Weeks 33, 34, and 35

As I write, my students are finishing their last day at internship. In fact, today is the last day of school for Pownal Independent School students. These last three weeks have been a whirlwind of wrap-ups, field trips, testing, and portfolio completion. I have really enjoyed this school year, and I think I can say that the kids did too. I want to thank Carol Cyr for always being a good support and for her delicious lunches that she served every day.

As a final, fun project, the students completed a letterboxing project that we hid at Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. They chose a history theme, and they came up with the questions and answers by themselves. They carved stamps for each box, and they also wrote explanatory text for each correct answer. For those of you not familiar with letterboxing, this won't make much sense. Perhaps if you give it a try, you'll find that it's quite fun. I am going to post the instructions here, on this site; I will also be posting them on the national letterboxing site, letterboxing.org. Enjoy!

START: Enter the main gate at Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. Park in the lower parking lot. Start by standing between the two swing sets with your back to the ocean. [NOTE: Incorrect answers will lead you to places where there are no boxes!]

YOUR FIRST QUESTION: Who was the great leader of the Myrmidons who now has a body part named after him?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS ACHILLES: Turn 45 degrees to your right and walk to the hill that you see across the field. From the base of the hill, walk 23 paces up the hill. You should have a large oak on your left and a hollow stump in front of you. Take a right at the stump and walk 10 paces. Turn to your left. There will be a rock formation in front of you with deep crevices. Box 1 is hidden in one of the crevices.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS ODYSSEUS: Turn 45 degrees to your left. You will see a small hill with a maple tree at its base. Walk to the maple tree. Turn right. Walk 20 paces. You will see a large, flat stone. Box 1 is hidden under the stone.

YOUR SECOND QUESTION: Which three species of Homo Sapiens lived at the same time?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS, HOMO SAPIENS PATHODENSIS, HOMO SAPIENS URITRICHENSIS: From the flat rock, face the ocean and cross the road in front of you. Approach the ruins of a building near the shore. Stand in front of the center door. You will see a barred window to your left. Reach between the bars and angle your hand to the left. You will feel Box 2 on a ledge to the left.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS, HOMO SAPIENS HEIDELBERGENSIS, HOMO SAPIENS NEANDERTHALENSIS: Look at the stone wall at the top of the hill. Follow the path at the top of the wall toward the ocean. Walk to the Goddard Mansion plaque. Take the path and follow the off-shoot to the right. Walk to the fence. Turn left and find Box 2 in a wall crevice.

YOUR THIRD QUESTION: King Tut was the son of which very strange pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS AHKENATEN: Walk back to the parking lot and go to the first handicap sign. Follow the gravel path to your left up the hill. Walk to the triplet birches growing out of the rocks. Climb up the slate mound and over the triangular rocks. Turn right. Go through two maples. Look to the left. Box 3 is in the crack that splits the rock.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS RAMESES II: Turn around and you will see a tarred path that goes to the left and up a slight hill. Follow that path. You will see a large boulder to your left. Walk past the boulder, heading toward the ocean. There will be a dirt path that branches to your left around a building ruin. Walk around the path to the back of the ruin. Two dead trees are on the ground and are in the shape of an "X". Box 3 is buried at the intersection of these trees.

YOUR FOURTH QUESTION: Which empire introduced the horse and iron weaponry to war?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS THE HITTITES: Walk back to the parking lot and look up the hill on the other side of the park. Walk to the flag pole on the far hill. Go over the hill and toward the Battery Memorial. Climb to the top of the memorial and walk to the right. There are four hollow pipes buried in the roof of the battery. Box 4 is inside one of them.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS THE BABYLONIANS: Walk back to the large boulder. Continue up and over the hill to the flag pole. From the flag pole, you will see the lighthouse. Walk down the hill, toward the lighthouse, until you get to a wooden fence. Follow the fence to the left until it enters the bushes. Turn 45 degrees and walk 10 paces. There will be a rock outcrop with three large stones on top. Box 4 is hidden within these stones.

