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

Hi parents,

I hope you had a wonderful week! Take a look at a few of the things we have been up to:

• This week we wrapped up our presentations of Ancient Greek inventions. It was great to see how some inventions related to each other and students were able to see how one invention might have impacted another. Students spent time this week answering any lingering questions from their rubrics so they felt confident they were thorough in their research. The class also considered other elements of Ancient Greece as they read about the many cultural differences between Ancient Athens and Ancient Sparta. Each student organized the information they learned and then chose where they would have rather lived if they had been alive at that time. Next week we will continue as students make travel brochures highlighting the key benefits of Ancient Athens or Ancient Sparta. The catch is they will create this brochure about whichever city-state they did NOT choose to want to live in! Stay tuned for more about our completed projects!

• We are excited to be nearing the halfway point in Children’s Homer! I have continued to be impressed with the class’s ability to breakdown the complex language of the story and truly understand the themes and progression of events. As we prepare to start Part II, we will create new character mapsand revisit the process of the Hero’s Journey. We are also practicing a play that tells a funny story about how some Ancient Greek gods and goddesses may have interacted with each other. I know the class is excited to determine parts in the play and start practicing!
• As promised, this week we continued practicing probability. This week we focused on making tree diagrams to determine all possible outcomes in a given scenario. We practiced for a range of scenarios and groups even made diagrams with three-dimensional objects. Students were so happy to see their growth on this week’s quiz! Next week we will build off the understanding of possible outcomes to determine the probability of specific outcomes.

I hope you are having a great weekend! See you next week.

-Anna

Hi parents,

Take a look at what we’ve been up to this week!

• This week we continued to grapple with probability. Students considered a variety of ways to organize all possible outcomes and we practiced specific organization strategies such as tree diagrams and charts. Following our quiz this afternoon, many students felt this was an area they would like to practice further…and so we will! It can be challenging to really break down which factors a probability question really requires you to consider and then determine the best route to calculate the possible and desired outcomes. We will continue to practice strategies for finding possible outcomes and identifying which meet the specifications of the desired outcome. With Mr. Chris, the class has been learning how to complete function tables and graph a line based on a given function. Of course these come with their own challenges, but I have heard from the class this has been a favorite math topic! They even pointed out to Mr. Chris that it must be fun because the word “FUNctions” has the word “FUN” in it!
• Throughout this week, students have been researching an Ancient Greek invention of their choosing. To end the week, they presented their research “Shark Tank style.” The goal was to pretend like this was a new invention and convince the rest of the class this was worthy of investing in. Research topics ranged from alarm clocks and odometers to toilets and everything inbetween! Ask your child about their research topic and how they are feeling about their presentation (some students will present early next week). These projects also helped connect further with Children’s Homer giving the class additional perspective of Ancient Greece.

Next week we will continue to dig into Ancient Greece, probability, and open middle challenges like this one below. Give it a try!

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Anna

Hi parents,

We had a great week! Take a look at a few things we’ve been up to.

• This week we revisited our character maps from Children’s Homer. There are many characters and connections to recall throughout the story. This is one way we are organizing our thoughts and key characters. The class has been updating their maps as we go and we were starting to feel a little overwhelmed. This was a great opportunity to analyze the characters we have “met” so far and how we can start a new map only including the characters that seem to still be relevant. Students reviewed their maps and made predictions about where the story would go next based on textual cues. Next week we will continue with our novel and we will dig deeper into other elements of Ancient Greece!
• A highlight for many students this week was the Windy City Bulls game! We started the day hearing from multiple professionals from the Windy City Bulls. Roles ranged from accounting to marketing to human resources. It gave students a small picture of the many roles that work together in the sports industry. Often students see the athletes and coaches but don’t necessarily realize the many other pieces of the organization. Then students held the flag on the court for the National Anthem and watched the game from their front row seats! It was a great experience 🙂 Prior to the game, some students told me they didn’t like basketball so they were not particularly excited about the game (but maybe a little about going on a trip and leaving the classroom for the day!). However, when the game was within five points during the last minutes, no one from our school was quiet! It was a community building experience to say the least! Once teacher and chaperone pictures are combined, I will be sure to send home additional pictures from the trip.

