“From Under Our Big Tree” Newsletter #8 – School Wide

 Dear Friend,

Happy Daylight Savings Day! Friendly reminder: childcare reservations are strongly recommended for this Thursday’s meeting.

This Thursday, we will have our parent meeting. I look forward to getting together with you to connect, reflect and share. You will get to experience highlights from the classroom as teachers share TKG awesomeness with you in the form of videos and photos.  There will be time to share as a community our appreciations and our wonderings as a way to continue solidifying our shared experience.  I look forward to seeing you there!

This week, we went on our 2nd fieldtrip of the year. We enjoy having a chance to experience environments beyond our own, learning from and with, the diverse communities we are graced to live around as Angelinos. We love getting a chance to explore the South Bay too, as we did with our first trip to our local tide pools as we focused on Environmental Stewardship.

This last field trip on Friday was an opportunity to engage our value of Social Justice, as seen through the lens of a cultural art experience.  The Fowler Museum at University of California at Los Angeles elevates art from around the world, encouraging us to think like archeologists, ethnographers, sociologists and art appreciators with works of art that might not always be a part of the historical canon of art seen at most major museums.

With this in mind, we went back to the museum after having gone last year, to have a special behind-the-scenes tour.  This deeper experience included entering through the loading dock, through the secret back door entrance. We knocked on a giant metal door, wondering what was behind it, only to be welcomed into the collections room by a lively, engaging museum staff member. Once inside, we got a private tutorial on how unique curiosities come into the museum, are researched and archived. We were told entertaining stories about 3 pieces of art, piquing our own curiosities about objects. Then, we traveled to the studio classroom and put our research abilities to the test as we put on white gloves and investigated different objects. We measured and touched, described and drew, just like museum staff would. Our visit ended with a tour of one of the galleries where a visually stimulating exhibit called “The Empathics” thrilled our senses with music, computer graphics, sculpture and intriguing fashion.

Following our visit to the Fowler, we made our way towards the Bruin Bear, where a college student volunteer met us for a walking tour of the campus.  The students had so many questions ranging from- Is there homework here?… Who is the youngest student here?… Where do you live?…  Our guides answered all of our questions about the campus and student life in funny, sweet ways that helped our students see UCLA in a whole new light.

This was such an incredible opportunity to take our learning out into the field. And this was all after a week filled with learning and fun. Did you know that students we given the opportunity to eat bugs at park day on Monday? Dried, flavored worms and crickets made their way to the park, courtesy of one of our parent teachers Linda (Kian’s mom), for an optional snack. It seemed fitting that we would have a “creepy” snack on a “creepy” week and children were surprised at how they tasted! This connected to Nikki, our WilderSkills teacher’s lesson on wild edibles.

How much do we love to learn, experience and grow? So much!