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

Week 11

Monday

Hi everyone, this is Sarah, the girl who is doing the NaNo WriMo contest. (National Novel Writing Month.) This week we started our Monday morning with life of Fred. Our teacher, after that, gave us a lecture about subtracting, adding and basic multiplication of fractions. After Fred we rolled the dice again in Life Skills Math. My scenario was that my boss had to cut some stuff out of the department and my department was chosen even though we worked hard. I can either take a two week, unpaid vacation and write about what I did on my vacation or I could look for another job. (I haven't decided yet what I will choose). After Life Skills, we had Ethics. In Ethics we learned about loyalty and what you have to do to be loyal. After Ethics we had Logic and in Logic we discussed "And" and "Or" sentences. We also learned about double negative sentences. In Latin we did some dialogue sentences and we did some vocab flash cards.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we started with History and learned about the Sumerian civilization and how they invented the wheel, the modern day clock, cuneiform writing, and reed houses. Our teacher also showed us the basic outline of a Sumerian city. Next we had Geography and we made cuneiform tablets with notes in them for the future us. In Science we went hunting for leaves, and we also identified the different types of the leaves. We also identified the different parts of the leaf. Last but not least we had Life of Fred.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we started off with spelling. This week was different than any other spelling test. Instead of getting pelted with balls we had a hangman version of spelling. If we spelled a word right or got a word derivation right we got to erase one body part from another classmate. If they erased one of your body parts you would have to go without that body part. For example if one of the students erased my eye, I would have to close that eye for the rest of the game. Next we had reading comprehension and we read about the Greek god Apollo and Daphne and how he fell in love with Daphne when Cupid hit him with an arrow of love but he hit Daphne with an arrow of lead making her have a hatred for all men. We also read about the labyrinth and the Minotaur. Next we had writing. Sophie is working on her novel, Able is working on his comic book, and I am writing the blog. Last we had grammar and we learned about Pronouns acting as adjectives and about possessive nouns acting as adjectives. Tomorrow is co-op (Yeah!). At co-op Sophie and Able have Odyssey of the Mind in the morning and I have a writer's guild class. In the afternoon Sophie and I have photography and we are also on a planning committee for co-op events. Able is doing Lego Robotics and a Manga art class. Friday is internship day. I work at a barn learning natural horsemanship, Sophie goes to a daycare, and Able works at a Veterinary hospital. Hope everyone who has read this blog knows how to spell. If you don't, learn quickly or tennis balls will be in your future.

 

Blog made by Sarah Cyr. (Student)

Week 10 photos

Here are the photos that Jen mentioned in her blog.  Sorry for the delay - it seems the "teacher" isn't quite up to snuff on all this technology stuff.  Something we are working on. 

Week Ten

Before going into detail on what we covered this week, I would like to congratulate two of our students, Sarah and Sophie. Sarah is a participant in the National Young Writers program, and her most recent project is to be completed by the end of this month. Only 10 days into the month, she has completed her writing goal, has 11 chapters under her belt, and has the remaining 20 days to finish the first draft of her novel. Good job, Sarah. I know how hard you've been working!

Sophie has been a part of the Children's Theater Youth Voices troupe, and after several weeks of long rehearsals this show will open to the public tonight. This particular show will run throughout the weekend. Good job, Sophie. We're very proud!

So, what could we have completed this week between frantic typing and car rides to Portland?

