Hi parents,

This is it! Our last weekly blog! It was an awesome last week. I am so proud of how our class handled this week’s health classes. I know there was some anxiety and nervousness, but I think the general consensus was “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be!” :). Throughout the week, students presented their mini museums and Children’s Homer summary projects. We ended the week with field day activities. It was great! We cannot wait to show you what we’ve been working on for our end of the year program performance on Wednesday followed by our school picnic.

Thank you for an amazing year with your kiddos! It has been a true pleasure to work with your students throughout the year! I hope you have a wonderful summer!

-Anna

 

So many photos from our week!!

 

Mini museums:

Health Class:

 

The end result of the girls’ fundraiser! Plus a monetary donation to a local shelter (Journeys). They are so appreciative for all of the support and are incredible proud of their accomplishments 🙂

Children’s Homer summary project presentations. Board games, character books, newspapers, video news reports, crossword puzzles and more!

Ditch your backpack day!

Field Day!

      

 

Hi parents,

Our last full week of the school year is complete!

We wrapped up our big projects like descriptions of the mini museums, full summary projects of Children’s Homer, and we are about complete with the girls’ service project. This week they filled care bags with supplies from their supply drive and that they have purchased with the money from the bake sale.

This week we continued with the spirit day countdown! We had look alikes, chose new names, told jokes, and wore Plato spiritwear. Next week, we have crazy hair/crazy sock day, athletic day, ditch your backpack day, field day, and clean up the earth day! So fun!

Friday was our school paper airplane contest! Great job to Dimitri and Charlie for representing our class!

Enjoy your long weekend 🙂 See you next week!

-Anna

Hi parents,

Another week full of big projects, service projects, and summer-like weather! As has been the case… our list of accomplishments may look short, but it was anything but easy! The class spent every possible minute completing morning challenges, creating mini representations from the year, problem solving, communicating with businesses, teachers, and volunteers…and so much more!

Here are a couple highlights for you:

• Our mini museums are done! We are working on a plan to display these so others can see their hard work. Next week the class will work on adding descriptions to each element in their museum. Children’s Homer summary projects are underway and we even found time to practice operations with fractions and percents throughout the week!

• The girls had a very successful bake sale on Friday!! Thank you for your support! They cannot wait to share their final count next week and start putting their care bags together for a local shelter. They are also so excited to be able to make a monetary donation in addition to the care bags. We’ll provide a further update next week!

• Recess fun 🙂

See you next week!

-Anna

Hi parents,

It was another amazing week! Here are some highlights from our week:

• Your kids have been incredibly focused on their mini museums that represent their year. We truly cannot wait to show you the finished products!

• New projects this week included our Children’s Homer summaries and Kandinsky inspired artwork. Each student is making a project summarizing the entire Children’s Homer. The challenge is that the class is required to make a different style of project than they have for any previous summaries. So far students have started planning board games inspired by Odysseus’s journey, writing scripts for mini movies, and brainstorming layouts for Odyssey amusement parks. I will be sure to take pictures as the products are being created! This year’s sculpture for Greek Town is a butterfly and our school’s design is inspired by the artist, Wassily Kandinsky *See additional information in Parent Notes. Each student in the school is also creating their own piece of art inspired by Kandinsky. Many kids in our class chose to listen to classical music as additional inspiration while creating their pieces.

• On Thursday, Mr. Patrick’s and Ms. Beth’s classes visited our room to see the beautiful ancient Greek pottery we made. Each student also wrote an artist statement explaining their purpose, process, and connection to Children’s Homer. I know this is a project that has appeared again and again in mini museums and seems to be a favorite from the year!

