dad, Andrew, who read us the Monster at the end of this Book by Jon Stone. Penelope's dad, David, was our Wacky Wednesday Library Guest Reader. They enjoyed his reading two books to us The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and Dog On A Frog? by Kes and Claire Gray. 

  • First Graders focused on the digraphs ‘qu’ and ‘wh’ in Language Arts. While reading the realistic fiction story ‘A Quiz for Brent’, they focused on 'qu' and 'wh' words in addition to the sequence of the story. They also read the biography of Tomas Rivera with the students demonstrating interest and curiosity. In Math students brushed up on their fact families, while learning how to add and subtract to 12. They also practiced their addition with an addition fact game, which really got them going. 

  • Second Graders reviewed skills from the past four weeks and continued to master pronouns. They also focused on days of the week and months of the year. Students learned the Month's Poem and now know there are 4 months with 30 days, 7 months with 31 days, and 1 month with 28 or 29 days. and wrote in their journals about the Diversity Fair. They started their first science experiment on balance and motion. The class reviewed the scientific method and were excited to form their own hypothesis on whether they could balance a paper crayfish on their fingertip. Each student had a chance to try out this challenge.

  • Fourth Graders reviewed “Using the Right Word Meanings”, during grammar. A gentle reminder was given that using “a lot” is the correct grammar, rather than “alot”, and when to use “a” rather than “an.” As a group, they couldn’t wait to come up to the Smartboard and point out the correct answers to each of the sentences in this lesson.  The students partnered up to explore the second article explaining the Chinese New Year traditions. They took turns reading aloud, either switching each time there was a paragraph or sentence. 

  • This week, each of the middle schoolers worked diligently to finalize their research and create their poster boards for the TCS Diversity + Equity Fair. They showed true dedication throughout this process, and are excited to share their work with the whole TCS community. They also spent time in class presenting to their classmates. They practiced sharing the information they had researched and wrote their own scripts to prepare for presenting in front of an audience of many different age levels. 

Classroom Peek Week of 1/21-1/24

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

  • Blue Room created little snow people by rolling different sized balls of playdough and stacking them. They also created melting snowman art in which a hat, scarf, eyes, carrot nose and buttons were floating in a puddle of melted snow.

  • Yellow Room watched a video of a Lunar New Year celebration, in which they saw a dragon dance. Jan also read Grace Lin's Bringing in the New Year. The class also made beautiful fans, working on their fine motor skills. In cooking, they read Ying Chang Compestine's The Story of Noodles, about the Kang brothers' new invention "mian tiao," or noodles.  In math, they played shapes and color bingo, and did color sorting, number puzzles, and number-counting, using magnetic boards.

  • Kindergarten were able to set up an imaginative play office, thanks to our parents donations. The kids loved it! Students played Tic Tac Time and learned about concepts of time. They sorted things that took one second, one minute, and one hour. Luckily they all knew that teeth brushing and hand washing SHOULD take longer than one second.

  • First Grade began discussing the Chinese Lunar New Year, which is January 25 - February 8. They learned how the Lunar New Year got started with the myth of the Great Race and how it occurs on the first New Moon is the year.

  • Third Grade had another special guest reader this week! A big thank you to Cynthia Heimbold for reading the great book, What Should Danny Do? by Ganit and Adir Levy. This book had the students cracking up as they were in charge of deciding what choices Danny should make. Through the use of our smartboard, students brushed up on learning that adjectives are words that describe nouns.

  • The seventh grade students have been working diligently to write their own conclusion to our class focus novel, "The Giver". The students wrote either a final chapter or epilogue to the novel and then turned their creation into a hand-crafted novel, picture book, or comic-book. 

  • In Eighth grade English, the students engaged in lively discussion about the ending of our class novel, "The Outsiders". The students shared incredibly insightful thoughts and reflections about the text. 

Classroom Peek Week of 1/13 - 1/17

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

  • Blue Room celebrated Chinese New Year (Year of the Rat) by creating beautiful red and gold lanterns imprinted with rat stamps and reading the book Bringing in the New Year by Grace Lin. They played with snowy sensory bins, created winter hats and mittens, and made snowflake-printed masterpieces. In addition, they read several books to commemorate the cold weather. 

  • Yellow Room created dream statements in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. Based on his famous “I have a dream speech”, Yellow Roomers drew pictures and told us what their dreams were for our society; including dreaming safety and success for all the firefighters in our world and dreaming that all children have access to a good education.

  • Kindergarten learned about the "it" word family and number words. Math this week was all about time! Students learned how to tell time to the hour on both digital and analog clocks. 

  • First Graders in language arts focused on the digraph /ch/ and studied this sound in the beginning and end of words. They read fiction and non-fiction stories which focused on both the /ch/ sound and sequencing. The kids enjoyed continuing to learn about Martin Luther King Jr. this week. His birthday was on the 15th and they honored him by discussing, writing, and illustrating what is "Fair vs. Not Fair". 

  • Second Graders read "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats. This classic book won the Caldecott Award for best illustrations. They enjoyed creating their favorite outdoor scene from the story. During reading lab they read about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The class took the KJ (kindness and justice) pledge. After a beautiful discussion about Dr. King and the qualities he embodies such as being calm, kind, just, patient, and non-violent; they chanted the pledge, wrote in their journals and traced their hands.

  • Third Graders have been enjoying being read the classic, Charlotte’s Web by our own Head of School, Holly Novick.