• In Life Skills math, our students figured how to handle their second scenarios. The kids have been lucky so far in rolling positive scenarios. I think the most difficult has been when one student had to "train for a marathon". He had one week to train and then run a mile under a certain amount of time (in real life) in order to collect a monetary reward. All money is deposited into their accounts for discretionary spending or investments. He has been considering the stock market...
• In addition to our Life of Fred math, we've been drilling multi-digit multiplication and long division. I have noticed some improvement over the last few weeks.
• We sorted our Latin vocabulary into noun/verb/adjective/other lists. Then, we figured which of our verbs fell into 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th conjugations. For fun, we read from our Minimus text, learning about the history of Hadrian's wall.
• Our Logic class focused on continued work with the symbols of "If-Then", "If-And", and "If-Or" statements. Students are also learning the importance of sorting fully formed arguments into premises and conclusion.
• In Ethics, we had a very interesting discussion about politeness. We began with the somewhat quainter rules of politeness (see Emily Post) and moved on to the vaguer world of internet etiquette. We also examined some of the lessons taught American business men when traveling for work to Japan.
• Science class introduced students to the anatomy of trees. This week served as the first half of the introduction, and students learned to identify and labeled bark, phloem, cambium, xylem, and heartwood on their wood slices. We also spent some time doing our own "forest forensics". Students would consider the shape of a tree in addition to its ring history to hypothesize fire damage, drought, disease and other infestations, overpopulation, and wind damage.
• Students have been studying Mesopotamian and Sumerian irrigation practices. This week, each student was presented with a clay model that included a town, rivers, and streams. The students had to plant their "crops" and contain their "livestock" in an appropriate space relative to the houses and to the water source. They then had to construct an irrigation system (using only wood, clay, rock, and/or string) that was manually powered. This irrigation system had to handle excess water from the wet season; have storage facilities for the dry season; and it had to provide access for the inhabitants of the town. One other thing, the irrigation system had to prevent flooding of the houses. We'll try to get some pictures up to show you how they did. Be sure to look carefully for a shadoof and a working bridge made of twigs!
• Besides continued review in Grammar, we began the first step in diagramming sentences! You wouldn't believe how excited the kids are about this. I told them that it was quickly becoming a lost art, and somehow it's managed to nudge its way into their imaginations as something akin to hand balancing, flea circuses, and dime museums. =
• In Word Derivation and Spelling, we had a quiz and students received their new words and derivations.
• In Reading Comprehension, we continued our study of the Greek gods focusing on the epic of Perseus.
• Writing was really more of the same: two are working on novels; one continues (slowly) on his graphic novel.

In addition to co-op (we're loving our new classes!) and internship day (no Veteran's Day vacation here), we've had a busy week. So, that's it until next Friday; I need to practice my splits for next Grammar class...

Week Nine

It's hard to believe that we are 50 days into our school year. The students and I feel that the weeks are flying by. Of course, the kids think this is great. I, however, panic. I worry about how much more material we have to cover; how many more projects we should complete; how many more field trips need to be scheduled. My academic brain realizes that we're doing fine. My compulsion-riddled mind still worries...

This was our big review week at Pownal Independent. None of our students have had prior experience with mid-terms and finals. I used this week, the mid-semester point, to explain how those exams will be taken and what those exams will look like. It was my hope that this week of mid-semester review and note taking will help to provide the framework for economical study habits. I am hopeful.

Here's what we did:

• In Independent Math, in addition to our Life of Fred work, we drilled fractions, multi-digit multiplication, and long division for time. You might be thinking that students at this level shouldn't be needing the multiplication and division drills, however my real intention was, and continues to be, to un-learn the "lattice" methods [a.k.a Vedic] that they've practiced, and reteach using the "old school" method. Why, you might ask? While the Vedic method might help a student see what one is being asked to do when first learning multiplication, this "lattice" method is simply more time consuming and prone to errors.
• We continued drilling our symbolized logic. We have been analyzing "if, then" arguments, using the classic premise/premise/conclusion form.
• We reviewed all of our Latin vocabulary using a call-and-response method along with game playing.
• We examined how early civilized man moved from the Stone Age to the Chalcolithic (stone and copper) Age and eventually into the Bronze Age. We attempted to find the melting point of copper using blow tubes on hot coals. Though we didn't actually melt our copper, we did heat it to malleability. Each student was able to forge a blade, and we'll be attaching our blades to handles to produce tools and weapons. After hypothesizing how the copper and tin needed for bronze might have been accidentally combined so long ago, we tried really hard to recreate the experience. We learned that we need a better forge in order to make this happen successfully. Perhaps making a better forge is in our future...
• In Science, we are studying flowering plants and fruits. We dissected two different kinds of flowers: lilies and alstromeria. We identified the male reproductive organs: the stamen which is comprised of the anther and the filament. We also identified the female reproductive organs: the carpel which is comprised of the stigma, style, and ovary. We reviewed the steps from pollination to fruit and seed production, and we entered all of this information into our lab books. Apples and grapes were dissected to identify the aged sepals and anthers, and the ovary. We then used this information to help identify these same parts of the Dragonfruit. Lastly, we slit the anther to release young pollen to view under the microscope.
• New spelling words and a whole new batch of Latin derivatives were delivered for next week's quiz.
• We heavily reviewed our Grammar as we will be starting sentence diagramming next week. In order to begin the basics of diagramming, students need to be very comfortable identifying subjects, finite verbs, modal verbs, prepositions and phrases, predicate nouns and adjectives, direct objects, indirect objects, pure adjectives, and adverbs.
• In Reading Comp., we began our unit on Greek mythology, comparing Greek archetypes with those found in our Old Testament studies.
• In Writing, two of our students continue work on their novels, one of which is to be submitted to the National Young Writers Alliance in December. Our third student has begun a graphic novelette.
• Our second semester at the co-op began, and our students are taking courses in digital photography, Odyssey of the Mind, performance direction, 2-D art class, Lego Robotics, NXT, and Power of the Wind. We also have a student teaching her own Writer's Guild!