YOUR FIFTH QUESTION: What does the name "Mesopotamia" literally mean?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS "WITHIN THE DRY LANDS": Walk back to where you can see the lighthouse. Approach the lighthouse and cross the road. Turn to your right and follow the path that leads you alongside the field. You will see two park benches. Walk to the second park bench. Turn to your right. The bench should be in front of you. You will see a stone wall. Box 5 is hidden within that stone wall.

IF YOUR ANSWER IS "LAND BETWEEN TWO RIVERS": Follow the path just beyond the pipes. The path will go through some trees and lead you to another concrete roof. Walk to the end of the concrete. You will see two paths. Take the path to the right. Walk down the hill until the brush doesn't allow you to walk any further. Turn around. Take 6 steps back up the path. Look to your right. You will see a dead lilac with many branches and rocks at its base. Box 5 is hidden within those rocks.

THAT'S IT! For those of you giving this a try, please remember to bring your own ink pad or marker to stamp your books. There are hand carved stamps in each box, and they each refer to the correct answer to the individual question. In addition, there is a little book for your comments in each box. Let us know what you thought! See you next year...

Weeks 31 and 32

I've been delinquent in getting these blogs out. I apologize. These last few weeks have been quite hectic. We have two students who are testing in the local public school for assessment, and they have missed several classes because of it. We also have another student who underwent her portfolio review with the State, and I'm pleased to say that she passed with flying colors! So, technically, she has moved onto the seventh grade. Our co-op is wrapping up, and last Thursday we had our last classes. Next week is our final week in Gorham, and we'll spend the day sharing what each class has accomplished.
In short, we've continued to plug along in all of our classes. Spring fever has officially hit, and in anticipation of that, I scheduled most of our field trips for the last few weeks. We took the kids to two fish ladders to see the alewife migration. One of them, Damariscotta Mills, is the state's oldest and most productive alewife fishery. We also went to the Bowdoin College Museum of Art to see their antiquities exhibit. The kids all agreed that antiquities are more interesting when you can recognize the influences (mostly Greek) and you know the symbolism. As for other planned field trips, we are going to the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor; we're going to try to get to the Science Museum in Boston; and we are attending the yearly "Homeschool Festival" in Bethel. We'll be tying up the loose ends in our classes, and lastly, we'll be cleaning up our space. Internships will continue to the bitter end, and I know of one student who will continue internship throughout the summer. It's safe to say that we're all looking forward to summer. The kids have worked so hard, and they deserve the break!

Week 30

I think I can safely say that we are all feeling the effects of this wet and cloudy weather. Here at the school, the energy level has been low this past week for all of us. Our routine was further disrupted by the fact that two of our students are taking the NEWA tests at the local schools for end-of-the-year assessments. Nonetheless, we did make some headway in several of our subjects.

The students have been expressing boredom with the math that we have been covering: using percentage, fractions, and decimals interchangeably and within word problems. I decided to take a break from that topic this week and cover a math concept that is a personal favorite of mine: algebra. The students were less than thrilled, almost all of them claiming to "HATE algebra". I assured them that we would not be examining multi-variable problems, yet. We walked through several single variable problems using a "put all of your cows on this side of the fence and all of your people on this side" method, and they seemed to catch on fairly quickly. And you know what? By the end of the second math class, I think they would all agree that algebra is a puzzle. Not "puzzle" in the sense that it is unsolvable, but "puzzle" as in "this can actually be kind of fun".

In Logic, we continued with our new unit in Propositional Calculus which neatly coincided with our Ethical unit on Aristotle. Basically, we've moved from the categorical logic of Socrates and the Sophists and the logic of the ancient courts to the consequential logic of Aristotle and the scientific "revolution" of Classical Greece.

In Latin, we introduced new vocabulary and English derivatives. We are also continuing our noun declensions. Declensions are tough only in that they require rote memorization. Through our prior translations, the kids have come to recognize some of the endings in an intuitive way: possession, direct object, subject. The others will come only through practice. One neat crossover from Latin to our Reading Comprehension: We have been reading all of the Greek play-writes, and the students are quite comfortable with the Greek names of the gods. We are just starting to hear about the Roman pantheon through the poems of Virgil. It gets confusing, sometimes, keeping track of which Roman god is which Greek god. A very logical approach (and granted, not one that works all of the time), is translating the Greek to Latin. For example, Zeus, the father of the gods, translates to Latin as Zeus pater. If you say that really fast a few times, you'll see how the Romans adopted the name Jupiter from the translation.

