Project Updates and More

So much blooming outside and inside the classroom... Second drafts of biographies have been handed in after students spent time on Thursday peer revising (focusing on sentence fluency) and editing. We will have an opportunity to share what we learned about these people who made change during the upcoming week.

Students have concluded interrupting their behavioral triggers and begun reflecting on the experience. The following are among the questions they are considering:

1. Explain what your trigger was, how you interrupted it and why you chose it. Was it hard/easy/ok to interrupt?

2. What feelings were present when you interrupted your trigger? What thoughts were present when you interrupted your trigger?

3. What did you learn about yourself? How are you going to use this information? What would you change about your project to make it better? What might be another behavior that you would benefit from interrupting?

The Geocity is finished and will soon be taped together and displayed in a place to be determined (it is very large and fabulous). We will continue having math lessons throughout the play intensive, exploring more geometry, decimals and statistics.

We will be able to get back to documenting rocks around the Abode on Wednesday. Until then be sure to check out the pictures from our walk last week!

Our investigation of United States history has brought us to the 1960's and early 70's. Skipping over the Vietnam War (except for various perspectives on why it was fought), we saw many groups of people uniting to bring about change and push for their "freedom". This is being highlighted by events in our current read aloud book, Esperanza Rising.

Rock Walk

Geologists call the area in which we live more exciting than the Grand Canyon (boring sandstone). We sit on mostly metamorphic rock that was pushed up and down by plate tectonics, constructed and deconstructed by glaciers, and whittled down by erosion (the Taconic Mountains were believed to be upwards of 15,000 - 20,000 feet tall at one time, towering above Lake Albany). Volcanoes, mastadons, bison... so much lived here before us. Ask your children for more interesting facts.

Here's the latest project we have underway:

Rock Walk

We’ll split up into small groups and then begin our search for the rocks of the Taconics before creating a big ole rock walk guide.

Procedure:

1. Find all the types of primary and secondary rock types in Columbia County using http://mrdata.usgs.gov/sgmc/ny.html, book resources and other internet resources. Create a list on a word document (copy and paste) all the rocks you find. You should find upwards of 15 or more rock types.

2. After you complete step 1, you will be assigned a few rocks on which to become experts. Using geology.com, book resources and other websites, find out as much information as you can about each of these rock types. Begin making powerpoint pages, including pictures of each rock (sometimes they can look a little different, so get more than 1 picture) and other juicy details.

3. There are more rock types here in our county than just those that make up the bedrock/top layer of lithosphere. Find 3 or more ways that rocks travel and gather as much information as you can about these processes.

4. With our rock identification powerpoint slides in hand, we will journey out in search of these rocks. Record the location, amount of rocks spotted and somehow we’ll get a picture.

5. Working together, we will make a guide to the rocks of the Abode. What will this look like? We will decide.

Geometric Math City

The group of students in the Red Fox Clan studying geometry have begun working on a city. Students planned, mapped, and worked out details on their own (with adults being flies on the wall). Each student, whether drawing an aquarium, train station, zoo or other part of the city, must include the following in their drawing:

- 1 set of similar figures

- 1 set of congruent figures

- a bisected angle

- labeled acute and obtuse angles

- at least 6 labeled 2-dimensional figures

- draw lines of symmetry for at least 3 figures

When put together, the city will measure about 32 square feet! Students have exhibited a great deal of creativity already.

Biography

Biography Project

Ha! It’s biography project season. I know you have all been waiting so long for this. You will have the opportunity to generate questions about someone who has made a splash in our country’s history. Who has unified people amidst great hardship? Who has taken on the dividing techniques of those in power? After you record some questions, we’ll work together to locate high quality resources about your person. You will be asked to record and organize information using a graphic organizer. From your detailed organizer, you will use your writing skills to craft a detailed biography and share it with the class.

The Procedure:

1. We will share our findings from our “People Who Made Change” lists. You will be asked to choose someone from these lists (or if another inspiring person is contacting you and asking you to write a biography on them, you just may be able to do so) and begin writing questions about this person. What interests you about this person? How did they inspire others?
2. Categories. Next is time to categorize your questions to see what kind of information you are looking for. Biographies usually have categories including childhood events, struggles, the person’s vision, and how they went about creating change in the world. You may choose to change or add new categories when you learn more about your person. Together we will look at a sample graphic organizer.
3. Time to find high quality resources. Try the American Library Association for Kids site, or bartleby.com, or biography.com. Adding “for kids” or “young readers” to your search will direct you to useful websites to begin learning about your person. More complicated websites are useful when you are searching for specific details.
4. Begin filling in/creating your graphic organizer as you learn about your inspiring person. You will conference with peers and teachers to get feedback about your findings. We’ll ask each other questions to help us direct our research.
5. Use your highly detailed graphic organizer to draft an essay with strong introductory, middle, and concluding paragraphs. You will have the opportunity to conference with peers/teachers prior to writing your final draft.

We may discover other things we want to add to/change to the project as we go along. Final drafts will be due during the last week of April.

Project!

Happiness, Joy, Love, Fulfillment and Energy Project

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to gain experience observing one’s thoughts and to learn about ourselves. We will do this by observing some aspect of ourselves that affects who we are as a student.

