Borton Magnet Messenger

We are wrapping up an amazing year with Celebrations of Learning, Robotics, and more! This messenger will highlight some of the successes at Borton and is built around the 5 Pillars of effective magnet schools as established by the Magnet Schools of America: Diversity, Innovative Curriculum and Professional Development, Academic Excellence, Leadership, and Family and Community Partnerships.

This April, Borton Parent Teacher Association hosted their annual Dia De Los Niños festival in conjunction with the Scholastic Book Fair to celebrate the children of Borton and literacy with carnival games, craft tables, snacks, drinks and presentations about our reading series room. A highlight of the event was of course playing games with Principal Eric and making cascarónes with Rickyana Estrada.

Rickyana Estrada is a Borton parent and a teacher with the Culturally Responsive Pedagogy department for TUSD. She made cascarónes with our Borton students. Cascarónes are confetti filled hollowed eggs used typically in festivals all over Mexico. However, the newspaper cones that holds the egg are actually a Tucson invention.

On March 30th, Principal Eric attended the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusiveness Conference hosted by TUSD and participated in professional learning in practices that promote school communities of care and support for every TUSD student. https://youtu.be/OISfyEUyQpc

In February, Borton's Master Teacher, Ms. Kristen with Community Share presented at the "A Year of Learning" conference hosted by the Assessment for Learning Project, an organization dedicated to rethinking the role of assessment for learning, agency, and equity. The conference was driven be the question: "What can we learn together about how assessment for learning relates to learner belonging, equity, and liberation?"

As part of the Professional Learning Thursdays that occurred quarterly this year, teachers and staff were able to take courses in Cultural Response Pedagogy and Instruction offered by TUSD such as Student Centered PBL and Elementary SPARKS with Co-Creation of Knowledge.

One of the design elements of Gold Standard Project Based Learning is public product. At Borton, students make their learning public through Celebrations of Learning to their families, friends, and Borton community. This quarter, we had many Celebrations of Learning:

The Great Adventure’s project on animals started with a field trip to the zoo and a driving question: "How can understanding the needs of animals and people, help us design and create a zoo so that animals and people are taken care of?" After many questions, research and design, the Great Adventure class transformed their room into a zoo with animals in habitats created by them! Acting as safari guides, the students shared their knowledge about animals to family, friends, and their 4th grade reading buddies. The tour through the zoo, ended with popcorn for all at the snack bar.

Big thanks to Ms. Candi (former Borton art teacher) and Ms. Kathy (former Borton PBL Resource Teacher) for supporting this project!

The first-grade classes in collaboration with Ms. Yvette (Borton Music Teacher) have been exploring music and sound driven by the question “How can we use light and sound to communicate different feelings?” The inquiry began with listening to the natural sounds of their surroundings (cars, planes, pigeons cooing, feet shuffling, etc.). They explored sound quality with mallet explorations on different surfaces and made their own kazoos. They read books with onomatopoeia. They analyzed how they felt listening to different compositions using Behavior-Over-Time graphs. They applied all that they learned in a glow stick dance that matched movement to sound qualities and how it made them feel.

For the Array project, the Meadows engaged in intentional observation at various locations looking for repetition of objects and/or landmarks to recognize arrays outside of the math class. Being able to see and make visual representations of arrays is helpful for learning multiplication. The students then applied this learning to utilizing math arrays outside of the classroom to calculating large sets of objects quickly. Their celebration of learning is on May 23 at 10am.

So much depends* on a driving question to sustain an inquiry that inspired such profound poetry from fourth grade students. The Manzanita room has been deepening their understanding of the effects of climate change through research and hands on learning. In collaboration with Outdoor Learning teacher, Ms. Mikaela, the Manzanita class conducted an experiment that simulated the greenhouse effect. Using Systems Thinking tool, stock-flow map students analyzed the contributors that increase or decrease greenhouses gases to better understand their own part in the system. In a field trip to Camp Cooper students developed not only knowledge but mindfulness to become stewards of the Earth. For their celebration of learning, students shared this rich experience through simple, yet poignant poetry.

*The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams was inspiration for many students' poetry.

When you have a project inquiry as rich as soil, the explorations can take you in many directions. Falcon students collected soil samples from the Borton garden and their homes, then determined the type of soil using measurement and percentages to find the amount of sand, silt, and clay. They did experiments in the garden with outdoor learning teacher, Ms. Mikaela looking at the impact of Agri-Voltaics (growing plants under solar panels) on soil. They used stock-flow maps to visualize their thinking about all the things that contribute to the health of soil. Their inquiry continued into experiments tracking the PH levels of soil, simulating erosion, studying layers of rock, until they compiled all of their learning for public presentation. The Falcons cracked up their family and friends at the celebration of learning with comics that illustrated their understanding of soil. They ended the celebration with a kale chip tasting from the kale that they harvested from the Borton garden.