Lastly, as a follow-up to those of you who had expressed concern about our "abbreviated classroom hours", I did a little research as your questions piqued my curiosity. The standard unit used in most high schools, colleges, and universities is the Carnegie Credit (CC). CCs are rarely used at the middle school level, however, in a typical high school year, students are expected to complete 5 CCs per year for a total of 20 CCs to graduate. Normally, the Carnegie computation takes into account work done outside of class, too. That being said, I was curious how Pownal Independent would measure up IF it needed to report its CCs. I totaled our pure class time for an amount of 4.27 CCs per year. Any homework or research time is not calculated in that total. Neither have I calculated co-op nor internship time. So, by my estimation, we are well within the typical 5 CCs required of high school students. Just some info for those of you who asked...

Week Eight

On Monday of this week, we had two periods of math back-to-back. I know that sounds like torture to have 2 hours of math but it was awesome! The first was our Life of Fred math. That one is just math made into a story with problems to do. But the second period was Life Skills Math, and that was AWESOME!!!! First we talked about the differences between capitalism, socialism, and communism. I think I’d like to live on a kibbutz some day! Then, we got to pick our first scenarios! Our scenarios go like this: every week each of us rolls three dice. Depending on the odd and even combination, we get a problem that we have to solve. For example, I got even-even-odd, and that is a positive windfall scenario. My specific “problem” was that the IRS owed me money for overpaying my taxes. If I can figure out how much they owe me (12% of my annual salary), I get that money in my checking account to spend! Not all of the scenarios are positive. Half of the time you’ll get a negative scenario. For example, your aunt is sick and you need to fly to California to visit her. Then you have to find a real live ticket on the internet and fake purchase it. You have to take the total out of your account. We also had logic which was hard but it was kind of cool. We are learning about logic symbols, especially “if-then” statements and how you can take an argument and break it down into symbols to see if it’s true or false. Here was one we did, and in it D= “dinosaurs exist”, I= “invisible horses are polka-dotted, and E= “elephants have wings”. The argument was “Either dinosaurs don’t exist, or elephants don’t have wings. But if elephants don’t have wings, then invisible horses are not polka-dotted. However, invisible horses are polka-dotted. Therefore, dinosaurs don’t exist.” Don’t worry, the first time I heard it I was lost at “But if…” It is very confusing to know if this is a true statement. So, you write it in these crazy symbol things and it would be

• Dà~E and Eà~D and ~Eà~I . Therefore, Ià~D. And eventually you figure out that it is true in this case. Anyway, if your brain isn’t fried yet then I’ll go on to Tuesday…

Tuesday was wicked fun! We played this game in History where the three of us were the leaders of early cities. I was the city of Amut; Able was Meso; Sarah was Potum.

