Tessellations School

Celebrating the powerful work of Challenge Success and their insightful Fall Conference at Stanford University over the weekend, where I was honored to offer a workshop on innovative teaching and learning solutions that we're using at Tessellations High School. Following a design sprint, with the awesome Paula Garza Gonzalez from NuVuX, I led educators through a workshop where I demonstrated how we can use design sprints to teach durable life skills through meaningful, relevant activities – while cultivating academic content delivering on learning standards. And the big take away: how we can leverage AI to create crosswalked rubrics to help teachers streamline grading, so they can focus on coaching and supporting students. Deep gratitude to Denise Pope, Margaret Dunlap, Kimberly Tsai Cawkwell, and Jeff Lippman for uplifting #engagement, #belonging, and #wellness for students in Middle and High School! #Tessellations #CBE #CompetencyBasedEducation #DesignThinking #StudentAgency #FutureOfEducation #DurableSkills #ChallengeSuccess #Stanford #ProjectBasedLearning

A group of middle school students painted a mural featuring the school motto. After learning about different types of murals and planning their design, they collaborated on large-scale painting. Practicing on a giant canvas first, they then brought their vision to life on our school’s wall. The finished mural looks amazing and captures their creativity and teamwork. We’re proud of their hard work and the vibrant addition to our school! 🎨🖌️ 

We are excited to share that our students are currently exploring the fascinating world of transformations in Geometry! This unit focuses on understanding how shapes move and change on a coordinate plane through four key transformations: translations, rotations, reflections, and dilations. They learned the mathematical proof of identifying which geometric shapes can tessellate and which geometric shapes do not satisfy the conditions of Tessellations. By applying the Mathematical concepts of how 2D Shapes tessellate, students learned to manipulate shapes and understand their properties in different positions and orientations. This hands-on approach not only helps them grasp abstract geometric ideas but also enhances their problem-solving skills and spatial reasoning skills.

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While exploring what scientists currently know about the Big Bang in science class, the 9th graders have also been examining literature's ability to capture the emotions and questions that arise when we confront the limits of our understanding. The students applied their stellar critical thinking skills to a variety of poems that grapple with the existential dread, hope, and quandaries surrounding the origins of life and humanity's place in the cosmos. Using the blackout poetry technique, they transformed dry science articles into works of art. Most recently, our 9th graders have explored the different ways in which the world's best science writers take interdisciplinary approaches to explain their subjects and weave literary devices into their work to make it more accessible and engaging for a general audience. We can't wait to see how they apply the literary techniques we've been studying to their own creative nonfiction articles on the Big Bang!

In the Kindergartner’s journey, “Farm to Table,” they’ll explore the concept of "eating the rainbow" 🌈and the importance of colorful fruits and vegetables. In the spring, they made rainbow fruit kabobs and learned how different colors provide essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. For example, red fruits support heart health with lycopene 🫀, and green veggies provide calcium for strong bones 🩻. They also discussed the five food groups—vegetables, fruits, grains, protein, dairy—and identified examples of each. The students guessed the proper portions for a balanced plate and were correct on their first try!

The Tessellations Children’s Center https://lnkd.in/gVmcbKNE (our preschool serving ages 3-5) is abuzz with the children’s joyful energy. They have been enjoying the sand/water area, garden, art/innovation area, and of course story time! One of our new preschool families sent this message of appreciation after the first week: “The impacts of the Tessellations Children’s Center on my child have been very apparent and extraordinary. Every Monday at her old daycare, she used to ask, "Daddy, when is the weekend?" Last Friday, when I said it was the weekend, she asked, "But Mommy, when do I get to go back to school?" Her play is more imaginative. She is less combative when frustrated, and she is even able to de-escalate overly excited play between a large group of kids. She has always been impressive, but her newfound engagement and abilities are incredible. Her cognitive reasoning has been kicked into such high gear that she is constantly hungry to problem-solve and engage in the next task, chore, or play. We can not thank you enough for a fantastic first week of class. We appreciate your hard work and look forward to the rest of the school year!”

The new school year is off to a great start! In the first week, students and staff enjoyed reconnecting, welcoming new friends, and immersing themselves in culture building activities. We look forward to another amazing year of learning and having fun together!

During our launch day, ninth-grade students dove into their first Chinese class with interactive activities such as Chinese language and culture bingo, a chopstick challenge, and a three-legged race—all while learning to count and say simple greetings and encouraging phrases in Chinese. They also explored the concept of '和' (harmony), an important Confucian value, sparking excitement for their journey into Chinese language and culture.

Our ninth grade students started their Studio sessions with a design sprint to research, ideate and present a pitch to win the name and design of one of their new High School classrooms. They were tasked with choosing a famous Creative who is relevant to our ethos and aligned with the mission and values of Tessellations High School. Our student teams made their pitch to the Dragon’s Den (High School version of Shark Tank) and gained feedback as well as some tough questioning! Watch this space as we delve deeper into our classroom planning, development and execution in the coming weeks! Our Mission  Tessellations provides challenging experiential education that recognizes and nurtures the individual strengths of gifted learners, empowering them to confidently express who they are and pursue a meaningful life.  Our Values We are a community of imaginative, empathetic, productive, and passionate lifelong learners who advance an equitable and sustainable world.