In History, we are continuing our study of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. This week we focused on Akhenaten (formally Amenhotep), his wife Nefertiti, and the son King Tutankhamun (formally Tutankhaten). We also looked at why several pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom seemed to have a couple of names. Very simply, the Middle Kingdom was a period of religious unrest. As each pharaoh took power, they either sided with the classical belief of Amun as supreme god, or they sided with the new cult of the sun, Aten.

In Science, we continued our study of Arthropods, class Insecta, specifically grasshoppers and locusts, with a dissection. We got these really HUGE grasshoppers online, and they were perfect for seeing the internal organs. In fact, one of them had a cache of un-laid eggs attached to the ovary!

On Wednesday, we had our weekly spelling quiz, and the students received a bunch of new prefix additions. They're picking the prefixes up very quickly. Many of them are similar or the same as the Latin, so they're easy to remember. In Grammar, we continued sentence parsing, focusing on identifying the types of pronoun in the sentence and the antecedents. We finished reading Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in Reading Comprehension, and we have moved on to Euripedes' Iphigenia in Aulis. Then, after lunch on Wednesday, we went to Portland to our writing workshop at The Telling Room.

Thursday was co-op day, and today our students are attending their internships. Another busy week!

Week 29

After a nice week long break, we are back at school. To get everybody warmed up we did some "easy" stuff. For example, we sat down and started right out on Ethics. You know, where you only have to think...a lot. We studied Aristotelian Ethics and ethics in the modern day. We compared Fatalism to Determinism. After that class, if you haven't already guessed, we were wide awake. Then we did Life Skills math and then jumped right into Latin. Now that class was...confusing. We started noun declensions. For those of you who don't know what that is, don't worry, I'll tell you. Noun declensions are endings that go on Latin nouns to tell the reader if the noun is a subject, direct object, predicate noun, direct noun or a indirect noun. Get it? Okay, of you don't then, sorry. For the rest of you, now you can act like you knew it all along. Then we did a new Cornelia. Now that was a different story. That part was interesting! For whole other reason, this was the best week EVER!!!!!!!!....so far. That is because it was Rue's first week at school. Rue, is my four month old puppy! And she gets to come to school with us! I posted a picture of her at the end of the blog. Anyways, getting back to our day, we all had lunch, then we did math. Just to give you an idea of how much Rue enjoyed math, when we started trying to figure out the problems, Rue fell asleep. On Tuesday we did History, where we traveled to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. We talked about Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, and his wife Nefertiti. Then we came back and had Science. We are moving onto crickets, grasshoppers, and locust. We read a bunch of books, and one of them was how people regularly eat grasshoppers. The book is called Man Eating Bugs. It shows a bunch of bugs people eat all around the world. Some of them are REALLY gross. And it comes with recipes. We learned that grasshoppers shed their skin like a snake about 5 or 6 times before they are adults. Each shed is called an "instar". When they grow wings, it means they are adults and stop shedding. The book also said that they lay 2-202 eggs. We all agreed that that was a big difference and not very helpful. Then after lunch we did math, again. And again Rue fell asleep. But not after she tried to eat my work. I guess she really doesn't like math. And that brings us to today. We started out with Reading Comprehension and read half of the play Oedipus Rex. After that we did spelling, in which we did prefixes and some Latin derivitives. I have a question for you: do any of you know a word with the prefex "dendr-" meaning tree or bush? We could only come up with dendrology and rhododendron. Just leave your answer in the comment section if you know more. Then it was time to go to the Telling Room, where I am writing this. And then, we have co-op tomorrow and internships on Friday. I cannot wait(of course)! It is just so fun! But enough of that, I have to wrap this up. So...the end. written by Sophie, (student)

Here is a picture of Rue! Isn't she so cute?

Weeks 27 and 28

Due to the onslaught of both Easter and Passover last weekend, I wasn't able to get to the blog, so I'll be reporting out on two weeks here. In addition, this wraps up our last week of classes before April break! I think I can speak for everyone when I say that it's a much needed and much deserved rest.