Each city had strengths and weaknesses. The object of the game was to keep your city going and your citizens happy. On your turn you could trade, battle or alliance. I had a lot of weapons, so I had a lot of strength. But I didn’t have much for crops or salt. I needed to be nice to trade for those things or my citizens would have a civil war. Plus, you wanted to conquer the other cities sometimes if you needed stuff that they wouldn’t trade you. If you wanted to go to war, you had to roll the dice to see what the outcome would be. If you were stronger, you lost fewer people and got more stuff. Able and Sarah made an alliance near the end of the game. They became a city-state called Meso-Potum. Finally they conquered me, and the new city-state became Meso-Potum-Amut, otherwise known as Mesopotamia. Later that day, in Science we did two lab experiments. We were studying how flowering plants take water and sunlight, make food, and give off oxygen. The formula we were proving was: light + water + CO2 = sugar + oxygen.

Wednesday wasn’t at all like Tuesday. First we had a long Spelling and Word Derivation exam. Then in Reading Comp. we read about the death of King Saul, the reign of King David, Solomon’s 40 year reign, and the building of the first temple. We had writing before lunch, and I worked on this blog. After a filling lunch at Edna and Lucy’s, we headed back. The last period of the day was grammar. We’re still reviewing Predicate Nouns and Adjectives, Direct Objects and Indirect Objects, but we also started on the difference between adverbs and adjectives. This is our instructor’s biggest pet peeve.

Of course on Thursday we had Co-op. This week was the Halloween party so it was crazy. I was upstairs the whole time doing a Haunted House, but I heard it was hectic downstairs. Anyway, the Haunted House was really fun; plus, we had fake blood and everything! We decided to run the fog machine so it would be foggy before we started. But no, that didn’t work. Yep, you guessed it. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!” The fog apparently was too thick or something and it triggered the fire alarm. It was still really fun and next week we start our second semester of classes. I’m taking Odyssey of the Mind for two periods, Digital Camera, and a period for organizing the holiday performances in December.

Today I went to my internship which I love! The babies are sooooo adorable! They know me now and they cry when I leave. I got a packet of information about early childhood development, and I am going to go to a few night classes at the University with some of the other people that I work with. That was it for this week!

Written by Sophie

[Pownal Independent School can not be held responsible for any brain damage caused by any confusing symbol content]

Week Seven

I hate to disappoint, but I have decided to give the kids a break and write this week's blog. I can assure you that it won't be nearly as political nor accusative as those of the past few weeks. Evidently, China really hits a nerve... Sinophobia is SO last century, guys.

Moving on. We decided to reward our students this week with a morning out to see Around the World in 80 Days at The Public Theater in Lewiston. The show ends this weekend, but if you have any opportunity to go, we highly recommend it. It's hysterical. Not once during the two hour performance did the energy on stage wane. I believe that the kids did pick up a bit of geography while there (along with some heavy-handed cultural stereotypes).

In addition to our field trip, we did cover a bit of ground in some of our subjects. The students are continuing work on fractions, but, we did introduce some of the more interesting aspects of math in an attempt to answer that age old question "when are we ever going to use this?" Our early morning Monday lecture introduced infinite series, fractals, binary trees, and the undeniable beauty of two color graphs of even degree. Oh, and more importantly, we learned how to "doodle" examples of each. I don't believe I've ever seen fiercer notebook margins.

Other topics covered this week:

• In Life Skills Math, students compared the cost of public transportation in their chosen city/town with the cost of owning a car.
• In Ethics, we studied the value and social significance of perseverance.
• We continued our study of the invalidity of "proof" by lack of counter-example in Logic.
• We worked on vocabulary, word derivations, and the introduction of future tense suffixes in Latin.
• We practiced for our cumulative spelling exam.
• We continued diagramming the predicate noun, predicate adjective, direct object and indirect object in Grammar.
• We read about the early battles between the Philistines and the armies of King Saul which led rise to the reign of King David.
• Work continues on independent novels and writing prompts. One of our students has begun the arduous work required of members of the National Young Writers Program.

