The Short Week of Feb. 18: lots of stuff in a short week

Penny-whistle: We are working on several tunes now, and I’m encouraging everyone to take their whistles and books home on the weekends. Several of our tunes have chords printed on the music. If someone in your house plays an instrument suitable for accompaniment (guitar, banjo, piano, etc.), it would help your child practice in rhythm (albeit slowly) and hear how the melody’s structure is firmly entwined with the key and the chordal changes. Also, some of our tunes are duets (which, as I tell the kids, are “stolen” from a recorder book). Here again,  a parent or sibling might tackle one part while the whistle-player practices the other. We made PVC pipe cases for our whistles. Although penny-whistles are fairly sturdy in themselves, travel in a backpack can lead to all sorts of mysterious debris invading the mouthpiece.

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Cold Weather: Your children are quite durable in the face of chilly adversity, but their teachers are perhaps less so. On Wednesday, we came back to school to find that our building and several others had no heat. Chuck had called for service as soon as he knew (our alarm system includes a low-temperature sensor), but the building was so cold that it took all day for the rooms to reach a comfortable temperature. On Thursday, we were misled  into optimism by the warm rooms we found in the morning. On Friday, we had no heat again. Fortunately, we have few enough in our group that we could retreat to our breakout room with its lower ceiling and smaller space to get maximum benefit from a couple of oil-filled heaters and our big hot water pot that added some humidity. We discussed the nature of heat (it rises, and it seems warmer when humidity is higher) to make sure we let no teachable moment go unacknowledged, no matter how cold we are.

We didn’t let our children go outside for choice on Friday — it was just TOO cold — but did have them travel to specialists. At least one didn’t take a coat, and another left one in the music room. Please join with us in educating your children about safety in very low temperatures! In particular, they all need something to cover their faces: a ski mask or a warm wrap-able scarf would do. We’ll remind them to bundle up, but they need to leave home with the right winter-extreme gear.

Social Studies: As we have said before, we are into a short unit on the ancient Celts and Romans. We’ve done some general work with maps showing territory and language groups around the Mediterranean, started to read a delightful mystery/humor novel set in the city of Rome near its empire’s height, and are about to spend the next week looking at the daily life and larger history of the Celts, especially in Britain and Ireland. Our students are enjoying my collection of Asterix comics. We did a vocabulary lesson that centered around the many puns that are part of the text. For example, the village bard is called Cacophonix, and the seller of putrid fish is named Unhygenix. A Roman soldier is named Ignoramus, and a senator is called Larcenus. Even Asterix is a pun — he’s the little star of the story!

Holiday observances: We talked a bit on Wednesday about Lent, Ash Wednesday, and the day that came before —  popularly known as Pancake Day, Doughnut Day, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, and Carnival (among others). We talked about the Christian beliefs and traditions that are part of this time as well as popular but non-religious events, such as the pancake races often done in the Midwest.  What do you do when you need to get all of the meat and meat-based fat out of the house for 40 days of fasting and reflection in recognition of a holy sacrifice? Fried foods work for disposing of fats, and the partying of Carnival (whose name comes from the Latin word for meat) sets up a contrast with the somber days of Lent that follow. For some of our community, this is a matter of faith and belief. For the rest, it’s a matter of multi-cultural literacy: what are some of the people around us celebrating, observing, doing — and why? As we get closer to Passover, we’ll talk about that, too. Does your family observe or celebrate something that we haven’t acknowledged? Let me know about it, and I’ll work with you to help our group become more aware of what some of their peers are doing.

Reading/Writing: As we noted above, we are all reading a single book: Detectives in Togas. Originally written in German more than 50 years ago,  it’s a bit different from the books our children usually choose to read. The characters are sketched rather than developed, and the central characters in the story are all boys (except for one sister with very limited opportunity to involve herself in the plot).  Still, several of our class have said that they are having trouble stopping at the assigned breaks in the story because they want to know what happens next. It’s good to see that they are able to embrace an older fictional style than that to which they are accustomed, just as they did with Lassie Come-Home.

I’ve started reading a new chapter book to the group. I had originally  intended to read them The New Policeman, an Irish-based fantasy by Kate Thompson. But there was another favorite book that won out: The Hounds of the Morrigan, by Pat O’Shea. This is a sweeping fantasy that also has a lot of embedded Irish mythology and presents a good balance of plot tension and humor.

Mathematics: We have arrived at another of our “pausing places” in our blended-class math program, just as we did before November’s conference week. Our students will return to their respective home classrooms for the next three weeks to engage with topics as a whole group. We are going to build skills in the measurement of length, mass, and volume — in English (“customary” or “standard”) units that relate to the fractions with which some of our students have been wrestling as well as metric units that will connect with the decimals that others of our group have been mastering. We’ll measure a lot of things, work on establishing an internalized sense of linear distances, and grapple with circle measurements that lead to the relationship known as pi.

We’ll have a lot of fun with our alligator Gro-Beasts. Made of water-absorbing polymer, they will grow every day for a while in their water-filled plastic boxes. We’ll weigh, measure, and trace them to estimate the area of their body “footprint”– and we’ll graph their growth in several ways. Stay tuned.