• The boys had another successful coffee cart this morning! See next week Parent Notes for their final fundraising count!
• The girls are looking forward to their fundraiser next week! They will be having a bake sale in order to purchase supplies for care bags which they plan to give to a local homeless shelter. They are also conducting a supply drive for materials such as toothbrushes and toothpaste, socks, soap, etc. If you would like to donate any baked items to the sale on Friday, you can sign up here.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Happy Mother’s Day to our Room 220 moms! 🙂

-Anna

 

Hi parents,

Another great week in Room 220! It is hard to believe we are in our final full month of school! Here is what we’ve been up to:

• For the next few weeks, our class will be busy focusing on a cumulative project. Nope, no final exam here! Instead, students are creating mini museums to represent the highlights of their year. Students are creating mini posters, mini pottery, tiny egg drop models, and small ancient Sparta brochures. The students are so excited to represent various elements from our year together!

• We finished reading our novel, The Children’s Homer! Throughout this story we discussed Greek mythology, researched ancient Greek history, practiced making sense of complex text, and revisited the Hero’s Journey. We will start summary projects next week and will have our pottery museum display for other classes to see our ancient Greek pots.
• Each student in our school added a wish to our Plato Academy wish tree on Tuesday. All of the classes are reading the book, Wishtree, as a schoolwide experience. We added our wishes to the tree — anything from wishing for money to puppies to happiness!

• This week we took our last math pretest for the year! We were able to highlight a few math concepts that we would like to dig into for the remainder of the school year. We will be revisiting previous and introducing new calculations with fractions.
• The boys are so appreciative for the support on the first day of their service project!! It was a huge success and they cannot wait to have their second coffee cart next Friday!

• Lastly we have been practicing our song for the end of the year program. If your kids want to practice at home, here is the link to our song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoQEddtFN3Q

Have a wonderful weekend! See you next week!

-Anna

Hi parents,

It’s been an awesome week! Here are a few of the highlights from our week:

• We had our final performance of our play! The class did such a great job! I am so proud of how they memorized their lines, projected their voices, and spoke with clarity. Our audience was fully engaged in the story and laughed throughout the comedic portions.

• Our Law Day essay winners were announced on Thursday! One of the lawyers from the Hellenic Bar Association, Nick Pappas, visited with our classes and discussed his career in law. He also announced the essay contest results. We are so excited for our two class winners, Marie and Konstantina!! Truly all students should be proud of the essays they submitted. I was also impressed how the class demonstrated what it means most to be a Plato student by giving genuine compliments and congratulations to the winners. Good job everyone!!

• As you have likely seen in Parent Notes from this week, both of our class service projects have officially been announced! We are looking forward to two coffee cart dates May 5th and May 12th benefitting children in Palestine through Droplets of Mercy. We are also looking forward to a bake sale on May 19th to benefit the local homeless population. Your kids are beyond excited about these projects and their true investment of time and energy is apparent!
• To end the week, we tested our engineering abilities. Using information about the San Fransisco Bay Bridge as inspiration, students used marshmallows and toothpicks to create structures that could withstand a jello earthquake. They succeeded and then continued to challenge themselves by making their towers even taller!

Have a wonderful weekend! See you next week!

-Anna

 

Hi parents,

I want to take a moment to just say how amazing your kids are! Much of our week was spent with work time for the class to complete whatever they needed to accomplish. I am so impressed with how the class stayed focused and productive during this time! Here are a few highlights from all that was accomplished:

• Our class is currently planning two service projects. Students discussed fundraising, researched locations for their funds, calculated costs for supplies, and reached out to others for support. I am sure your kids have been talking about the projects at home and I know they are excited to announce their plans to the school as well. Stay tuned for more details shortly!

• Next week the class is performing a play about ancient Greek mythology. This week we have been busy practicing lines, making scenery, and putting costumes together. On Friday’s field trip to the Lightning Thief, we were able make connections between stories we have read in Children’s Homer, stories from our class play, and the great adventures of Percy Jackson!

• Wednesday was our Battle of the Books finals! All of the teams should be proud of how they did throughout the competition and it was so much fun to watch our final four teams compete! The teams were back and forth keeping us wondering who would ultimately pull ahead. Congratulations to all four of the classes who competed throughout the year!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! See you next week!