Last, but by far not least, I would like to publicly thank both Karen and Carmen of the Pownal Veterinary Hospital. Not only have they provided the Pownal Independent School with material for our microscopes, but they have also been hosting one of our internships. Our nine year old student has been attending at the hospital on Fridays for the past seven weeks, and the opportunities provided him have far outdone any of my expectations. He has viewed a host of examinations and medical procedures. In fact, two weeks ago he participated in an ovariohysterectomy. Not only did he watch the entire procedure (from intubation to recovery), but Karen and Carmen took time to explain which organs were being removed and why. He reported out that he also saw the bladder and the small intestine and that the whole process was "Awesome. Gross at first, but then it was just neat." I can't thank them enough for providing such a great learning environment.

Week Six

I love homeschool! It's not boring because we do a lot of trips and projects. Even History is interesting. It's really just a long story. Reading Comprehension is fun, too, because we always stop at a cliff hanger which makes me feel like I can't wait for next week. I also like that I don't have homework. Well, sometimes we have to finish the stuff we didn't finish in the day.

This past week we made clay houses in History. They were models of the houses in the first cities. My house was from Catalhoyuk in Turkey. Catalhoyuk is important because it was one of the first cities ever to have a population over 10,000. Sarah and Sophie made round houses from an early city on the Yellow River in China. Sarah had a problem making the roof of her house because she made her house extra large. She couldn't make the roof work, and she couldn't make it strong enough to stand up. That's exactly what happened in China! A square house is easier to make larger and stronger. That's why early humans stopped making round houses and moved to square or rectangle

houses. I made a square house. Catalhoyuk houses had their doors in the roof so it was safer [harder for invaders to get into the houses]. Also, you had more room to build houses because you didn't need to worry about walkways. You could just build right up next to the other house. And, you had a second floor which was the roof, and you didn't have to use any wood or mud to make it! You just walked and cooked and slept on the roof if you wanted to.

This week we also made four different food webs in Science. And for Life Skills Math, we actually went to the grocery store to add up our weekly grocery bills that we had made. My grocery bill is $201.59 a week. I'm expensive.

I want someone in China to read this blog, so please email it to your friends in China if you have any. I love China. The people are so cool. The Chinese will rule the world because they are the hardest workers [Note: the opinions of the blogger are his and have not, in any way, been inculcated, indoctrinated, nor instilled by the instructors of Pownal Independent School.] Anyways, China is awesome! Don't forget I said that when you rule the world. Please leave all of your comments below. I will be blogging here again in four weeks. Just to clarify, the comments don't need to be nice.

I can't wait for homeschool next week.

By: Able H. K. (nine year old student)

Week Five

Monday
 This week we had some interesting classes that all of us loved. First class was Independent Math. We are still doing fractions with Life of Fred. Next class was Ethics. In ethics we learned about courage and trust. We were partnered up with different people and one person had to guide the other, by voice, while the other was blindfolded. The tricky part was the guider had to guide their partner through a maze of mouse traps. Luckily we had gloves on and no one got hurt. Next we did Logic. We learned about "Proof" by lack of a counter-example. This means that if you don’t have a counter-example it doesn’t necessarily mean that the statement is true. In Latin we learned our second conjunction. (-o , -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt.) We also played Vinco(Pronounced winco), my favorite game. We also caught up on what Minimus the mouse was up to.
Tuesday
Our first class was history. We learned about Otzi the iceman and learned who he was, and his cause of death. We also learned about the first city, Jericho. Next we learned about the Nile, Tigris, and the Euphrates rivers and the first farming communities in Geography. In science we learned about what overpopulation can do to a habitat and the animals living there. To understand it completely we played a game called ‘Oh Deer!’ It’s a game where you have twenty-five generations. You start off with three deer and one wolf. The wolf has to touch three deer to live. With every living animal it produces one offspring, including the deer. At the end of the day we wrapped up with more Independent Math.
Wednesday
Our first class was Spelling. In spelling we played Spengo(Bingo, but spelling Bingo) with our old words. Then we had a spelling test with our new words and our word derivatives. If we got any letter or answer wrong our teacher pelted a tennis ball at us. You would think that’s harsh but it helped us spell better. For example, terrestrial was one spelling word. If you spelled it terestial the teacher yelled NO and threw the tennis ball at you. Now we know to study more. Also our new spelling words were passed out. Next was reading comprehension. We read where Joseph accepts his family back to Egypt. We also read a story about a stubborn pharaoh and the ten plagues. Then we learned about predicate nouns, predicate adjectives and direct and indirect objects in Grammer. This is one sentence we had to do. Can you tell which is the subject, verb and PN (Predicate Noun)? You are my little brother, and I am your good little sister. (Hint: Look carefully) Writing was the last subject and right now Sophie is writing her novel, Able is writing about the writing prompt and I’m writing this blog. Tomorrow is Co-op and Friday is internship day! Next week will be a killer. (Literally)
Written by Sarah Cyr. (Student)

