Week 36 -- We have begun our final descent

As I’m sure you know, we had an amazing trip last week, and I heartily recommend you take a look at the previous entries to see what we were up to. We’re not taking a break now that we’re back!

First of all, we’ve clearly wanted to reflect on our adventures in Kentucky (and Ohio), so our warm-up on Monday was to draw a comic depicting one (or more!) favorite moment from the trip. (We also spent some time reflecting on the experience in a more hands-on way: Thoroughly cleaning out the bus that we spent so much time in.) The rest of our homeroom time has been spent either finishing up projects (we ordered our final set of biome game cards!), or enjoying the fruits of our labor (we’ve been able to play several rounds of the completed biome games.)

Much better...

We’ve also spent some time looking through our writing portfolios. Students in our group do a lot of writing over the course of the year, which is often done in small increments. I collect dozens of writing responses from them over the year, then periodically hand their entire folders back so they can see just how much they’ve produced. This week, kids are revisiting their old work one last time, selecting pieces to polish and/or share with the group.

The entire 5/6 group also spent part of Thursday composing group poems (in which multiple people are required to recite the piece), then spent part of Friday performing them for Elaine’s class.

In our math group, we’re also winding down, with some students finishing assessments before the summer begins, and others making progress in their Singapore sequence.

Performing this year's greatest hits in Music

Week 30 -- Choose your own adventure

This week has been a whirlwind of collaboration. On Monday, we began working on an all-class choose-your-own-adventure story. We began by composing the first portion together as a whole-group activity, projecting the story on the big class TV. We took turns offering ideas for plot points and dialogue, finding our way to the first big branching point. We continued on and wrote the first parts of each branch as a group. At that point, we had four stories to continue, so we broke into smaller groups. Those groups continued autonomously, each coming up with their own subsequent branching points and splitting into smaller and smaller groups as the stories progressed. Eventually, everyone will be writing endings individually (and contributing to other storylines as they develop). It’s all being recorded in a crazy shared Google document. It's been a delight to see how the kids have taken the stories in radically different directions. You can sneak a peek of it here, with the caveat that it has not been completed or edited yet.

Thursday was a day that was particularly full of excitement, as we had two dramatic arrivals in our classroom. First of all, sturdy new tables arrived to replace the rickety ones that we had been working with. The class reacted passionately against them. (They sometimes fear change.) Eventually, an elite tiger team of go-getters took it upon themselves to start cleaning the tables off and getting them integrated into our space. Then, at the very end of the day, the very first sets of professionally printed cards from our Into the Biome game project arrived. They look great, which was a powerful motivator for the other three groups to get theirs completed and ordered as well. (Everyone is getting very close!)

Rachel works with the combined 5/6 grades every Thursday for library and technology. Here, they are discussing an article on the appropriation and alteration of Michelle Obama's image for a mural. 

An assortment of other things filled in the rest of the week, including a visit from Violet and Abe (complete with age appropriate read alouds), some background on how caves form, and a decidedly odd writing prompt about a unicorn head mask. Responses varied, as you would imagine.

A pick-up game of soccer with the 1/2s. 

In Math group, we spent Monday and part of Tuesday going through A Parable of Polygons, which is a fascinating interactive blog post written by Vi Hart and Nicky Case that creates a model society that values diversity, yet harbors a small bit of inherent bias (sound familiar?). By reading through and interacting with it, you start to see some interesting patterns emerging. It’s a thought-provoking post for young and old, and I heartily recommend exploring it on your own. We also read another chapter of The Number Devil, and devoted a couple of days to Singapore work time.

(Don't call it) Spirit Week

The week before Spring Break was positively packed with activity, even though there were only four days of school. Here's a quick recap. 

The Summers-Knoll student government organized the second annual Super Happy Fun Week. The schedule was as follows: 

Monday: Character Day Dress as a favorite character (from a book, from a movie etc).Tuesday: Pajama Day Wear your PJs.Wednesday: Fun RunThursday: Culture Day. The 7-8s will prepare lunchtime snacks from Sweden, Uganda, Argentina, and Japan (same menu as last year). The Choir will serenade us with songs from Kenya, Australia, and Texas

This photo is from character day, which might not be immediately obvious, given that many students were clearly determined to hide from the camera. 