 

Week of February 9: Lassie, Valentine’s Day, Celts and Romans

Our  chapter book — Lassie Come-Home — came to an end this week. I think it’s safe to say that just about everyone enjoyed this classic dog story, appreciated the subtlety and language nuances of the final interplay between the irascible Duke and the stolid Yorkshire miner, and was drawn in by the author to the emotional ending of the story. If you and your family are looking for something to do this weekend, you might want to view the original film that was made in 1943 from the novel (minus the title hyphen)– the black-and-white movie that starred Roddy McDowall as the young Joe Carraclough.

Our next read-aloud book will be The New Policeman by Kate Thompson — a fantasy that incorporates Irish music with Irish legends and answers the age-old question of where single socks go when they disappear in the wash! It’s the first book of a trilogy. Your child may want to continue reading after we complete the first novel.

We are getting started with our study of the Celts and the Romans. Students are enjoying my collection of Asterix comics, and we are about to start working on some comparative research. Several have asked why the Roman empire came to an end, which is one of the essential questions that we will explore, if not answer definitively. (The sock question is probably easier to resolve.)  As always, there is enough history here to create a full-year study, but we are going to engage with it more briefly, primarily as a study in contrasts: social rules, housing, religion, technology, government, etc. And there are other Big Questions — why do we know so much about the Romans, and why are they so present in our architecture, governmental structure, language, and more — while we know so little about and have inherited so little from the Celts? What are the aspects of Roman culture that are part of our lives today? Are there any Celtic remnants? Why is it difficult to research the Celts on the internet but easy to find facts about the Romans?

The impact of Latin — as well as Greek — on English has been part of our work with vocabulary all year (Vocabulary From Classical Roots). This week, we gave students a list of familiar and unfamiliar words and phrases that are commonly used by English speakers but which come to us from Latin. Words and phrases such as alias, versus, et cetera, non sequitur, and nil were among the Latin items on the list. We frequently mention Latin as a wise choice for our students’ middle school language options. Why? Here’s one website’s rationale:

Knowing Latin can improve your English vocabulary. While English is a Germanic language, Latin has strongly influenced it. Most of our prefixes and some of the roots of common English words derive from Latin. By some estimates, 30% of English words derive from the ancient language. By knowing the meaning of these Latin words, if you happen to come across a word you’ve never seen before, you may be able to make an educated guess about what it means. In fact, studies have found that high school students who studied Latin scored a mean of 647 on the SAT verbal exam, compared with the national average of 505. (source: www.artofmanliness.com)

Valentine’s Day is always a popular holiday with our kids, even though we have made a serious effort to cut back on celebrating it entirely with sugar. One of the things that we teachers enjoy about it, especially for our sixth graders, is that it’s a time to think about friends rather than romantic partners. This is likely to be much less true for them when they go to middle school. We made valentine cards for our first-grade buddies in Rich and Elisa’s group and exchanged greetings with them on Thursday morning. Our students received the teachers’ traditional “homework valentine” which can be handed in as a replacement for a one-night homework assignment. For many of our group every year, the challenge is to be able to find it when they want to use it. We notice that even our most disorganized students usually figure out a way to store the document safely; the fine print says clearly that it will not be replaced if it’s lost. Motivation is powerful.

We did a learning quiz on the history of the holiday on Thursday. A learning quiz is humorous, educational, and requires no prior knowledge. The correct answer to each question is so obvious that everyone gets a perfect score. Would you like to learn more about Valentine’s Day? You’ll find our quiz here: A Brief History of Valentine’s DayAs it happens, the holiday has its origins in ancient Rome.

Next week (yet ANOTHER short week), we will let you know how things are going with our play, pennywhistle lessons, the Roman mystery novel that we are all reading, and our current and upcoming work in mathematics.

Please continue to check in with your child about cold weather clothing — spare gloves to don when the first pair is saturated, dry socks, hats and scarves, and a change of outer clothing when shirts and pants become too wet to be comfortable in the classroom. We also remind children to bring wet things home and bring dry things back, but it probably takes a village to adequately clothe a child.

Parent-teacher conference time is coming in March. Please respond promptly to Pam’s request for scheduling preferences. She does an amazing job with juggling sibling conferences, teacher availability, parent needs, and more. The sooner you reply to her request, the more likely it is that she will be able to give you what you need and/or prefer.

Week of Feb. 2: books, life skills, whistles, and scripts (oh, my!)

Our book project came to an end this week with book talks. Students told us a bit about their book’s author, the plot, and their opinion. They selected a representative passage to read to the group and then answered questions. The variety of genres was impressive: humor, mystery, fantasy, and realistic fiction were all represented. A few chose books that had been offered for our book groups but which they had not read at that time. It was clear that most students were very happy with their selections. It was also clear that some had planned and practiced their presentation carefully, while others apparently thought it would happen by magic. Some followed the book talk directions well, while others seemed to forget that they had written directions on their Google drive.  We have presentations coming up again in about 3 weeks when they finish their Life Skills 101 adventure. We have suggested that this is another opportunity to follow the directions and enjoy being really prepared.