Week Four

Monday

This week, Pownal Independent School went to the 4-H day at the Cumberland Fair. We each had a booklet that our teacher made that had activities for each barn. For example, in the rabbit barn we had to tally the different breeds of rabbits. The most popular breed was the Satin, but the Netherland Dwarf was a close second. One of my favorite breeds was the Lionhead. I also liked the Miniature Lop. We also looked at the cows. There, we got to draw our favorite cow (or calf in my case), looking for the differences in the breeds. We also visited the poultry, the goats, the sheep, and the horses. After watching some Oxen pulling, we headed to lunch and a look around the agricultural museum.

Tuesday

Today we had Latin, Logic, Ethics, and Independent and Life Skills Math. In Latin, we played "Vinco" ("wink-o" which means "I conquer") which is the Latin version of Bingo. The teacher would call out a word, and if she says a word in English, you looked for the Latin word on your card. If you had it, you crossed it out. If she called out the Latin word, you looked for the English. In Life Skills Math, we learned about credit and how fast interest and penalties add up on a credit card. We made our own credit cards, and we had to figure out how to pay our school and house bills. Should we use a loan or a credit card? In Logic we learned about the problems with general statements and the differences between counter-statements.

Wednesday

Today in Spelling we had a spelling test. After that, we played a game to help us learn our new spelling words. Before that, we had Grammar. We reviewed subjects, finite verb phrases, and modal verbs. Next week, we're learning direct and indirect objects and predicate nouns and predicate adjectives. In Reading Comprehension, we are reading the story about Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. Each time we have Reading Comp., we draw a picture to add to our wall timeline. Word Derivation is the next class. We learned the derivations of "do" ("I give"=donate, donation), "creo" ("I believe"=credibility, credit), "clamo" ("I shout"=clamor), "terra" ("earth"=terrestrial, territory), "avis" ("bird"=aviary, aviation), etc. ("et cetera"=and all the others). At the end of the day we had Writing. I wrote this blog. Able worked on the writing prompt, and Sarah worked on her novel. Tomorrow we go to the Co-op, and on Friday we go to our internships (which is really fun!). I get to work at a daycare! My favorite subjects are probably Grammar and Spelling. That's it for the week!

P.S. Thank you to Carol, our lunch lady, who makes us awesome lunches every day!

Written by Sophie (student)

Week Three

I was planning out the schedule for next week when I realized that Rosh Hoshana falls on Thursday. "We have a short week coming up," I tell the kids. "No school on Thursday, ok?" Instead of squeals of glee, I hear "Are we going to miss Latin?" "Can we do grammar on Saturday?" That's weird, right? I can assure you that their disappointment in missing the two classes that I anticipated as being hated isn't a nod to any wondrous teaching abilities on my part. Neither is it that I happened upon students who tend to be particularly masochistic. The only way I can explain it is that students (most students) want to be challenged. If you demand something from them that they (or others) thought too boring, too obsolete, not flashy enough, too much memorization, or just beyond their reasoning abilities, they tend to rise to the occasion. At least, that has been my experience here in this short time.