• As usual, we had morning challenges this week that led to great discussions about fractions, rates, and using textual evidence to support a response. This week we also talked about the tragic earthquake in Turkey. We learned about the science behind earthquakes and brainstormed what we thought people effected may need right now. We have started discussing what we can do to help in response. Students had ideas from fundraising to collecting materials or making cards for hospitalized victims. This conversation also brought up other ideas for service projects our class would like to do. My favorite question was “Do we have to pick just one?” Stay tuned as we choose how we want to incorporate service work into our curriculum and class culture this year.

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Anna

Hi parents,

It was another great week at Plato! Take a look at a few of the things we have been up to.

• Continuing our exploration of National Parks, our class is working to design and send postcards to various classrooms around the country. The same classrooms are sending us postcards as well! Each class chose a National Park, National Historical Landmark, National Forest, etc. to highlight from their state. Our class has been working over the past few weeks to research and present on possible sites from Illinois. Last week we voted and decided on Lincoln Home. This week students started designing their postcards they plan to send. I have loved seeing the artwork AND particularly seeing that students have been able to apply what they learned in photography about perspective when drawing Lincoln Home. We’ve received two postcards so far and are excited to see what else we receive. Stay tuned as we continue in the exchange!
• As we are reading Children’s Homer, we have found the story jumps around as characters tell about previous events sometimes jumping around 20+ years! This week we brainstormed the key events. Each student made their own list. Today, we combined and then condensed the lists to make our first draft at our class timeline of events. We will make a finalized timeline next week and then continue to add to it as we continue through the story. I was so impressed with the class’s attention to detail and determination to put each post-it note event in the correct place! This exercise brought up great questions about the wording on the post-it note — was this event the telling of Menalaus coming home or was it the actual event of Menelaus coming home? It was also an exercise in teamwork as students discussed how certain stories might have overlapped or how to put them in order even if the book does not explicitly tell us which comes first. They did an amazing job and I am looking forward to adding to our timeline as we go.

• This week we continued our exploration of probability. On Monday we organized information about possible outcomes when you roll two dice and find the sum. Many students predicted that all possible sums would be equally likely to roll since we had established that each number (1-6) was equally likely to be rolled when rolling one dice. It was awesome to hear the realization when students noticed that the probability of each sum varied greatly. On Tuesday students were given ten paper bags and were asked to determine how many of each color cube (red, yellow, and blue) were in each bag. The trick was no one could look in the bags. Information could only be gathered by taking one cub out at a time, looking at it, and putting it back. This exercise was another combination task! This time there were elements of communication, teamwork, an understanding of probability, and strategizing. Following the activity, students were reflective in how there could have been improved communication and overall worked better together as an entire group in a similar challenge in the future. What more could I possibly ask from our class but to try their best and reflect on what we could do differently next time?!

I hope you enjoy your weekend! I’m looking forward to seeing everyone next week.

-Anna

Hi parents,

It was another great week! We are finally enjoying some beautiful snow 🙂 Here are a few things we’ve been up to.

• We have been continuing reading the Children’s Homer. Although the language is different than how we typically speak or what we typically read, I have been impressed with the class’s understanding and discussions about the story. Each student has continued to create a summary following each reading and they have been writing questions about the book to be used on our weekly quiz. In the story, Telemachus is taking a ship to go find information about his father — where is he? why didn’t he return home? This voyage inspired this month’s STEM challenge with Mr. Chris’s, Mr. Patrick’s, and Ms. Beth’s classes. Students were put into groups with students from the other classes. With limited supplies and limited time, groups created sailboats to race through a tub of water! We were excited to hear the teamwork throughout the experience! Limited supplies meant no one could take over a supply until the group agreed what they wanted to do with it. While the boats raced, students recorded times and analyzed each team’s desgin. We noticed the bigger ships were able to reach the finish line first and the bigger sails caught more wind. However, it was also important to consider the shape and location of the saild to avoid spinning through the water. Ask your child what they noticed about the fastest boats! What design would they create if they could race again?