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The book jackets will be on display for a while in the corridor between our room and Diane’s. Students started this part of the project by measuring and cutting large paper to the required size, then marking off the sections for the end flaps, front and back panels, and spine. They soon realized that it took two measured points to make sure their lines were straight. We did a lesson on how to make light guide lines for lettering as well, which some students used and others decided to do without. Their edited text for the summary, review, author information, and “teaser” for the back panel were glued in place. Some did their illustrations directly on the paper, while others did a separate drawing and glued it onto the appropriate panel. Finally, Jeri ran the finished dust jackets through the laminator to create a more durable final product. 

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 We introduced Life Skills 101 to the group at the end of the week. This has become a traditional activity each year. Students who had done it last year were able to explain it to the rest: You work on learning something that you will need to know when you are older and living on your own. It’s usually something that helps your family. We added that it wasn’t necessarily going to be fun, in the way that we expect the Personal Projects to be when they are done in May. But it was going to be something that could make them feel more responsible and independent, that might take some work off the hands of the adults at home, and that they might decide to continue doing after the project was over in 3 weeks. We hope that students will talk their choices over with their family this weekend, settle on what they are going to learn, and be ready to hand in their plan by Wednesday morning. The project is meant to add a new skill or expand an existing one — doing the laundry, planning healthy meals, taking over part of the cleaning, and the like. They’ll write up their progress once a week in a journal on their Google drive and share their adventures with the group when the three weeks come to an end. Copies of most of the handouts and more information are available on our homework blog post for February 6.

We started playing our new pennywhistles this week. This is connected to our upcoming social studies unit on the ancient Celts and Romans, which will begin on Monday. Our study of the Celts will focus primarily on those who lived in Ireland, Britain, and Gaul (France), although Celtic peoples spanned Europe from Turkey to the Iberian peninsula. Like the dulcimer, the pennywhistle (or tin whistle) is a folk instrument that has been invented by many different cultures and played in a wide range of styles around the world. We’ll be playing a lot of relatively modern Irish and English tunes and songs, along with some of the songs we enjoy in our Wednesday morning sing. Because our group has just finished a unit on recorder-playing with Diego, they are off to an excellent start.

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The whistle is simpler than the recorder because there are only 6 holes to cover (three for each hand). For some, the most challenging part is hand position. Although either hand can be on top (unlike recorder), getting the fingers aligned properly is not easy for everyone. Fingers should be at right angles to the line of the whistle, forming an “L” shape. The finger joints should be basically straight, not curved, and the holes are covered by the center of the pad of the first joint, not the finger tip. The top hand supports the whistle with the thumb. The bottom hand supports the whistle with the thumb (behind) and the little finger (resting on the tube below the bottom hole). Fingers that are not covering holes should be poised in the air just high enough above their designated hole to allow the sound to be true and clear. Finally, the whistle should be placed in the center of the lips, not offset into a corner of the mouth.

Parents might be able to help their child form good habits early on by observing them play (if they choose to bring their instrument home) and reminding their child about these things. Also, because we will be doing short lessons and/or practice sessions almost every day, it’s important for students to have their books and whistles at school. They are welcome (but not required) to take them home, but it’s essential that they bring them back. Here again, some parental help with remembering this would be appreciated.

We have quite a few skilled musicians in the group who play other instruments. Although we are not going to be explicitly teaching students to read music better than they already may, we will be presenting a lot of the tunes with standard notation as well as a numbering system, and we’ll point out some of the information in the notation that is not present in the number code. We’ll be encouraging students to learn the tunes so they aren’t dependent on the written pages. You can’t really play the music if you are focused on reading the notes. We’ll be offering some more difficult tunes to students who find our basic repertoire fairly easy to master, some in the form of duets with a challenging second part.

Students were delighted to learn that the instruments are theirs to keep at the end of the year, if they wish. We will be making protective cases for them next week from pvc pipe.

We have two different things going that involve dramatic performance. We have started work on a play: On Camera, Noah Webster. This is a humorous parody of a television news and entertainment program; the theme is language. Synonyms, vocabulary, spelling, contractions, and more are explored in segments that are tied together through the commentary of the two program anchors. This is the perfect class for this particular script — there are many opportunities for them to add to and modify their lines, and the more they are willing to ham it up, the funnier it will be. Students have had some time to familiarize themselves with their parts, and we will start rehearsal in earnest next week. We have not yet set a performance date, but there will be a daytime and an evening presentation sometime before parent conference week in March.

The second acting project is less ambitious, more self-determined, and is a final wrap-up of our month of building and tinkering. We have asked students to create a silly commercial for an invention. They have all chosen something and are now working on creating simple scripts. Although we are encouraging them to make it funny, we also want the commercial to explain the problem or need that the invention addresses and also give us its history — who invented it, what preceded it, and the like. We hope to have at least some of them ready to perform at our assembly on February 20th.