A special thanks goes out to the UA School of Geography and Development and Greg Barron Gafford, Associate Director of the School Garden Workshop (also Borton parent) for their support with getting the Agri-Voltaics system here at Borton!

"How do people become homeless? What is being done to help homelessness? Why does Tucson let people live on the streets? What can we do to help?" These questions drove a sustained inquiry where the Bamboo students researched the root causes of homelessness in Tucson and considered the systemic issues of inequality. Math standards were included into the project with the students learning about the cost of living and budgeting for food. They interviewed a volunteer from Sister Moses Women's Center to better understand the role of homeless shelters and the specific donation needs. The project culminated with the students making Care Kits out of old t-shirts and filled these bags with hats, sunglasses, hand sanitizer, and a caring note. These will be delivered to the homeless shelter after their celebration of learning on May 23. The students are not naive to how complicated poverty in Tucson is, but they are hoping that their contributions will make a difference to the person who receives it.

Borton brought back the Aquatics Robotics club this quarter! The fourth grade participating students and Mr. Zane had the incredible opportunity to work with Michael Griffith, Director of Instructional and Learning Technologies at the College of Education to build a robot that could perform various challenges in the water. The team only had a quarter to design and experiment, which is typically a year long process. Despite the time constraint, not only was the team successful in getting their robot to float at the competition but they earned 39 challenge points. They didn't win, but are proud of their efforts and for going up against middle school and high school teams!

While Borton's Aquatics Robotics club dove into challenges, Borton Hiking Club was climbing mountains! Led by Ms. Mikaela and Mr. Adrien the participating fourth and fifth grade students experienced scenic hikes through every season. They met on Saturdays and adventured the Saguaro National Park, Sabino Canyon, Desert Museum and ended the year at Mt. Lemmon. On their final hike, they were fortunate to find snow and ladybugs.

The second and third grade classrooms had success with Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLE) this quarter. The SOLE concept promoted by Sugata Mitra encourages the teacher to pose a big question and then take a back seat and "let learning happen." In small groups student investigate using a single internet device to search for answers. Then they present their knowledge and evaluate their presentations based on rubrics. For the Honeybee class's SOLE on "What makes a good community?" students used drawing and writing to show what they learned. Each group evaluated their SOLE based on how well they collaborated, how well they answered the big question, and the quality of the visual.

Mr. Zanes says that what makes SOLE so fun are the many different connections the students make with the big question and the many ways they chose to present their knowledge. When asked "What is weather?" one groups SOLE project produced a forecast for the next four days of school, while another group provided a public service announcement on how to survive a tornado.

Like Project Based Learning, SOLE fosters student agency and collaboration. While SOLE are quick inquires, they can easily transition into more sustained inquires to become projects. Borton is looking forward to using SOLE in its instruction more frequently next year across grade levels.

In April, Principal Eric and Ms. Sara (Magnet Coordinator) attended the Magnet Schools of American conference and brought back ideas and tools for enhancing our magnet theme, as well as feeling proud of the amazing magnet school we have! A highlight of the conference was touring other STEM magnet schools in Texas.

This summer Borton teachers will be participating in the revamped Project Based Learning 101 course provided by PBLWorks where they will be planning gold standard projects. Ms. Amanda (Curriculum Service Provider), Ms. Kristin (Master Teacher) and Ms. Metta (Puffin Teacher) will be attending the PBLWorks World Conference in California with Community Share and will be bringing their learning back to our staff.

The Great Adventure students with the help of the Manzanita students planted four trees in the courtyard with Trees for Tucson in late March. This culminated their community project they celebrated in the third quarter and in support of Mayor Regina Romero's Tucson Million Tree initiative. In planting these four trees, the Great Adventure students are helping the future of Borton by providing more shade, fresh air, and more beauty.

On May 17th Borton celebrated and shared their appreciation for our parent volunteers and community partnerships for the many ways that they supported Borton students and teachers with ice cream social. We know that not everyone was able to attend and would like to extend our public shout out of appreciation to our community partners for this semester:

Thank you, Reading Seed volunteers for proving one-on-one reading opportunities to selected students throughout this year! Our students have greatly benefited from this experience and have made gains in reading!

Thank you, Make Way for Books, Therapy Dogs of Southern Arizona, and Literacy Committee for contributing to a successful Literacy Night for Borton families!