The list of things we covered this week for our obligatory record keeping:

• Continued work in Independent Math
• Paying for (taking out loans) for our houses and education in Life Skills Math.
• In Ethics, the fine line between "compassion" and "voyeurism"
• In Logic, the distinctions that separate discussion from disagreement from argument from fight
• Learning the irregular verb "sum" and its conjugation in Latin
• Mapping the flight of Homo Sapiens Sapiens and the land bridges formed during the Great Ice Age
• Mushroom dissection and learning how mushrooms grow and reproduce
• The death of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis
• The introduction of Modal verbs and an introduction to direct and indirect objects in grammar
• Continued drafting and writing of novels
• New spelling words derived from the Latin words "credo" [I believe], "laudo" [I praise], "canus" [dog], and "domus" [house]
• Comparing the archetype of the "trickster" seen in the stories about Esau and Jacob and then again in the stories of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel

I am not exaggerating when I say that I spent our 30 minute car ride to our large co-curricular co-op yesterday making up sentences for them to parse. "Give me a sentence with a modal verb and a direct object and an indirect object!" Bizarre. But I also heard this: "Ask me to do a first conjugation verb [this is Latin] in the present tense. But not 'amo'. Make it harder." If you don't believe me, ask them yourself. But be sure to have a bit of time because you won't get away easily.

Week Two

The second week is down and we're still here. I find that in the afternoons, when I'm picking up the classroom, I have the time to reflect on how hard these kids are working and what a big leap of faith they have taken to be here. I am so proud of them.

At this moment, our students are back at their internships. Each has a journal to keep track of their duties, report on how the day's work brought them closer to their internship goals, and have their overseers sign off on how students spent their mornings. Before they left for the working world, I did manage to get a few quotes from them regarding this past week:

• Writing my novel is my favorite.
• I loved designing and modeling my living space in Life Skills Math.
• Looking for mushrooms and lichen was fun.
• I was surprised Homo Sapiens Sapiens outlived both Homo Sapiens Heidelbergensis and Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. [And yes, they did use the genus, species, and sub-species names on their own. I didn't enhance that quote.]

Other topics covered this past week that didn't make the "quote cut" were:

• Fraction logic in Independent Math
• How to read a pay stub and figure out where all those taxes and deductions go, and how to compute and price the square footage of their designed houses/apartments in Life Skills Math
• Is honesty always the best policy in Ethics
• The assent from Australopithecus to Homo Ergaster and on to the variations of Homo Sapiens in History
• Labs for learning the Linnaean taxonomy in Science
• More drilling in subject/predicate/finite verb identification in Grammar
• Derivations from the Latin verbs amo [I love] and credo [I believe]
• The most common symbolism and archetypes found in the Hebrew bible [from Abraham to the flight of Jacob]
• The awarding of the first Spelling Bee Scholar Dollar to Sarah!

In addition, we attended our first extended homeschool co-op group in Gorham. With over 175 kids ranging in age from 4-16, this co-op is a bit overwhelming but promises to be a great experience for our students. It is during these co-op hours that our students participate in Odyssey of the Mind, Cooking, Drama, Journalism, and Hip Hop dance. With the exception of Odyssey, these classes run for eight weeks; then a whole new schedule of options will be available.

It's a busy week, and it's a challenging week. But so far, I'm pretty confident that I can say it's a fun week.

Week One

Having finished our first week of school, all I can say is, "Phew". This response is not an exasperated one nor one of exhaustion. It is more a realization that these kids are far more capable than I had believed. Because of that, I'm realizing that I'm going to have to hustle to stay a few steps ahead of them.

I'm writing this update during my Friday morning block. My students are currently attending the first day of their internships. Today, we have students in the infant room at an area day care; a student studying at the Cathance River Educational Alliance; and one at a local veterinary hospital. We will reconvene at 1:00 back at the school for a "head's up" meeting about next week's schedule, and then we will depart for the Portland Public Library and an afternoon of research. Originally, I envisioned these Friday mornings to be leisurely chunks of time during which I would stroll the web for creative additions to our curriculum or quietly flip through student portfolios as I sipped coffee and congratulated myself for another successful week. Once again, the extent of my naivete shocks me. I better get moving; I've got a lot to do.