  • Fourth Graders worked learned about the life and times of Martin Luther King, Jr. They began their studies reading the book, My Brother Martin, by his sister, Christine King Farris.  Students wrote their wishes for: family, neighborhood, country, and even the world. They have big dreams! The class designed “picket signs” by looking up words associated with Civil Rights and then writing a definition, a sentence, and then drawing a picture to match the sentence. 

Classroom Peek Week of 1/6 - 1/10

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

  • Red Roomers listened to a story about an American girl who travels to a new and different place (Cambodia) where the houses, people, and clothing are different than her's. We then looked at real photographs of people from Cambodia. It was a wonderful way to introduce the concept of cultural similarities and differences in an age appropriate way. More importantly, the children learned that differences are normal and okay. 

  • During Yellow Room’s music class with Teacher Courtney, they were introduced to new instruments, the clave and guiro, as well as played with old favorites. The Yellow Roomers enjoyed playing along to "Old McDonald" -- but instead of "had a farm," we replaced it with "had a band." Kids took turns playing their instruments with the song.

  • Kindergarten set goals for 2020 - They wrote about new things they would like to learn or things they would like to get better at like reading and tying their shoes!

  • First Grade honored winter by using their fingers to create tear-art snow people. Each student also named their snow person and wrote a paragraph describing what he/she likes to do the snow.  

  • Second Grade wrote about resolutions for being a student, child, friend, brother, sister, pet owner, and for the world.

  • Fourth Grade created portraits of Martin Luther King Jr. using  coordinates. Students sketched the squares on a  grid which was a great exercise in using their hand-eye coordination and  concentration.

  • Middle School students participated in their first TCS Cafe to celebrate all the hard work they put in during this first trimester. They spent uninterrupted reading time with a book of their choice, while enjoying a nice warm cup of hot cocoa.

  • History Class: The New Year brought with it confusion and trepidation about the future of the world. which brought fear of WWIII fueled in part by social media.  Guided by a New York Times lesson on the assassination of Maj. Gen. Soleimani, our history teacher Amber led a discussion with each grade about their fears, the media, and the facts of the situation. The higher grades annotated an article by themselves which they then transferred, in groups, to a large 'Big Sheet'. They asked questions, made comments, and annotated the article. They then went to the next group's 'Big Sheet' and answered their questions. This provided an interactive way to address the text, the emotions, and the confusion of this international incident. We were also able to dispel many rumors during this time.

Classroom Peek Week of 12/16 - 12/20

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

In this issue:

  • Blue Roomers continued to work on cooperative play by building train tracks, playing with trains, using multi-colored blocks to construct towers, and by solving puzzles.

  • Yellow Room worked with their sensory bin, using red and green dice to determine how many pegs should be placed in their foam mats, and copying the words “Happy New Year”.

  • First Grade reviewed Language Arts concepts, and focused on nouns using collages of people, places, and things. In Science, they created an experiment using the Scientific Method. Nicolette brought in a "magic Christmas tree". They posited a question, came up with a hypothesis, performed the experiment, examined the results, and came up with a conclusion. They loved seeing the growth progression of the tree and comparing the hypothesis with the actual results!

  • Fourth Grade met with their Second Grade buddies to create bookmarks, and share their plans for Winter Break! In Social Studies, their continued their studies of California, breaking it into 4 independent regions and making connections to their “Walk through California” unit.

Classroom Peek Week of 12/9 - 12/13

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

In this issue:

  • Red Room is learning about different types of communication from talking, to sign language, to receiving paper mail. They used Facetime to call Elmo on Monday and called a "reindeer" in the South Pole on Friday! Using sign language, they learned how to say "I Love You" with their hands. Their favorite activity was receiving mail from 2nd grade and Kindergarten! They walked to the mailroom to pick up their letters and the teachers read them aloud to the class.

  • Kindergarten spent time with their “buddies” in Third Grade on Friday, working together to make yummy latkes (potato pancakes).

  • Second Grade enjoyed Friend of the Week with Aviele’s dad, Henry with a basketball lesson. They learned some techniques and fundamentals, as well as a few rounds of 5-against-1.

  • Fourth Grade’s highlight of the week was an interactive presentation on California history, called “A Walk Through the Gold Rush.”The students demonstrated their knowledge of many vocabulary and topics that they researched, memorized, and shared during this presentation. They created a map of California and the symbols that reflected each area, including Mickey Mouse (Disneyland) and a tractor (Central Valley) region.

  • Fifth Grade also had an interactive history lesson with their “Walk Through the Revolution.” With their host Jey at the helm, the fifth graders divided up into 3 teams. Each team represented a different faction of the revolution, with each student representing historical figures and events of this period in history.

  • The 7th Grade harvested their garden, and created a salad and homemade dressing with many of the fruits and vegetables that they have been tending and growing all Fall!

Classroom Peek Week of 12/2 - 12/6

Take a peek inside to see what vibrant lessons were happening inside of TCS classrooms this week!

In this issue:

  • Red Room is preparing for the holiday season with festive snowflakes, gingerbread men, holiday cards, and unique holiday inspired art that incorporates fine motor skill development by rolling a marble through red and green paint.

  • Blue Room has taken a more classic holiday approach by making holiday cookies out of play-doh and festive and bright Christmas Trees.

  • Yellow Room enjoyed share time with items inspired by the letter “I”, such as Icy Snowflakes, Instruments, and “Indie” the dog!

  • First Grade explored new mathematical vocabulary terms and their corresponding symbols, and practiced using these signs with connecting cubes.

  • Second Grade was having a blast in their art class. They were making 3-D snowflakes that will be put together to make one gigantic snowflake!

  • Fifth Grade Social Studies is preparing for their Walk through the Revolution next week, which is an interactive re-enactment of history!