Thank you, Therapy Dogs of Southern Arizona for building our 2nd and 3rd grade students’ confidence in reading by providing a cuddly, judge free audience to read to!

Thank you, Borton Parent Teacher Association for hosting the Dia De Los Niños celebration!

Thank you, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, for engaging Borton students in the Music in the Schools program and for partnering with our second-grade class to create sound accompaniment for their Connections in the Desert play!

Thank you, Trees for Tucson for contributing trees and volunteers to help the Great Adventure room with their community project!

Thank you, Sister Jose Homeless Shelter for providing a guest speaker to talk the Bamboo room as part of the inquiry into poverty in Tucson!

Thank you, Mansfeld Magnet Coordinator, Jennifer Flagg, Principal van Schie, teachers, and STEM student ambassadors for providing Borton 5th graders with a welcoming and engaging tour that got us ready to level up to Middle School!

Thank you, Camp Cooper staff for teaching 4th and 5th grade students how to be stewards of the Earth!

Thank you, UA Interns from UA School Garden Program, Blue Watermelon project, for supporting our Outdoor Learning program this year!

Thank you, TUSD’s Transition To Work program for making Borton beautiful!

Thank you, Friends of Saguaro National Park, for sponsoring the Borton Hiking Club!

Thank you, Kathy Lohse (former Borton PBL Resource Teacher), Caryl Crowell (former Borton Magnet Coordinator) and Candi Burton (form Borton Art Teacher) for continuing to support Borton classroom teachers, especially with Project Based Learning and Systems Thinking!

We appreciated the many ways our families supported Borton students and teachers this year! Donating snacks, chaperoning a field trip, volunteering in the classroom, helping with the garden- big or small contributions, it all made a difference!

Also thank you to families for participating in Borton community events this quarter: Community Time, Celebrations of Learning, Literacy Night, Dia De Los Niños, K-1 Club, Band and Orchestra concerts, Field Day, and Spirit Week.

A special shout out goes to our parents who participated in Cafecitos with Mr. Eric, the Family Engagement Committee, and Parent Teacher Association meetings. Thank you for voicing your questions, concerns, and praises! Your input makes Borton stronger.

Fifth grade families we look forward to honoring our fifth grade students this Thursday at 10am for their promotion ceremony!

Borton hopes that your child's and your year at Borton has been positive. We want to hear about your experience, as well as your hopes and dreams for the following school years. This survey is completely anonymous (unless you would like to include your name and would appreciate a response). You can answer as much or as little of the survey as you want to. The more information we gather, the more it informs our practice. We especially want to hear from our new Kinder families, although we are happy to hear from everyone. https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=4FBwvMxLCUiSReqLZQhIZbkiYQ-5x1VInnwo6bIsu_xUMDREQ1ZSS1BNVFJISTM1TExQWEk0SzBDTC4u

Find information for resources for families (food, clothing, books, arts and culture) over the summer:

TUSD Schools

Borton as well as any TUSD school that offers summer programming provides breakfast and lunch to families for free. Call 225-1000 to find out more about this offering at Borton.

Palo Verde High School Family Resource Center (Eastside)

1302 S Avenida Vega

520-584-7455

Fresh Produce & Bread - will be given out on Monday, 06/12 & 06/19

All other dates nonperishable food items available & hygiene items available.

Catalina Family Resource Center (Central)

3645 E Pima

520-232-8684

Perishable & Non Perishable Food available for families

Clothing bank & Hygiene items

Menlo Family Resource Center (Westside)

1100 W Fresno St

520-225-2172

Non Perishable Food & Hygiene Items

Southwest Family Resource Center (Southwest)

6855 S Mark Rd

520-908-63980

Non Perishable Food & Hygiene Items

Duffy Clothing Bank

5145 E 5th St (Central)

520-232-7055

South Tucson Community Outreach (Nonprofit Organization)

Organization who serves the South Tucson Community where families can contact them, and they can deliver a food box to the family's home.

https://www.southtucsonco.org/

Summer Reading Programs in Tucson

Summer reading programs through bookstores and libraries

www.tucsontopia.com/summer-reading-programs-tucson

Pima County Library

www.library.pima.gov/culturepasses/

Free admission to arts and cultural institutions in Tucson through the Pima County Library Cultural Pass Program

Loft Kids Festival

Free movies for the family

www.tucsontopia.com/loft-kids-fest/

Tucson Museum of Art Second Sunday Family Day

www.tucsonmuseumofart.org/event/second-sundaze-family-day-tma-july-22/