Spring Trip -- Day 1 -- photos galore

Our little class is on a big trip! Here's an assortment of photos to give you a sense of what we've been up to. These cover day one, which found us departing from S-K, heading to the Creation Museum in Kentucky, and then finishing up the day in Cave City. 
(For even more photos, visit our Twitter page. You don't need to be a Twitter user to see it. Just click this link: https://twitter.com/JasonsClassTrip )

 

The moment of departure.

Rest stop

The grounds of the Creation Museum. We had our sack lunches next to a tranquil pond. They have quite a lovely garden. As we prepared to go in, we discussed the following (mangled and misattributed, but still useful) quote:

"It is the sign of an educated mind to be able to consider an idea without accepting it."

We parsed the meaning together, essentially coming up with a directive for how to tour the exhibits in the museum: Don't scoff at them and don't dismiss them out of hand. Instead, think about what they are trying to say. Consider what arguments they're trying to use. You don't have to agree with the argument, but you should try to understand the point of view being expressed, and where it comes from.

After that brief, but useful conversation, we went in. It's among the weirdest places I've ever been, and the photos don't really do it justice.  

Henry considers.

The entire museum is a large, elaborate persuasive essay. The thesis is that one can interpret the Christian Bible to be literally true, and that the bulk of scientific understanding can be interpreted to prove this worldview. 

The museum is divided into many rooms with different purposes. One early room has a bunch of displays that compare and contrast "Man's Word" and "God's Word." 

Here, for example, is "Man's Word" on the timeline of the universe. We've been learning about this timeline in school recently. The museum rejects this version of events, and puts forth one that says that the Earth is only about 6000 years old. 

There are a lot of displays with animatronics. Here is a depiction of the Garden of Eden, complete with man, penguins, and (just out of frame) dinosaurs.

There is a big section on the story of Noah's ark. In class, we have discussed the prevalence of flood myths around the world, including the epic of Gilgamesh, which was the subject of a school play a few years back. That flood story also involves a boat created to save living things. 

The dioramas in this section are amazing. 

Life on the ark. 

There are a lot of dinosaurs at the Creation Museum. Fossils, pictures, animatronic, and stuffed ones in the gift shop. Back at school, we've been learning about fossil formation in science with Lisa. 

We've talked a lot about religion and mythology this year, and the roles that they play in cultures. This stop was a fascinating exploration of one example of that. We'll surely be unpacking what we saw next week back in school. 


Back to the bus: 

DInner and dancing in Cave City, Kentucky:

Our home for the next couple nights. 

Week 23 -- Filling in the gaps, fear is a LIAR.

In science, we're continuing to work with our gravity-powered cars. 

After a relaxing week off, we got right to work with an extension to our Place Out of Time timelines project. By now, almost everyone has a detailed timeline of the life of their character posted in the appropriate spot on our giant timeline in the middle school commons. However, most of our characters are clustered in the twentieth century. This week, we have spent some time populating the gaps in our huge timeline to provide more context for the scope of human history. For example, before this week, there were no events recorded in the entire 1400s. Now, there are notes about the world-changing voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, and another noting that the game of chess was in its modern form by 1475. Each student has been tasked with putting up at least five cards on the timeline this week, with more to come in the weeks ahead. Also POOT-related, Sam led the entire 5-6 group in a discussion about dignity, which is a concept that is the heart of the issue framing Place Out of Time this year.

Calculating averages for each of our trials

We also concluded our read aloud on Monday afternoon. The climax of When You Reach Me is mind-bending and unexpected, revealing the fact that many tiny details along the way were actually clues, laid out like breadcrumbs for the reader to discover. It’s a lovely book that tightly-plotted and bittersweet. Ask your child about “the Laughing Man” and see what they’ll reveal about the story.

Our journal prompt this week was “fear is a liar.” Kids were asked to respond to the idea, considering what it might mean, evaluating the validity of the statement, and coming up with examples that might argue the point either way. Students wrote about how fear was both useful (it keeps you from harm), but also occasionally counterproductive (roller coasters are fun, planes are useful).

Of course, the impending Music Cafe tends to take over the week, so focus quickly shifted toward that by the end of the week.

In math group, we celebrated a couple of kids completing assessments and moving into new books, worked collaboratively on some problems (ask about Danielle, her pet crocodile, the parrot, and the monkey), and had an always-popular math game day.

Week One -- Yanomami, magic, milkweed, and monarchs

We began our year by exploring the difficulty in remaining objective when learning about something new. To illustrate this, we delved into Napoleon Chagnon’s infamous field work with the Yanomami tribes of the Amazon rainforest. How can one accurately study a culture that is entirely different than the one that they were raised in? Was his study ethical? Are his findings biased? Closer to home, what biases do we bring to our current political debate?

We also began writing stories based on the Arthur C. Clark assertion that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” (What would your great-great-great grandparent think of an iPad? What would someone from the stone age think of a flamethrower?)

We’re also writing and performing short skits for each other illustrating our three classroom guidelines: Awareness, Communication, and Everything Gets Respect.

Playing Factor Tag in Math class. 

Playing Factor Tag in Math class. 

Meanwhile, in our math group, we began talking about polling, and exploring how a sample of a population doesn’t necessarily provide an accurate picture of the whole group.

Our week concluded with an exciting find in the milkweed garden created by our class last year: A monarch caterpillar in "hanging j" position, which we watched transition into a chrysalis: 

We also found other caterpillars, which we took collected to raise in the protective environment of our classroom. 

Jason's Class: The Trailer

It is astonishingly difficult to get ten different kids to 1.) smile, 2.) keep their eyes open, and 3.) look at a camera at the same time.  

In this blog post, enjoy the many attempts that I made, along with a smattering of various happenings from the last few weeks. 

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Here's a video that you may have seen over email. Ella has called it "the trailer for our class." 

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We've had a few birthdays lately. It's a class tradition to allow the birthday person to choose a class activity in celebration. On Ella's birthday, she opted for "class karaoke." Watch the video below at your peril. 

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There has been a lot of wetland exploration at recess.

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Shan was unexpectedly out sick for PE one day, so we picked a park, got on a bus, and headed over to check it out. 

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In Math, kids are doubling down on their book work, setting personal goals for the end of the year. Some classes are spent working toward those goals, others are spent playing math games. Here are a couple of moments from a class game of Farkle, which is a favorite. 

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There have been a number of presentations lately. We've been learning about the American Revolution, and Nick prepared a lecture on the military tactics of that time. 

Later, Miel and Bora presented on guinea pigs, complete with a guest appearance by Miel's pets. 

Oliver the human meets Oliver the guinea pig. 

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Our milkweed & monarch project continues to require a significant amount of work. The good news is that our beds are almost prepared. 

This was on Juna's birthday. This probably wasn't how she planned on spending it. 

Rest for the weary. 

Our impact study. We delicately examine logs, looking to see what might be living in the area where we were digging. 

Here's what we found! These are the mystery eggs discovered beneath a log (pillbug provided for scale). Any ideas on what they are? 

This is the site where we harvested soil for our beds. What is the impact of our actions? What did this site look like before, and what will it look like after we've gone? Now that we've seen the small impact that we made, we were led to wonder where soil purchased from stores comes from? 

When we return from our spring trip, we'll be forging ahead to get things planted and established before the end of school.