We've been experiencing a few cases of interesting synchronicity across and within several of our classes. In History, we've just left the Greek Dark Age for the Egypt of the New Kingdom (18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties). In Reading Comprehension, we finished Aristophanes' The Clouds and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, and we've moved on to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. We also happened to finish studying the Greek Theater in Ethics. Once we read Euripides, we've completed a work from each of the Greek play-writes.

In Ethics, we've left the Socratic and Platonic schools of thought, and we've moved onto Aristotle. Aristotle's more scientific approach to ethics branches into philosophy and a kind of applied logic called Propositional Calculus. The Sophists that we had been studying earlier in Ethics had used a basic form of logic that was easy to manipulate. They would use its manipulative nature to confuse and convince their audiences. In fact, the Sophists were the first "lawyers". My students, like Aristotle, had found basic logic frustrating. Now, knowing Aristotles' inclinations (through Ethics) and his rationale for Propositional Calculus (from Logic), the students are actually experiencing the relief that come with being able to PROVE why an argument doesn't "feel right".

Another example of "worlds colliding" occurred between our History/Reading Comprehension/Ethics classes. In history, we've been watching how various empires are fighting for boundaries: the Hittites, Hyksos, Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. We've seen references to these groups of people in the Greek plays that we've read. We're now able to answer questions like: Why was it so important for Oedipus to answer the riddle of the Sphinx?; what did this 'challenge' symbolize, historically?; what was Aristophanes' satirical criticism of Socrates based on?; weren't Aristophanes' frustrations due to the fact that he was applying Aristotle's logic to Socrates' arguments?

Lastly, we've continued our study of entomophagy as a jumping-off point for Science. We're moving into grasshoppers/locusts/crickets. In addition to their basic anatomy, we will be studying the various cultures who routinely eat them. It just so happens that we'll be starting our reading of the New Testament soon, and I'll be sure to point out that John the Baptist's "bread" that he ate during his stay in the desert was locust. And, we'll have to re-read our Old Testament passages that mention potential grasshopper sightings: Leviticus 11:22 specifically allows the eating of locust, grasshopper, and katydid. In addition, I'd like to suggest the possibility that the "manna" from heaven that sustained the Jews in the desert could have been locust swarms.

As you can see, there are lots of connections lately. There is nothing more rewarding to hear your student say "Oh, hey, that TOTALLY makes sense because..."

Week 26

Hello to all reading the blog this week!  This is Sarah back from a blog writing vacation.  I’ve actually been doing a multimedia workshop at the Telling room these past four weeks.  Go to the Telling room web site to see and hear our pieces!

This week in Life skills math we rolled for our scenarios.  This week, my scenario is that when I was at a club dancing, a big time producer saw me and asked me to make a two minute choreographed dance routine.  I could be famous!  (Metaphorically speaking)

In Ethics, we left Socrates and started learning about Aristotle.  He was one of Plato’s students after Socrates died.  He was the one that taught Alexander the Great, which was very fascinating to me.

In Logic we learned about consistency, necessary truths and contingency statements.  I know, it seems confusing, but once you learn the basics, it doesn’t fry your brain like an egg.

In History we finished our Assyrian mosaics and focused our attention on the rise and fall of New Babylonia, which we stitched into our maps which are coming out fantastically if you were wondering.

In Science our teacher found what she was looking for.  Whitchetty bugs.  Ha!  Fooled you!  We really didn’t eat them!  (We were very very pleased she didn’t find a supplier)  What we did was have eggs, shredded cheddar cheese, Filo dough in the oven.  Not one of us wanted to eat any but she persisted.  She said there was one secret ingredient in the mixture and we freaked, although they were particularly tasty.  Turned out, no secret ingredient.  She did that just to scare us a little, and said that’s what a cooked Whitchetty grub would taste like.  God knows what a raw one would taste like!  Yuck!  We also drew the larval stages of butterflies and moths.

In Grammar we learned about identifying and diagramming object complements.  Again, I know it seems like a lot to cram into your brain, but it’s very simple.  Here is an example.  I’ll help you.  The town appointed four people Selectmen.  First is the subject which is town.  The verb is appointed. The describes town and four describes people.  People is the direct object.  But we have Selectmen left.  The rule for an object complement is that if it follows the direct object and re-describes it, it’s an object complement.  So Selectmen is the object complement.  It might hurt your brain, but take it from me, my brain doesn’t hurt as I’m writing this.