-Anna

Hi parents,

I hope you had a wonderful week. Take a look at what we’ve been up to in Room 220!

• This week was our first round of Battle of the Books! I’m proud of how our class did. Ask your child what the toughest question was from their book! Next week we will have our final for the top four teams. Battle of the Books has been a great addition this year. Working with their teams, students were held accountable for their reading and supported other members with planning and studying. Beyond reading skills, this has been an excellent opportunity in communication and cooperation!

• This week we also wrapped up our Law Day essays. It has been great to see how these essays have evolved from our initial class conversations to notes from various sources to completed essays supporting student arguments. I know many students have been working on their essays at home and have been talking about their stance with you. If you haven’t had the chance to read their final draft, please do so! Each student truly put forth their full effort and wrote their best essays.
• We are continuing to work on service projects and will be announcing the two projects from our class over the next couple of weeks. I have been impressed with the passion and dedication I’ve seen from students while brainstorming and planning their projects. Stay tuned for more information about the projects and how you can be involved too!

For those of you celebrating this weekend – Happy Easter! I hope you enjoy the long weekend 🙂

-Anna

Hi parents,

It was great to be back from spring break! It was a short week, but we were productive.

• Each student is working on completing their essays to submit for the Law Day contest. Much of this week was spent workshopping these essays. I know each student is putting forth their best effort and will continue to do so next week as they complete their essays. I know many students have said they are discussing their stance at home which is great! This essay contest has been an opportunity for the class to push their writing style and practice researching and reading for information.
• With our pottery project coming to a close, we were able to get back into our routines like reviewing morning challenges which allowed us to have a great discussion about finding the area of a triangle by drawing a triangle, cutting it out, and rearranging the pieces to make a rectangle. Ask your child if they remember the formula!

• This week we also were able to get back to reading Children’s Homer and start reading our current all school book, The Wish Tree. We’ve been reading about Odysseus finally making his journey back home. Stay tuned as we continue with Children’s Homer!

It might look like a short list, but we were surely focused throughout our four day week and I’m looking forward to continuing with our projects next week. Next week we will complete essays for Law Day, have our Battle of the Books competition, and continue practicing to perform our play the following week.

I hope you have a wonderful Easter if you are celebrating this weekend!

-Anna

Hi parents!

Thank you for coming to conferences this week to support and celebrate your children with their academic goals and achievements! I know they all worked hard preparing to share their work with you. Here are a few other things that we’ve been up to over the past few weeks in addition to conference prep:

• I am absolutely blown away by the actors and actresses in our class! We assigned roles for our class play, The Snow Queen’s Revenge on Hercules, and planned to perform the play for two other classes before break. With our other projects and preparing for conferences, we decided to postpone our final performance so we could be sure to have costumes, actions, and lines fully rehearsed to the best of our abilities. However, we still practiced the play a few times this week. Multiple students already have their lines memorized, are making suggestions for how to interact on stage, and are perfecting their facial and vocal expressions! I am so impressed and truly cannot wait to see how the class continues to polish the show following the break.

• Over the past few weeks your children have been using clay to create pieces inspired by ancient Greek pottery. Through multiple stages of research, planning, and painting practice, each student has created a piece they can be proud of. This project has been quite the experience and turned into a test of perseverance as we found the clay didn’t always hold the exact shape we wanted. Students tried again and again until they were satisfied with the shape and smoothness. After the pieces were cured, students used sand paper for additional smoothing before painting their scene from Children’s Homer on the pottery. We will continue with finishing touches, artist statements, and some final calculations following break. I love the artwork created and am so proud of the positive attitudes from the class!

• Ms. Emma from the Des Plaines History Center visited again! This time we learned about ancient Greek architecture and the class made their own temples. The best part was watching how students worked with two dimensional supplies to make three dimensional creations!

• What a great Greek Independence Day show last week!

I hope you have a wonderful spring break! See you in April 🙂

-Anna