Blog

Doing Spooky Math at the Winchester!

10/9/2018

It's the spooky time of year, and we're celebrating by getting up close and personal with the Winchester Mystery House in all it's spookiness! Being a woman who greatly believed in numbers and superstition, Mrs. Winchester held digits - especially the number 13 - in high esteem when it came to building her beautiful mansion, and use them mathematically throughout her home. Our students felt the ghostly chills as they investigated the house, measuring the strange angles of her miniature stairs, the odd dimensions of doorways, and even found the total number of windows in her 13 bedrooms with multiplication! This house was definitely not a place for those afraid to take a prime plunge into math and explore the indefinite possibilities!

What are some interesting ways you've studied math? Let us know below!

MCS Welcomes Students from Tokyo Seitoku University!

10/3/2018

At MCS, we are always focused on sharing and extending teaching tools to all who wish to make a difference, offering strategies to help improve the world of education and professional development through learning. This week, we were lucky enough be able to reach across the world, and host a group of 40 young teachers in training, from Tokyo Seitoku University! In teams, these student teachers acted as MCS students for 1 hour, accessing the 4 Pillars of Learning - Build, Draw, Explain, and Write - to solve a math problem.

Each team worked together through the 4 Pillars of Learning, and experienced each stage as an MCS student. TSU students first built their math problem, using 3D manipulatives, to help visualize what the problem was asking. They then drew out their thinking on paper, using images and symbols. Once their problems were drawn out using pictures, students could explain their thought process, and write down in words how they solved it! This system is one of many MCS uses when helping students access their learning and thrive as hands-on learners.

MCS is so happy to have the opportunity to share with our fellow educators. Thank you so much to the TSU students for coming all the way to MCS to learn! We had a great time, and hope to see you and other future educators again soon!

youcubed: Math Where it Counts!

9/10/2018

2, 4, 6, 8 What do we appreciate?! Math class, of course! Working with so many different kinds of learners, we've developed some amazing ways of teaching math at MCS. From Geometry in architecture to hands-on Algebra, we've been making math come alive in the real world - not just on the page! Learning math as a part of real life helps keep students engaged, and really see what numbers mean and do. Math is so much more than counting - it's what helps us build and grow!

This past week, we were thrilled to have Fran Kane, the Assistant Principle from St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Australia, visit to observe the way we use youcubed in the classroom. She shared with us an amazing text, Extending Mathematical Understanding by Ann Gervasoni, that helps to deepen the conceptual understanding of math, and we talked at length about educational resources internationally and their shared ideals. It's truly amazing to see how similar some of these approaches are, even across the world!

What is youcubed you ask? Developed by Jo Boland at Stanford University, youcubed is a program which provides open-ended questions that have an easy entry point but extend to deep levels of mathematics. Using this approach has helped our students become creative thinkers in math and gives them rich opportunities to practice talking about math with each other. Because of it's versatility, we've also been able to integrate the youcubed philosophy throughout our classes at MCS. Check out our adventures in Math Class below!

Welcome Back!

8/29/2018

Welcome back, everyone! We've had an amazing summer this year, and are looking forward to an even more amazing year at MCS. This year at orientation, teachers walked through lessons with parents, and demonstrated what their classroom lessons will be like this year with hands-on activities. We have high hopes for 2019, and are excited to announce our expansion into another learning pod come next year!

During our first week of class, our students created and expanded on our classroom values as a group, and helped to form the structure that we will be working in this year. We're all very excited to start on our learning journey with our new students!

In our world, we know it can be hard to navigate the land of LDs, and that sometimes finding the right pathway is difficult. That's why, teachers at MCS are also pleased to announce our line up for professional development workshops this year! Our learning specialists offer multiple workshops over the course of the school year for parents and teachers alike, to help strengthen skills in Executive Functioning, Building Number Sense, Anxiety Reduction and more. Check out our workshop schedule on our Events Page, and RSVP today!

Happy Learning, 2018!

Congrats, Class of 2018!

6/4/2018

It's that time again! This school year has been a wild ride here at MCS, and we could not be more impressed with the hard work and dedication each one of our students has exhibited all the way through! We are so grateful for all the parents, educators, and sponsors who worked with us to make this year amazing! This week, we were happy to announce our 2018 graduates at our year end ceremony, and showcase their SPARK projects, Human Impact efforts, and more as we celebrate their accomplishments this school year!

Over the past 6 months, students rehearsed scenes from the Shakespearian classic, A Midsummer Night's Dream to perform at graduation. The play was first introduced in our Literature class, and expanded into Drama, so the students could begin to embody the characters both analytically and physically. Our kids not only performed wonderfully, but created beautiful backdrops, scenes, and props all on their own! Round of applause to all our actors in the making!

