Trial, Earthquakes, Essays and more

We had another successful trial chalk full with critical questions and answers. Three groups (the poor, wealthy elite and the British) were charged with the mistreatment, suffering and deaths of thousands of men, women and children. The British (Faolan, Will and Finn with lovely British accents) were accused with focusing purely on profit and being undiplomatic. The Poor (Milo, Peyton and Raven) were accused with allowing the minority wealthy elite to manipulate them into fighting a war and not uniting to change the terrible living conditions underwhich they lived. The Wealthy elite (Jesse, Isaac and Kiva) were charged with things such as fueling racism to divide people so that they could stay in control. Also, the elite were charged with writing the Constitution with the interests only of the wealthy in mind. Our prosecuter/judges (Iona, Ben and Rasulan), with the aid of Ariel and a visiting Elizabeth Downes, assigned responsibility to all the groups, finding the wealthy elite as having more responsibility than the other groups.

Students have been interacting with resources on earthquakes, taking notes on a wide variety of topics. They took detailed (and not so detailed) notes and are going through the process of writing topic sentences, determining how to organize their facts, and writing reports. While writing, students are seeing that the quality of notes they took are having a big impact on their ability to retell facts.

More writing... this morning Faolan and Ben led two peer editing groups. The kids have been working on 5 paragraph essays, responding to questions inspired by their bookgroup book (Three Cups of Tea and The Giver). The focus of the groups were revising their supporting details to be more clear and powerful. Every student listened and gave thoughtful feedback with no adult prompting. On the flip side, every student shared their writing and made changes in several places. Beyond revision, minilessons were taught on introductions, conclusions, and how to present one's ideas in the most persuasive ways. Students are having more conversations about writing and subsequently I am reading great progress.

Revolutionary War Trial Preparations begin

Prosecutors, British representatives, rich colonial elite representatives and the representatives of the poor majority of colonists began meeting today in preparation for a trial. Each group is being charged with the suffering and deaths of thousands of men, women and children before, during and after the Revolutionary War. Each group will defend themselves during prosecution. Stay tuned for frequent updates.

Solstice and More

Hello Blog, it's been too long.

Our big project with Flying Deer this fall culminated in making delicious acorn flour and selling it at the Holiday Fair. We spent a great deal of time documenting our work and calculated that it took 3 hours to make each cup of flour! Students worked together to make a brochure that described the process, classification, identification of oak trees, and how to use acorn flour.

We continued our study American history up to the Revolutionary War. To help us gain greater understanding of the time period, we utilized historical fiction. Students read My Brother Sam is Dead and Johnny Tremain as bookgroup books. While learning about what it could have been like for children and their families during the war, students focused on vocabulary and taking a greater lead in discussions. Two book groups began today, Three Cups of Tea and The Giver. Both have powerful messages for us.

We are beginning our exploration of plate tectonics and the physical structure of the earth. Beginning with the earth's layers, we'll move to convergent and divergent boundaries and all of the fascinating earth processes that arise (haha).

Early November Update

From Columbus, we have moved on to getting a sense of how many other explorers from other countries "discovered" and "claimed" new lands. Students split up a chapter and taught their peers through a variety of means, including acting explorations and scenes out, writing songs, and teaching with the use of questions and answers. The motives of the explorers and those who funded them seemed like a broken record: profit and fame along with a great deal of neglect around the impact on Native Americans.

As a part of our lessons on reading nonfiction, students continued to practice pre-reading and were introduced to outlines. Together we filled in an outline about the beginning colonies stretching from the French in Canada down to the Spanish colonies in Mexico and Central America. This week students are independently completing a basic outline (fill in the blanks) while reading about the 13 Colonies.

Barely mentioned in the textbook are details about the Colonist-Native American interaction. We will be beginning three book groups, reading Sign of the Beaver, Indian Captive, and The Birchbark House. While gaining better understanding of the meeting of different cultures, we will read and answer questions with the aid of Bloom's Taxonomy, practice question generating and engage in discussions. Students will have the opportunity to read two of the above mentioned books.

We read Zinn's perspective on the birth of racism in America. He posed the question, "Is racism natural?" and proceeded to support his claim that it isn't a born instinct. Students reflected on this question and discussed Zinn's claim that racism in America was fueled by a "frenzy for limitless profit" and "racial hatred." Out of a discussion came the connection that this "frenzy for limitless profit" seems to be having a negative impact on things today, including the ecosystem.

Students took their Columbus Critiques entirely through the writing process, revising, editing, and then typing. They just scored their critiques using a rubric, focusing on Ideas, Organization, Sentence Fluency, Voice and Conventions. They will refer back to this piece as they continue to write and improve at the traits of writing. Our focus in writing will now shift to reading responses, reflections, prompts and some semblance of book reports.

As you saw in your child's goal setting conference, the three math groups have covered a lot of material so far. One group has just completed investigating integers and is moving on to linear equations and functions, while the others are in the midst of powers/exponents/order of operations and multiplication facts.

Spelling units, nature journal entries and an experiential lesson on the environmental impacts of industry/town zoning are among our many other endeavors. New pictures will be up soon on picasa, check them out!

The People vs. Columbus, et al

A tense trial was wrapped up moments ago. The People made convincing arguments proving the guilt of Columbus, Columbus' Men, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the Taino/Arawaks themselves, and the System of Empire. Each group was indicted with the mistreatment and murder of the Tainos. Two students represented each defendant, either pleading guilty or not guilty as well as accusing the groups whom they deemed most responsible for the tragedy in the 1490's and beyond. Students prepared thoughtful defenses, answered questions, made accusations and offered rebuttals to other groups. Punishments were meted out, but for some reason each was laughed at by the guilty parties.

Autumn

Wow, lots of time has passed and we've delved into many things. Let's get you updated...

Each math group is finishing up their first units of study. Students have taken a short assessment and checked their answers. As we begin our second units, students will continue to have the opportunity to review what they have already learned by completing a few "old" problems along with their new exercises.

Students have answered a series of questions critiquing the source of the textbook in its dealings with Columbus. We are now looking at their answers from a writer's perspective. Our focus on these pieces has been ideas, organization, and sentence fluency. Students have received a number of short lessons on the above topics and have put the concepts into use through peer and self editing. Transitioning between paragraphs will round out our craft lessons for this piece.

Our readings about Columbus have led us to discussions about learning to read the world. Students discussed how readers are influenced by what is included, what is omitted, and what is given the most attention to in historians' writing. Historians write by taking a side and try to convince us to agree with their perspective. Students currently believe that our textbook is taking the side of the powerful/government people, and that the Zinn book is taking the side of the everyday people. I look forward to seeing if this belief holds up as we continue to interact with each book.

Lots of other great happenings, including beginning Kamana One, exploring and expressing values concerning the environment, and the exploration of qualities possessed by the people we look up to. New pictures will be uploaded soon, so follow the link to the right.

Discovering Columbus and Flying Deer

On Tuesday we finished up reading about Columbus in Howard Zinn's book, which drew heavily from primary sources. We then read our textbook's account of Columbus. Students began exploring questions about what was omitted by the textbook's authors, what motives were given to Columbus, who the book gets you to root for, what the illustrations communicate and more.

We had a grand first day of Flying Deer. The Red Fox Clan cleaned out the firepit, gathered birch bark and built a beautiful tipi for the whole school's opening circle. Check out the pictures by following the picasa link on the right side of this blog.