But we had a great first week, in my opinion. Just prior to writing class yesterday afternoon, I asked the kids to list some of the lessons they particularly enjoyed this past week so I could refer to them in this blog update. This was the list I was given:

• I liked the Life Skills class when we chose a career and got to make our own business cards.
• We learned about simple and compound interest and which is a better deal when we borrow money and which is better when we save money.
• During Ethics, I liked separating the arguments into Consequential [moral] reasoning and Categorical [moral] reasoning.
• The "amo" chant was fun. [Note: This is the 1st conjugation Latin verb for "I love". In fact, one student [on his own] applied this chant to another 1st conjugation verb "credo" [meaning "I believe"] and was rewarded with a Scholar Dollar!]
• The plant cell and animal cell experiments were AWESOME!
• I liked drawing for the time line. I also liked the flood stories from all around the world.

In addition to what was mentioned above, some of the less popular [but necessary] lessons we covered this past week included:

• Applying our plant and animal cell labs to a lesson on osmosis.
• Introduction to basic Logic.
• Receipt of our first spelling words.
• How to identify the subject, predicate, and finite verb in a sentence.
• The start of our writing projects. We have the beginnings of a comic book, a young adult mystery novel, and a prologue for a young adult horror story.
• Theories as to why our Australopithecus ancestors might have stood to become the first of the bipedal primates.

A pretty good week, I'd say.

Why Latin?

The most frequently questioned piece of classical education is its use of Latin. Why do students in the Information Age need something as arcane as Latin? There are three reasons Latin has long been considered the key introductory language to learn.

First, Latin is the mother tongue of Western civilization. All Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and subfamilies of) are descended from Latin. In fact, they are called Romance languages because their parent tongue, Latin, was the language of the Romans. When a student studies Latin first, any Romance language chosen for study later will be much easier to learn as they derive over 90% of their vocabulary from Latin.

Secondly, Latin teaches English better than English teaches English. Because Latin is taught to be read and not spoken, because it is taught entirely through its grammatical rules rather than the colloquial, students are able to gain a better understanding of the mechanics and structure of the English language. In fact, any other language, not just the Romance but German, Russian, and Arabic, become easier for a child with a foundation in Latin. Students are able to use their Latin knowledge to grasp the framework of all languages.

Thirdly, the mental discipline Latin instills in students makes it the ideal foreign language to study. Latin is systematic, rigorous, and analytical. For these reasons, Latin is superior to other languages in that, like English, modern languages are lax and individualistic and continue to evolve and reflect the modern temper of those who speak them. The study of Latin does foster precision in the use of words. Since one must read Latin closely and carefully, the student’s mind becomes accustomed to focusing on individual words and their usage. This closeness of inspection provides a model for careful reading and writing of English.

Furthermore, children learning Latin will quickly start to read the great classics of Latin literature. While Virgil, Ovid, and Tacitus are uncompromisingly difficult, they do offer students a lost world of literature. These great writers lie at the head of a western tradition in writing that enfolds Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, and Eliot. To be a good reader of English alone, knowledge of the literature of the Romans offers an inestimable advantage.

Lastly, students with even one year of Latin show a marked advantage over their peers in aptitude testing. Years of documentation have shown that Latin students continuously score higher than most other language students in writing and reading. The 2010 National SAT/ACT test results, available here, show that Latin learners perform better than students learning other languages in both critical reading and writing. Latin learners were outranked only by Asian language learners in mathematics. See below for a historical analysis of like data.

Studies conducted by the Educational Testing Service show that Latin students consistently outperform all other students on the verbal portion of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT).

		1997		1998		1999		2000		2001		2002		2003		2004
Latin		647		651		662		665		665		666		672		674
All Students		505		505		505		505		506		504		507		508
French		623		627		632		636		633		637		638		642
German		624		617		623		621		625		622		626		627
Spanish		581		583		590		589		583		581		575		575
Hebrew		629		634		636		623		628		629		628		630

1997-2004 Taken from Tables 7-3 & 7-4 in College-Bound Seniors — A Profile of SAT Program Test Takers.