Week 16

I tried to get one of the kids to write this week's blog, but they were all too "exhausted". It seems the mid-term exams took everything they had...I thought they did a good job with the two days of solid testing. I think we all realized that our study habits need improving. In addition to grading, both Carol and I will be spending this coming vacation week organizing each of the students' portfolios. We will be including the graded exams in the portfolios, and each student will receive a written evaluation of their progress these past months.

While review and testing took a good chunk of our time this past week, we did manage to squeeze in some interesting projects. I think the project that consumed our time and imaginations most was our mummification ritual. We began this 5 week experiment on Tuesday with a ritual cleansing, spice application and salting of our 1st Dynasty pharaoh, Djen. Djen is actually a 2 pound Cornish Game Hen. The students removed his organs, cleaned them, and packed them in salt. They also started making the four canopic jars that will hold these organs when they are fully desiccated. The body of Djen was also prepared and placed in a sealed plastic bag. Each week, students will remove the body, pour off the standing liquid, re-spice (for smell), and re-pack the body in salt. The body will be weighed and measured each week in order to track the amount of liquid removed. Is it gross? Totally. Does it smell? Oh, yeah. Are any of us eating chicken right now? Only the die-hards. So, why are we doing this? I know that most of us know the details of Egyptian mummification, but if you're anything like me, these well-known descriptions have become a bit banal. When you are going through the steps of mummification with a 2 pound chicken and the smell is enough to make you gag, it becomes a little easier to understand the implications of the same process on a 150+ pound man (without the convenience of seal-able bags). And it will make for a great story someday.

So, we are off for the vacation week. We'll be back, blogging, in two weeks. Have a great holiday!

Week 15

I'm sure I'm not the only one here shocked that we're this far into December already. I'll say this right off the bat: my internal clock is somewhere in mid-November. So, for those of you reading this who may be wondering "Where's my Christmas card from the Kaplans?" or "Hey, I wonder if that Hanukkah gift from Jen got lost in the mail", don't waste any more of your time pondering. I'm AWOL in regard to this year's holiday rituals. Frankly, it's going to be touch-and-go whether you hear from us or not. So plan accordingly.

With that full disclosure, I will say that the time I should have spent at the mall or in the Sears' Portrait Studio didn't go entirely to waste. At the P.I.S. we're doing a fine job staying on task. The majority of this week was devoted to subject review in preparation for the mid-term exams this coming week. As none of these students has ever taken a mid-term, they are trying to get themselves, their notes, and their study habits aligned.

One of the biggest challenges for them has been note-taking. I am trying to reinforce the idea that notes without context are worthless. Words, phrases, and sketches (while possibly spelled correctly, legible, or showing artistic talent) are meaningless if they simply float in an otherwise empty space. The process of outlining as applied to chronology, context, and importance is an important skill. I forget what a difficult one it is to master.

Our review this week covered Science (from plant and animal cell structure through simple plants, flowering plants, and plant reproduction), Grammar (identifying subject, modal and finite verbs, predicate adjectives and nouns, direct and indirect objects, adjectives, adverbs, definite and indefinite articles, prepositional signifiers, and object of the preposition while being able to correctly diagram them), Math (fractions, in all of their glorious poses and positions), and finally Latin (vocabulary and translations). I would like to note that we are practicing our Latin translations using a primer from the 1930s. This primer was designed for a third grade reading level. My students were surprised by its difficulty. We also reviewed our Spelling and Word Derivatives. This is the exam that is going to really test them. I'm afraid that both subjects require rote memorization, and (for my two kids, at least) academic memorization is unfamiliar territory. I know there are many of you who believe that rote memorization is ineffective. I am not one of you. What I know is that my 9 year old can whip off the name and rank of 142 different Star Wars characters in addition to naming all of the inter-galactic planets along the outer rim (still talking Star Wars, BTW). If he can do that, then by god, he's going to work a bit on memorizing the derivatives of "amo", "laudo", and "spero".

Some of the new things we did manage to cover this week were:

LOGIC: We're continuing our rather meaty work with Propositional Logic. We've identified the 5 operators, and we are slowly building the truth-tables for each.

ETHICS: We continued reading The Little Prince. This week's discussion revolved around the quotes "Before they grow so big, the baobabs start out by being little...The danger of the baobabs is so little understood." and "It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

HISTORY: We continued study of Old Kingdom Egypt. We read about the pharaohs through the 4th dynasty, and we read a brief bio on Imenhotep, architect/physician/priest/the-world's-first-Renaissance-man-before-the-Renaissance. The kids made this really cool peephole Sanctuary of Anubis from a shoe-box. They decorated all sides with Egyptian drawings, and they added a Senet (an ancient Egyptian game that resembles backgammon) board to the top. We have yet to play--maybe this coming week.

READING COMPREHENSION: We read through the first 5 "chapters" of the Iliad, and the students are trying really hard to keep the characters straight. They all agree that the story, so far, is riveting, but the introduction of so many (seemingly superfluous) characters is odd and clunky at times. We've discussed the possibility that Homer, in an effort to attract crowds to his traveling recitations, would add characters with local appeal. It seems plausible to me. If anyone out there knows something about that, please comment.

The above, in addition to internships, pretty much wrapped up our week. We did take a break on Thursday to enjoy one of our student's performances at The Children's Theater. Also, I'm writing the original of this post in long hand as we are currently traveling to our co-op in Gorham to attend a dinner/talent show/dance organized by the students. Good luck to both Sophie and Sarah on their performances this evening. With 175+ students attending, there should be quite a crowd!