How we got here

According to the Red Fox Clan, we all thirst for joy, happiness, love, fulfillment and energy. We draw these experiences to ourselves in many ways- through having fun with friends, learning, cooperation, exploring, breathing, concentrating and many more. Sometimes, however, we use strategies that don’t actually lead us to joy or happiness. We have seen many patterns of this in history. People have tried to gain joy by exploiting others, lying, intimidating others, and so on. These misguided strategies often hurt others and ourselves (also seen in our country’s history). We can hurt ourselves by avoiding or taking shortcuts on assignments because we don’t learn important skills we need. Also according to the Red Fox Clan, joy arises when all work together for the benefit of all.

Mission

Our mission is to identify ways we mislead ourselves when trying to experience happiness, joy, love, fulfillment and lots of energy as students and members of a learning community. We will observe these ways/thoughts/beliefs in ourselves and interrupt them.

Procedure

First you must come up with an idea of what thought pattern/feeling/belief/behavior you want to interrupt. This is just like your trigger from the fall when you saw a leaf or heard your name. You stopped and noted what you were paying attention to. This time, the trigger is a thought or feeling inside of you, a thought or feeling that leads you away from happiness, joy, love, fulfillment and energy without you knowing it! When you notice your trigger, you will interrupt it. This can be doing jumping jacks, a few dance moves, going out on the fire escape for 30 seconds, asking someone a question… some action that doesn’t interrupt others but interrupts your trigger.

Choosing a thought pattern/belief/behavior to interrupt that is useful to you works best. Here are some suggestions to help you brainstorm your trigger:

- Consider yourself as a student in class. Do you offer ideas and contribute to discussions? Are you constantly involved or do you hold yourself back, unable to participate fully? What happens for you in at these moments when you could choose to participate or not? What feelings do you have? What is your internal dialogue?

- Do you find yourself experiencing emotional reactions to people in class or in our community? Or in group situations? What emotions arise? What happens for you? What is the situation in which your reactions arise? How can you learn more about them?

- Are you influenced more by a certain person or group of people? How are you influenced? What feelings arise? Is it beneficial for you and others? How do you interact with this person or these people? How does this group act towards others? Any intimidation or trying to gain energy from others?

- Is there a subject or activity in school you don’t like? What thoughts cross your head when you see it on the board or while preparing for it? What does it feel like in your body? Do you express what you are feeling out loud? How do you feel when you begin this activity?

Next is developing a contract and testing your trigger. In the contract you will share what your trigger is (what you will observe) and how you plan to interrupt it. You will have the opportunity to test your trigger over a few days to see if it happens enough, if it happens too often, or if you need to make other changes. We will follow the contract and interrupt triggers for a whole week. While you do this, you will be expected to take short notes about what happened and what arose for you.

As an ending project you will be asked to share with me (and others if you wish) what you did, what happened, what arose for you and any insights you gained about yourself.

All parents are invited to take part in the project along with their child(ren)!

How history has evolved

There are countless reasons as to why events unfolded as they did. We learned in the fall (and have continued to see) that history and events aren't always reported factually. Parts are omitted and the historian is often trying to get us to root for one side.

Motives of shapers of history

People acted to look good - People only want to see the good things - People didn't want the truth - Fame - Greed - Wealth - Land - Power - Profit - Natural Resources - Religious Freedom - Don't like to be controlled - Control - Cheap Labor - Working together - Share cultural ideas - Explore Land / Travel - Productivity - Make friends - Happiness

From all of these motives, we asked ourselves the following question:

What do people thirst for?

Happiness - Love - Joy - Fulfillment - Energy

In people's search to quench such a thirst, their actions can be misdirected. In order to gain what they thought was fulfillment, energy, and happiness, those with greater influence in the country used many tools to divide people so that they could grow their wealth and control. We then looked at our country's history through the 1870's and brainstormed patterns we saw that were used for dividing people.

Tools for Division

- Make people feel left out - "Because others did this too" - Racism - Fear - Lies - Intimidation - Untrue Stories - Hypocrisy - Buy a lot of something, sell for higher price - Don't address problems - Use laws to hold back others - Bribery - Give some people money - Jealousy - Treat people differently for no reason - Pick on an enemy, start a war - Put down, be man - Team up on a group - Revenge - Give some privileges/rights to fool and quiet people

How it could have been

While rewriting history, students noted that every event in history is linked to many other events. Changing one event would require changing many that came before it and occurred alongside it. With that understanding, students suggested the following:

Explorers could have been kind and asked set up trade agreements instead of acting for profit and out of greed.

Colonists could have cohabitated, cooperated and coexisted with Native peoples.

Instead of slavery, workers could have been paid and been given proper living quarters. If they were treated like people, all would be more happy and productivity would be up. Joy comes from when everyone benefits.

Diplomacy, compromise and agreements could have been made instead of the use of violence during the French and Indian War.

Revolutionary War- Was it necessary? Canada gained independence without such a devastating war. Diplomacy could have changed how this went down.

Native Americans could have been given the same rights. Land could have been shared or even gifted to them. Early Americans could have lived more like the natives, respecting traditions and living more closely to the land.

To avoid the Civil War, the North could have let the South be a different country instead of forcing them to be a part of the Union for economic reasons. There could have been better diplomacy and compromise, or they all could have elected a different president.