In Spelling we have a change of plans.  Instead of studying the really boring long words (Sorry Jen) we’re doing prefixes.  Pretty simple you think, but think harder.  There are thousands  of prefixes that I can’t even tell you how many!  But we only learn the ones we’ll see around a lot.

In Reading Comp we left Homer and are now reading Prometheus Bound by Aechylus, but first, we’re reading about Greek tragedy, comedy, and Satyr plays and how they were performed and all kinds of other interesting things.  I know, seems boring to you reading this, but if you read the book we’re reading, you’ll be amazed.

I’m writing the blog from the Telling room and we have Co-op tomorrow and the new classes starting.  I’m in homemade cosmetics, my writer’s guild, and Greek drama (Coincidence?).  And Friday I’m back at Grapheteria working on framing and pictures with Jim and Lisa.  If you want a perfectly framed picture or a newly fixed copied photo, I recommend the best.  I hope to see you all back next week!  (Maybe I can convince Sophie to do the blog next week.)

Week 25

It's been a gorgeous week of unseasonably warm weather here. I think we can all agree that we're experiencing a bit of Spring Fever. Unfortunately, some illness kept us out of school on Wednesday, so it felt like a very short week. However, we did manage to get some work done. Two of the students have the State competition of Odyssey of the Mind on Saturday, and much of the time out of school has been spent preparing. Wish us luck! What we covered this week:
1. We had a fortunate convergence between Life Skills Math and Independent Math. Students have been working on the relationships between decimals, fractions, and percentages at their own pace in their Independent workshop. They also had to apply this knowledge to several "situations" presented to them in Life Skills. It's a great remedy to that age-old question "When are we ever going to use THIS?"
2. In Ethics, we read Aristophanes' The Clouds. Actually, we acted it out, and the kids loved it. For those of you unfamiliar with the play, Aristophanes was known as the father of Greek comedy. He also happened to be quite jealous and bitter about the fan-fare surrounding Socrates at the time. As the city of Athens considered their case against Socrates (and his eventual death sentence), they began one of the world's first nasty PR campaigns. They hired Aristophanes to write The Clouds, which is an absolutely hilarious satire of Socrates, his followers, and his school. Because it is chock-full of scatological humor and absurdities, the common folk of Athens LOVED it. And, of course, who wouldn't like to see such pomposity cut down a bit. Our students were thrilled to find that Greek Theater, which is so often considered pedantic, utilizes the same humor seen in movies like "Dumb and Dumber". Humans have not changed much...
3. In Latin, we completed another chapter translation of The Life and Times of Cornelia. The plot thickens as we now suspect that Cornelia's mother is responsible for poisoning members of the farming community!
4. In History, we studied the demise of Old Babylon and the rise of the Assyrians. Because this point in history gives rise to so many nations [Hittites, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Akkadians, Elamites, Amorites, etc.], we've found that using our map and acting out the battles, the expansions, and the defeats that take place between these rising empires helps the students visualize the political motivations behind each nation's decisions. Once again, we're learning that humans have not changed an awful lot...
5. In Science, we started a 10 week unit on Arthropods, specifically Insects and Arachnids. I'm using the subject of entomophagy (the eating of insects) as a jumping off point. This week we focused on the Witchetty Grub of Australia as a model for studying the insect larval phase. I'd love to find some samples to taste, if anyone out there happens to have a supplier...
6. We missed school on Wednesday, so we're behind on our C-Day classes [Grammar, Reading Comprehension, Spelling, Word Derivation, and Writing], but we'll make it up somehow.
7. Co-op was on Thursday. For those students in Odyssey of the Mind, it was a full day of practice. My non-Odyssey student, Sarah, spent the day in Writer's Guild, Small Animal Dissection, and Digital Photography.
8. Today is Internship. Abe's is at the veterinary office; Sophie is at the day care; Sarah is beginning her internship at the Salt Institute in Portland (a very prestigious placement, if you ask me).

That was it. Next week is supposed to be colder, so perhaps it'll be easier to buckle down.