Alpha

What’s Around Me? We traveled North along the Appalachian Trail to meet the First Nation people who blazed it! We explored the Northeast Woodlands Region of the United States. The lands of deciduous forests, rivers, and the Great Lakes are rich with natural resources. It was also the birthplace of one of the world’s oldest democracies. The beautiful book Hiawatha and the Peacemaker guided our discussions this week. It is the story of the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse – they go by the name Iroquois too) comprised of five tribes, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and the Seneca, who agreed […]

What’s Around Me? This week, we traveled to the Southeastern region of North America. We learned that the mountains there are ancient and used to be taller than the Himalayas! What happened to them? We had some great ideas…some thought maybe they were so heavy, they sank back into the Earth’s crust! Others thought that animals may have worn them down with their endless climbing on them. And some hit the nail on the head: weathering broke them down, and water and wind carried away the detritus! Alphas knew that when rain falls, gravity makes the water flow downward, so

Welcome to the stage of Influence! “Influence” is the second stage of group development. We know we’re there when students’ sense of safety and trust in their peers allows them to contribute more and more to the group. This includes disagreeing with one another, which naturally leads to conflict. During this stage, our focus as teachers is on supporting students’ sense of worth and agency. We work on identifying triggers and guiding students to treat them as cues for curiosity rather than moments to react harshly. For example: “When something doesn’t feel right, before getting angry, check with your friend

Scarlet demonstrates what the CVC word “beg” means… What’s Around Me? This week, Alphas learned that one reason we have deserts across the globe has to do with mountains – like the ones in the Pacific Northwest! We call this phenomenon the shadow effect. Half the Alphas act out mountains and the other half use cottonballs-clouds to rain on the land… Most of the rain falls on this side of the mountains…the other side of the mountains doesn’t get much rain at all – which contributes to the desert region of the Southwest… A diagram of the “shadow effect…” We

Happy Halloween Everybody! What’s Around Me? This week, Alphas learned that it took humans hundreds of thousands of years to get to North America. They traveled on foot following food. We laid out 10 rulers. Each inch represents 100 years. The first pencil marks where we are today…the second marks 1925…the screwdriver marks 1825…the final pencil marks when the first Europeans landed in the Southwest. The other 9 and a half rulers (or 11,400 years), North America was inhabited by the ancestors of the PaleoIndians who arrived during the Ice Age. Alphas knew that humans, as well as all living