Wednesday ended with an all-school Fun Run. It was particularly fun to see so many members of our community participating beyond just the students. Look carefully, and you'll spot teachers, staff, and parents also taking part. 

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The kids in Jason's math group have learned a lot about 'Flatland' this year. Originally published in 1884, there have been several adaptations of it over the years, and we've explored a few of them. It's a topic that we revisit from time to time, most recently as a project: Kids are creating their own games based on aspects of Flatland. 

We've brainstormed a number of different possibilities in terms of game mechanics and objectives, and lately kids have been constructing game materials, writing instructions, and play-testing prototypes with their classmates. 

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One of the lovely things about our school is that students have the opportunity to take time from our regularly scheduled curriculum and activities to pursue individual projects. Bora and Eva have used this opportunity to develop clay-based projects, guided by Monica, our middle school art teacher. Check out their progress!

Bora and his cat

Eva and her dragon

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We also recently hosted another Middle School Game Night. These are quickly becoming a tradition at Summers-Knoll, and they're a fun, low-stakes way to socialize and have fun. 

Upon reflection, I'm realizing that "low stakes" was the incorrect term to use, as I have rarely seen a group of people so invested in a game of Jenga. 

Collaborative Writing: Crafting a class "choose your own adventure" story

Adri wrote and illustrated a children's book:
The Very Fairy Princess Goes to Mars.

It's been an unusual few weeks in our class. I (Jason) was out on paternity leave for two weeks, and then the class was gone on the spring trip all of last week. We're finally all back together and at school now, so things are back to normal, if only for another week or so. 

Nick wrote and drew a comic in the style of
Berkeley Breathed (creator of Bloom County,
Outland, and others)

Our last full week together is still packed full of things to do. Many kids are wrapping up projects that they've been working on, and we'll be sharing and presenting our work to each other in the days ahead. Many projects are currently on display in the Middle School Commons, so take a peek if you find yourself in the building this week! 

Kit has been working on a comic adventure in the
style of Tintin creator Hergé

We also started a new writing project today, which has been a fun exercise in creative collaborative work. As a class, we're writing a Choose Your Own Adventure story. We started out by brainstorming some details about two characters, then began pitching in ideas as I typed the story onto a large computer screen. We quickly brought our characters to a point in the story where they had two options, and then we broke into two smaller groups to begin writing them. After advancing those two story lines, each of those branched, creating even smaller groups. As it stands, we have six possible stories in the work, and we'll continue to branch off until each student writes their own ending, which means there will be at least 22 possible outcomes of the story. 

Marcellin adapted the design of the Wright Brothers famous
plane to make it more suited to the atmosphere of
Mars

Rereading what I just wrote makes it seem a little complicated, which is fair, because it has been. But it's also been very fun, and everyone has worked really well together. 

We'll continue this project this week, but  if you're interested in checking out our story so far, click here. (Disclaimer: This is decidedly still a work in progress.) 

Eleanor wrote a short story in the style of author
Wendy Mass

January So Far...

January is off to a rollicking good start in the 5/6. (Snow Days excluded, or perhaps enjoyed.) Here's a long, rambling recap of some of the things we've done with these first eight days of January.

A quiet work period in the middle of a very busy two weeks. 

Evan explains the ideas supporting the exploration of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs).

This month has a strong science and social studies focus. Our new school theme is Journeys, and we're exploring that by beginning a unit on manned exploration of space.

Last week, the students split up into small groups to learn about a possible destination for a human habitat outside of the atmosphere. The groups each read an article about the logistics of putting people in one of the following places: Low-Earth Orbit, Near-Earth Asteroids,  Luna (Earth's moon), Venus, or Mars. (Ask your student about the destination that they researched!)

Marcellin and a guest student explain a proposed mission to Venus. 

Prior to presenting, each student had a specific role in their group: The Data Specialist was responsible for making notes on the key points in the document. The Mission Commander was responsible for presenting the groups report to the whole class. The other students in the group were given mini-rubrics to help the Mission Commander prepare the short presentation, as well as being responsible for the initial reporting.

Each group then presented a summary of what they learned to the rest of the class.

This week, science has been focused on the wide variety of technologies that have been developed or enhanced as a result of Space Exploration (Insulin pumps! Whale tracking technology! Helmet padding!) . Each student is investigating two specific NASA created (or developed) technologies.



