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

Hi parents,

What. A. Week! Here is a bit of what we’ve been up to:

• This week roles were assigned for our play, The Snow Queen’s Revenge on Hercules. We started practicing for our performance coming up in a couple of weeks. Students have truly embraced their roles and are looking forward to sharing the story. Some students are starting to plan what costumes they might want to wear too!
• On Wednesday, we had Ms. Emma visit from the Des Plaines History Center. She brought us materials to make catapults inspired by  the ancient Greeks. It was interesting to see how students pulled from prior experience when we made pumpkin catapults in October and how they built on their previous successes and failures. Ms. Emma brought in some various examples which showed some different designs for catapults. When we tested the contraptions, I was most excited to hear students consider the efffect the size of their paper ball and how that might have made a difference in the distance launched. To be continued next week with Ms. Emma! Plus we’ll look into ancient architecture!

• Battle of the Books round three is in full swing!! Students are reading their books, meeting with their groups, creating posters, and generally preparing for the competition. Ask your child which book(s) they are responsible for and how their reading is going!
• We have continued planning for our pottery project. Students practiced painting the scene they chose from Children’s Homer. Many students found their initial sketches might need to be adjusted once they realized how their planned details looked using a paintbrush instead of a pencil. We also looked deeper into the history of each of the painting styles. Students chose which style they will use on their pottery. They will also reference the accurate time frame in their final artist statement.

• Thursday was Leadership Day at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. Our class was able to participate in discussions with students from many other schools to identify what qualities make a leader, what leadership qualities each of them have, and what changes we can make in our community. This has started a conversation about what service project we would like to take on as a class. Stay tuned as we plan what that service project or projects we take on as a class community.

• We ended the week with our annual amazing event, St. Baldrick’s! It was a huge success and students had a blast cheering on shavees, participating in basketball, dance, and/or craft stations. We were excited to welcome Leo back to Plato Academy!!

Have a great weekend!

-Anna

Hi parents,

It was another great week here in room 220! Here are a few of the things we have been up to.

• On Tuesday students met with their new Battle of the Books teams. Teammates chose which books they would like to read for this round of competition. We are excited to try our second team round of Battle of the Books!

• Last week we read a script bringing a modern twist to Greek mythology. This week students prepared auditions for the roles they were most interested in. It was so fun to have a more formal setting and opportunity for students to showcase their abilities and interests. Ms. Kathleen was our guest judge. She and I will continue deliberations and will post assigned roles on Monday. I cannot wait to see students rehearse and perform this story!
• Following up from last week’s research about ancient Athens and ancient Sparta, students created a travel brochure trying to convince someone to come to one of these ancient city-states. The catch was, last week students chose which one they would have rather lived in had they been alive then, but this week the brochure had to be about the opposite location! There were plenty of moans and groans when that piece of the assignment was revealed but I am proud of how students considered what the positives were from the other city-state and were intentional in their phrasing when sharing facts. I think it is important for students to consider opposing views and learn how to better strengthen their own argument by arguing the other side.
• This week we completed Part I of Children’s Homer! As part of our checkpoint in the book, students are working on a pottery project that will continue from now until spring break. Students are choosing and resarching a specific shape of pottery from ancient Greece. They are then connecting the purpose of this style of pottery to a scene from the first part of Children’s Homer. This scene will be summarized using a geometric painting style to tell the story. Students will then use their pottery piece to practice various calculations of volume. I truly cannot wait to see the completed projects!
• We continued our practice of the distributive property this week!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend! See you next week 🙂

-Anna