Week 14

I'm going to have to make this week's update short as both Carol and I are going on a "retreat" this weekend to do some much needed planning for mid-term exams and portfolio organization. Don't cry for us, though. I'm sure we'll get a few hands of cards in, too. So, as a quick wrap-up, this is what we covered this past week:

• All of the kids designed a Prezi for their problems in Life Skills Math. As Sophie spoke of last week, they had to come up with specific demonstrations that would be presented at a (fictional) job fair. I was pleased with how quickly they caught on to the Prezi format, and they made me promise that I would require similar projects in the future.
• In Logic, we finished our work with Categorical Symbolic logic and moved on to Propositional Symbolic logic. Why is this necessary? All symbolic logic (especially Propositional) is a great introduction to Algebra and Trig. Once a student becomes familiar and comfortable with the symbols and properties of Propositional logic, those pesky high school problems that call for "proofs" will be second nature. Our introduction focused on the distributive, reflexive, and associative nature of arguments.
• We continued to drill our Latin vocabulary and derivatives.
• In Ethics, we began reading St. Exupery's The Little Prince, discussing the various ethical statements made in the author's retelling of a supposedly true event.
• In History, we are still in the Archaic and Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt. As we study the dynasties from I-VII, students are making flip-books to help remember the order of the pharaohs.
• We began our Science unit on moss and liverworts this week. After collecting in the field, we brought our specimens inside for dissection and study under the microscope. We also began discussing moss' two-generation reproduction oddity.
• We had a spelling test on last week's words and derivatives. The test this week mimicked the game Othello. Sarah and Sophie battled it out to the end; Sarah was victor.
• We introduced Homer's biography, and we began our reading of the Iliad.
• We completed work on identifying the Object of the Preposition in Grammar. This was exciting as now we are able to diagram basic sentences in their entirety . The kids were most excited about this!
• We started our first week at The Telling Room. We will be spending our Wednesday afternoons here, working on various writing projects and participating in workshops.
• We also had co-op (Odyssey of the Mind, Digital Photography, Writer's Guild, Journalism, and Robotics) plus our day at internships.

Over the next two weeks, we will be adding a school day to the week in an attempt to prepare for the upcoming mid-term exams. Mid-terms are a "first" for all of our students, and we'll be sure to report on how they go.

Thank You

I just wanted to take a minute to thank all of you that have signed up to get our updates by email.  I have just checked our "stats" and was happy to see so many!  But, (isn't there always a but?) I also want to remind you to check the blog every now and then as we are adding new and fun things from our students.  We now have a Photo Album of projects and activities and also a School Projects page.


I hope everyone is enjoying our updates. We would love to hear any comments or questions you may have so feel free to leave a comment on the blog.  Also, if anyone would like to visit our "classroom" just let us know.  We would love to have visitors!


Carol

Week 12 and 13

Last week we had a “Best Of” week. That means we got to pick what subjects we wanted to do and when. On Monday, we chose: (in order) Life Skills Math, Writing and Reading Comp. Then for Tuesday, we chose: (in order) History and Science. It was great to be able to pick what we wanted to have our subjects be. In Reading Comp. we read The Epic of Gilgamesh. Believe it or not, the version that we read was awesome! (It wasn’t the original version you’d read in High School. You know, the one that made no sense). On Tuesday in History, we got to make our objects that we picked last week in a Sumerian style. Mine object was a spoon, (first thing that popped into my head) Able’s was weapons, (Boys. Figures.) Sarah’s was transportation, (I cannot wait to compare all the different types of wagons) and Mommy’s was dolls (their dolls were actually cute). So each time in History that we get into another time period we make another one of our objects in the style of that time. It’s really fun!

Finally, we’re into this week. On Monday, we had Life Skills. But this week it was better than EVER! It was awesome! Instead of rolling the dice, we each had our own problem. What we each had to do was make a Powerpoint, Prezi, Keynote or something that was like that. In it, we have to have at least five slides about our job. I need to make an outline for a sitcom that would make people want to watch my show instead of those other boring shows that are the same plot every single time. Therefore, I’m making a trailer for my show that’s about a nerd girl, (played by me) and her genius younger brother. (played by my younger brother, Able)

In Reading Comp, we finished reading Greek myths. In Ethics, we studied gratitude, and watched an Exiled. Exiled is about 18+ year olds who are spoiled brats, and are sent to third world countries for a week. They’re pretty funny. We also had Latin. We reviewed what we learned and played Latin charades, where we got a word and we had to guess (in Latin) what people were acting out. On Tuesday, we finished Gilgamesh.L Then in Science, we went out a found a bunch of moss samples. When we went back inside, we tried to identify them all. We got pretty close. In History, we finished up Mesopotamia and Sumer, and we began our unit on Ancient Egypt. On Wednesday we did grammar, where we had a diagramming race, (it was really fun) and got 14 min. on the first try and 6 min. on the second. Then we had a spelling test. But instead of just writing the words, we played hangman spelling. If we spell a word right, we erase a part of someone else’s body. But if we don’t get it right, then we don’t erase anything. (By the way, Able won). After that, we got our new words and derivatives. Next, up we had writing. We each worked on our own project for an hour.

On Thursday, we went to Co-op and had a great time! And today (Friday) we had our internships. I can’t tell you how much I love my internship! One of the babies has started standing up and taking some steps by himself! Today was the first time I saw him do that, and I was so excited! Anyways these last two weeks have been really fun! I can’t wait for next week!

Written by Sophie Kaplan

P.S. Come see Santa’s Reindeer Review at the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine! For all ages. December 9-23. It’s going to be great! And if you happened to see it last year, come again. You’re in for a surprise! Hope to see you there! For more information or to purchase tickets go to http://www.kitetails.org/ -Sophie