In math, we are doing a small project on data collection, display, and analysis. So far the students have crafted questions suitable for analysis ("What month were you born in?" "How tall are you in inches?").

Today we talked about how to collect and organize the data as it's being collected, and then moved on to actual data collection. A few students have begun to transfer their data to a Google Sheet (the spreadsheet program in Google Drive). Next week, we'll be working on analyzing and presenting the data and making conclusions.

Owen collects data about student's favorite sport to play.

We've also wrapped up our book group presentations. As mentioned in a previous post, we've been reading novels in small groups. Each group has completed their book and prepared a presentation for the rest of the class to share about the book and their experiences. Some groups spoke in the first person as characters from the book, some read excerpts, and everyone gave enticing summaries about what was valuable and interesting about each book that they read.

Eleanor, Emma, and Adri talk about Out of My Mind. 

Jonah, Evan, Gabe, Ben, and Oliver discuss First Light. 

Niko reads a selection from A Wizard of Earthsea, as Marcellin, Luke, David, and Owen await their turns to share. 

We've also been having some group discussions about the media, society, and how we interact with each other. On Monday, we wanted to gauge how kids were processing anything that they may have heard in the news about various terrorist acts. Students' awareness of the news stories varied widely, which lead to a productive discussion about how we consume media, and why certain stories stick out in our minds. For example, of all the current events that were mentioned, the only one that almost every student had heard of was the semi truck full of fireworks that was involved in an accident on I-94. We talked a little about why that story has stuck out in their minds. ("It's sort of scary." "It's exciting.") We eventually hit on the idea of personal relevance and/proximity: Something happened that feels close to you. Car accidents on I-94 feel much more relevant than car accidents in Nevada.

We eventually also talked a little bit about the incidents in France recently, trying parse through the rationale for such a senseless act. We talked about the concept of satire, fundamentalism, freedom of the press, and the challenges (and strengths) of living in blended, multicultural societies.

Finally, we had a long sprawling conversation yesterday about our personal interactions at school. We frequently have these kinds of discussions on a small scale, sometimes in response to a specific conversation, and other times preemptively, but yesterday's chat was particularly in depth.

We talked a lot about how to navigate the constantly shifting power dynamics of the middle school world. We talked about "being your best self" as often as possible, with the understanding that no one can always achieve that. However, if one of us happens to fall short on a given day or in a particular moment, as long as the rest of us hold ourselves together, things will be okay. We also talked about how to prevent situations from spiraling out control, not carrying the grudges of other people, and strategies to help things run smoothly during these occasionally turbulent pre-teen years.

This is a spotty snapshot of some of the things that were discussed. We'll be revisiting this conversation regularly in the weeks and months ahead.

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Oh, one more item worthy of note:

In writing last week, we went over the rules of using quotation marks when writing dialogue in stories. As practice in this, kids were required to write a dialogue between three or four characters using proper punctuation. The dialogue did not have to be a self-contained story, but it did have to give some sense of what the larger plot was, where the setting was, and a bit about the personalities of the characters involved. They are still trickling in, as they're not formally due until tomorrow (Friday), but on the whole, they've been both excellent and hilarious. Since the assignment only asked for a scene, many kids seemed content to come up with some bizarre and creative ideas. Nearly everyone of them is a cliffhanger begging for the larger context of the unwritten story. They're great.

On a whim, we staged a few of them as impromptu mini-plays in class the other day, much to the delight of everyone.

Scenes from the final week of 2014

Now that the energy and excitement of the play has crested, we have a week left before a well-earned break. The final week in December can often be a tricky one, as people are starting to burst at the seams, but we're still getting a lot done! 

On Monday, the first of our book groups presented to the class, telling us a bit about the characters and themes of Mockingbird, the book they had read. 

Later in the day, Gabe and David gave a presentation teaching us about tiling and tessellation, which included a group activity designed to illustrate what shapes are able to tessellate. (It's difficult to photograph a slideshow in low light, so please know that David is actually pointing out a detail of a tiling, as opposed to just a blob of white light.) 

In Math today, what was meant as a warm-up exercise wound up taking over much of the morning, as kids worked together (using manipulatives, drawings, paper, and white boards) to solve a logic puzzle involving checkers on a board. 

Today was also one of our days for PE, so after working through the morning, they were ready to run off some energy in the afternoon.