Welcome to Acorn Stories 2022!

Each year, the Live Oak faculty present various writing genres of writing to their students: fiction, poetry, informative research, personal narratives, realistic fiction, and persuasive historical research. The faculty guide students through the writing process, sharing with them examples as well as walking them through each of the steps.

Acorn Stories 2022 provide our students with an opportunity to say, “I’m a published author,” as they share these writings with the extended school community. Within this online edition, they will show you their understanding of a particular genre, while giving you insights into their thoughts and personalities. We want to thank all of our lower school faculty and middle school humanities teachers for supporting and nurturing Live Oak students, giving them the tools to articulate a vision and share ideas through writing. And thank you to Savannah Guinn, Associate Director of Admission, for all of her work putting the site together. And thank you to Live Oak parents who helped edit student work. This summer, we hope you have the chance to sit back and enjoy the writing.

Kindergarten

One of the key components of writing is the ability to share your experiences with others. To tell your own story in your own words.  The year in kindergarten at Live Oak is rich with experiences, both inside and outside of the classroom. All year long students fill their personal journals with the stories, events and ideas of the “right now”. Field trips, friendships, courtyard play, and family life are all experienced and reflected upon differently. Kindergarteners see these stores recorded, hear them read back, and illustrate them. As the year progresses they begin to add letters, words, and sentences to the dictated text. Years from now, these journals will become remarkable time capsules.  Never again will imagination and fantasy be so free and so real.  The grown up child who reads these works later will look back through the eyes of their Kindergarten selves. Each of these stories was selected by the student.

First Grade

First graders sprung into spring by exploring poetry. They noticed the rhymes, rhythms, and repetition of short poems and learned how poets use imagery and poetic language to evoke emotions for their audience. After reading a variety of poems, it was the first graders’ turn to try their hand at creating their own poems. At the end of our unit, students picked their favorite poem to share with all of you!

Second Grade

Second graders were immersed in poetry this spring. As they read different kinds of poems, second grade writers learned how poets stir strong feelings and create lasting images. Second graders learned to write with an ear, using line breaks to control the pace and rhythm of words and to create special effects on the page. They learned to experiment with language, word choice, and comparisons–craft techniques they can apply to other genres of writing. Poetry helped our students open their eyes to the beauty of the earth, cultivate a belief in the power of language, and begin to understand the truths inside them.

In celebration of Live Oak’s 50th year, second graders wrote an acrostic poem about what Live Oak School means to them. Now we ask you, “What does Live Oak School mean to you?”

Third Grade

The third graders engaged in a non-fiction reading unit this year. They previewed books by looking through the Table of Contents, reading all the subheadings in the chapters, looking at the pictures, and reading any captions that went with the pictures. From there, third graders read the entire chapter and learned to take notes using Boxes and Bullets. A box is the main idea of the chapter or section. They focused on “who” and “what” to create their box. The who (who the chapter is about) and the what (what the chapter is teaching) are then crafted into the main idea sentence which turns into the box. Under their main idea box, third graders wrote at least three bullet point notes that go with their box. To culminate this unit, the third graders made posters or paragraphs using their Boxes and Bullet notes.

Fourth Grade

We hope you enjoy reading our poems. We tried different ways to generate ideas for poetry and express ourselves. We noticed our feelings, reflected on our identities, and our culture as they look inward. We also looked at the world around us.

Fifth Grade

In honor of Live Oak’s 50th birthday, the fifth grade classes planned to co-write a musical tribute with fifth grade parent and former music teacher Rachel Garlin. To prepare for the songwriting workshop, the students were asking to capture their Live Oak memories in free verse. Published poet and fifth grade parent Athena Kashyap came in to lead a two part poetry class with the students that helped them identify concrete sensory details and emotions to include in their Live Oak-inspired verse. Please enjoy these poems by the fifth graders. They are love letters to the school they love. The co-written 50th anniversary song can be heard here.

Sixth Grade

The class of 2024 explored many aspects of their emerging identities through writing exercises, class activities, book discussions, and journaling. Each student wrote a poem that invites the reader to take a step into their world, sharing their homes and traditions through sights, sounds, smells, and emotions. These “I Am From” poems allowed students to get to know returning and new members of the community in new ways and to see each other’s unique perspectives. They went through many stages of the writing process, from recording observations in their daily lives to brainstorming with webs, from “brain-dumping” to workshopping with their classmates, from writing to rewriting and writing again, to proofreading, self- and peer-editing. We invite you to discover something new about the sixth grade writers as you dive into their worlds of self, home, and family.

Seventh Grade

Seventh graders created historical fictional stories inspired by their learning throughout our unit on the medieval kingdoms of West Africa, which included Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. Stories about Africa, especially ones about the rich, complex civilizations and cultures that we studied, which existed before colonialism and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, have not been told enough in America. With this project, we aimed to educate our school community and put more stories into the world about an underreported time and place.

Eighth Grade

In 8th Grade Humanities, students studied The Civil War and Reconstruction during the second trimester. Throughout the unit students considered the questions “how do people maintain their humanity?” and “What does war change or accomplish?”. At the end of the unit they wrote  historical fiction pieces consisting of a journal entry or letter from the point of view of a civilian or soldier during or right after the war. Each piece considered the unit questions. Please enjoy the 8th graders thinking and learning as reflected in these letters and journals.