End of December

Book groups met for the final time on Wednesday. Discussions became deeper as students consciously worked on their listening and sharing skills along with bringing high quality thoughts and questions to the meetings. Themes from the Wood Song discussion included the results of giving oneself over fully to something you love, the love and calmness we feel when we spend time with pets and an exploration of how we are like Gary at times when we want to continue an experience in order to learn more. Themes from The Phantom Tollbooth discussion included sharing an impossible task we will do in our lives, the pitfalls of ignorance (as represented by characters) and the tools of wisdom one can use to overcome ignorance, and finally the idea that boredom is something that one imposes on oneself. Both discussions were full of joy, creativity and life!

We are embarking on our investigation of Leonardo da Vinci's contributions to flight by first learning about Ancient Rome. Students have shown advanced knowledge of Roman Gods and Goddesses, and have begun learning about the rise of Rome, Rome's contributions to today (smooth roads, aqueduct, swimming pools etc.) and Julius Caesar. We will make our way toward the Renaissance in January and attempt to make our own ornithopters.

The Red Fox Clan spent time putting the final touches on the songs they learned for the amazing Solstice Celebration on Wednesday evening. Along with the other children, the Red Fox Clan displayed great levels of love, respect, compassion and leadership throughout the night. What an incredible group of children within an incredible community.

Have a joyful and restful holiday vacation!

Second post of December

The Red Fox Clan dove into the December busyness with a lot on their plate. They continued to practice preparing songs to be sung at next week's Solstice Celebration, as well as practice their technical writing skills in the form of writing directions for games to be played at Saturday's Holiday Fair.

We had most productive book group meetings where students shared their great enthusiasm for the books they are reading as well as their answers to higher level thinking questions. Students used both their answers and their own thoughts and questions as diving boards for discussion. The Wood Song group appreciated Paulsen's passion for learning from dogs and nature and made many connections to their own life experiences. The Phantom Tollbooth group was amused by Juster's writing and discussed how the book represents what lies just under the surface of the real world. The children are already displaying quite exceptional active listening skills, showing each other a great deal of respect and enjoying each other's ideas.

We continued to make our way closer to the last lessons of our first Singapore books in math. Students are enjoying topics ranging from constructing and filling in missing pieces of parallelograms to constructing and investigating the volume of cuboids. Tessellations and reviewing fractions are on deck.

The Beginning of December

The Red Fox Clan delved further into their Weather/Wildlife project, creating frequency tables, bar and line graphs to better represent data. Next week some students will complete pie charts before moving on to writing an analysis, discussion and conclusion.

We began book groups, with one group reading Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth and the other reading Gary Paulsen's Wood Song. Along with answering higher level thinking questions, students are continuing to maintain the practice of recording a thought or question for each section read. Now they are using this practice to start discussions with their peers. Students are practicing the skills of sharing, active listening and rhythm and other intricacies of holding a productive and enjoyable discussion.

To cap of our visit to Ancient Greece, we learned about the aeolipile. This hot water rocket engine, steam engine, and jet engine marked the start of engine invention. We will revisit engines in the world of flight in the spring.

We enjoyed our annual Hanukkah celebration on Friday morning. Latkes, dreidel and stories filled our tummies and hearts. This is a busy time of year! Students will continue with book groups, math, writing, science as well as preparing for the Holiday Fair.