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.
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| A quiet work period in the middle of a very busy two weeks. |
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| 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!)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Eleanor, Emma, and Adri talk about Out of My Mind. |
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| Jonah, Evan, Gabe, Ben, and Oliver discuss First Light. |
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| 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.
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.