6th grader presents SPARK project on the dangers of smoking and vaping

As part of our ceremony, students also presented their year end SPARK projects, and shared their work with parents, educators, and representatives. These projects focused on human impact in the world, and how we can innovate to create solutions to environmental issues, such as littering, deforestation, pesticide use and more. Each student chose a topic that was important to them, and chose to either raise a call to action or create an invention to help the cause. The kids did such a thorough job, we actually had representatives from the WildCare Rescue Service, and Friends of the Urban Forest attend our ceremony to receive donations, collected by our students, in person! Way to go guys!

7th grader presents her project about the impact of pesticides on wildlife

Graduating 8th grader presents her SPARK project in which she created a portable water filtration system to help combat pollution.

Presenting to a representative from the WildCare Rescue Project

Our Graduating 8th grader presents her project about planting trees to the San Francisco Friends of the Urban Forest!

To represent breaking through barriers in both learning and life, students broke boards using self defense skills taught by Delonzo Pope in our PE classes.

Overall, we are just so proud of our kids this year, and look forward to another year of growth and learning this Fall! Have an excellent Summer everyone!

More Human Impacts - Math!

5/29/2018

Human Impacts continued! Students have been working incredibly hard to complete their SPARK Science projects on various topics of human impact in the environment over the past few weeks, and now they're ready! Using our integrated learning method, our class created their own math problems to represent their scientific cause in the real world! Since each student thinks about math differently, they each have their own unique way of representing their math process too, which was absolutely amazing to see! Check out their environmental math problems below - more about SPARK to come!

Nature in Navato

5/4/2018

MCS gets moving on our Human Impact studies with an adventure to the Marin Museum of the American Indian. With our wonderful guide, Alicia, we learned about how the Miwok people treated their environment and conserved the resources around them. We are hoping to bring back some of these ideals and practices to help continue to save our dwindling natural resources!

We also got to learn about the houses, called kotchas, where the Miwok people lived and slept, and the importance of baskets and tools to the tribe. Students were even given a chance to use handmade drills and practice drilling the way the Miwoks would have to make holes to build!

Thank you to Alicia and the Marin Museum of the American Indian for giving us a great experience. We learned a lot and are looking forward to next time!

Human Impact with MCS!

4/30/2018

Hey again! Another update from us here at MCS! Recently, we've been focusing human impact and the positive effects it can have on our environment. We wanted to see what kind of difference one class can make by diving in head first. MCS took took to the neighborhood and began Plogging! What's Plogging you ask? Plogging is a Swedish sport of jogging and litter collection made popular as part of a recent trend in fitness and environmental conservation. In a two-mile span, we were able to collect 12 big trash bags of trash in under an hour! Now that's a workout!

To see how others have been making positive Human Impacts in our community, we also too a trip to our local food bank to help package food for delivery to families in need. Students took a tour of the warehouse, and learned about how the food bank functions to aid families. With the help of MCS students and other volunteers, the food bank was able to package over 1400 lbs of food that will be sent to families all over the Bay Area! To find out how you can get involved, visit the SF-Marin Food Bank website here, or contact your local food bank warehouse!

MCS Student Takes 3rd Place at EDREV!

4/26/2018

Back again, and we've been busy! This week, we are so thankful to have been able to participate once again in the 10th Annual EdRev Expo! Along with meeting wonderful people and attending educational workshops, student were also given the great opportunity to enter their artwork in the EdRev Art Gallery Competition. Each student created a piece of art - painting, modeling, and video - to illustrate how they feel about their academic journey with us so far. One of our 6th graders even won 3rd place for her video! See it and other students' work here, and check out EdRev on their website!

"Icky's Adventures" by Charlotte Gilliand

This week at MCS...

4/3/2018

We've had a busy week so far! Students studied outdoors at Muir Beach, improved their Executive Functioning skills in Math and Literature, and even looked at Art History at the Legion of Honor. Check out our adventures in learning below!

MCS students explore geological processes in the real work at Muir Beach for Science!

Field trip! MCS dives into History and Art with a visit to the Legion of Honor to study works from the Middle Ages.

In Math, students create strategy sheets and separate strategy cards intended to be mixed up and paired back together. This separates and supports the visual, language/verbal/symbolic and written portions of learning, which is great for working memory challenged students or for students with attention challenges.

Our wellness classes this week focused on working through situations with friends in need, and how to best communicate in a positive way with one another.