• This week we compared stories from various cultures. Each student chose two versions of Cinderella to read and then compared and contrasted the stories. As we are reading Children’s Homer, we’ve discussed how culture can influence stories and how stories can vary greatly from oral storytelling to written news articles to social media posts and so on. Reading the Cinderella stories was another way to see how similar story themes and morals are woven through various cultures.
• Our math challenges this week had us identifying number patterns, graphing patterns, and graphing geometric shapes. We also continued our study of probability and revisited a challenge from last week that introduced us to the calculation of compound interest. It was a busy week to say the least!
• We ended the week with our School Choice Week dance in the gym! It was fun to see students dressed in yellow celebrating our school and the choice you and your families made to be part of Plato Academy! Thank you all for your dedication to our school!

I hope you enjoy your snowy weekend! See you next week.

-Anna

Hi parents,

It was a short week, but we still accomplished so much here in room 220. Take a look at what we’ve been up to!

• On Tuesday we had our Battle of the Books finale! We were so proud of the students from our class who completed in the finale. Charlie even placed first out of all three classes for Fish in a Tree! Yay! We will continue to incorporate various competition style reviews and Battle of the Books competitions throughout the rest of the year.

• This week we started our new novel, The Children’s Homer. We read a few different versions of the first book of The Odyssey to give background to the many versions told over the years. We dug into the challenging vocabulary and broke down the events of the story. After reading the first two books, we created a character web as a way to connect each of the characters of the story to each other, showing descriptions and relationships. Each student also chose their own summary method — “Dear Diary” as one of the characters, pretend to be a character writing to another character, graphic novel, traditional paragraphs summary, etc. The class will continue whatever method they chose to summarize the remainder of the book.
• Our morning challenges this week had us thinking about unit conversions and adding decimals. Two of our favorite challenges were converting measurements in a chocolate chip cookie dough recipe and trying to make a number close to one.One student even noted that after working through these challenges, they now love numbers!! With the adding decimals challenge, we had three students find ways to make 0.999! How close can you get?

• This week we practiced concepts of probability and “fairness” using games!

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

-Anna

Hi parents!

I hope you all are feeling refreshed after a nice winter break! We’re back and into our routines here in room 220.

• Throughout this week we have been introducing various topics relating to our next novel, The Children’s Homer. We conducted introductory research about Ancient Greece, acted out a play about the Trojan War, created graphic novels about the Trojan War, and have been discussing storytelling – the history, the challenges, the various forms of storytelling, etc. I am looking forward to this study with our class! I anticipate it will be a challenging but worthwhile study.

• This week students shared the research they conducted in December about a National Park of their choosing. They also chose a site in Illinois to research and present to the class. We will choose one of the researched locations to all learn about in greater detail. We will then participate in a National Park postcard exchange with students all over the U.S.! This has been an opportunity to interact with our classroom maps, learn about biodiversity across the U.S., and practice presentation skills. It will be exciting to create, write, and mail out our postcards. I know the class is looking forward to receiving responses as well!
• Our morning challenges this week have brought up fantastic discussions about math strategies and understanding the most important information from a word problem. I am so proud of how students presented their answers, openly admitted they changed their minds after hearing a classmate’s strategy, and truly put forth their best efforts in finding a solution. Here are two that led to particularly great class conversations —

1. Jacqueline and Lee are meeting for the weekend somewhere between their cities, which are 420 miles apart. Jacqueline drives 80 mph for the duration of her trip. If they both left home at 10 a.m. and met at 1 p.m., what speed did Lee drive to reach their meeting spot?A. 75 mph
   B. 70 mph
   C. 65 mph
   D. 60 mph

 

       2. Chuck wants to bake 100 cookies to give to his friends. Each batch of 12 cookies takes 11 minutes to bake. How          long will it take Chuck to bake the cookies? 

 

• Back to our weekly discussion/debate about “What’s going on in this picture?”

• We ended the week with our Battle of the Books competition! Each student competed against other students in Mr. Patrick’s and Mr. Chris’s classes answering questions about the book they chose to read over winter break. Next week we will have the finals for the top fie students from each book.
• Even big kids like the new little kid park!

Have a wonderful weekend! See you next week 🙂

-Anna

Hi parents!

I just wanted to share a few pictures and notes about our short week last week. Your kids planned an excellent Christmas party and were so thoughtful in the gift exchange!

• Here are some pictures from the gingerbread houses! These houses ended up being a wonderful team building and problem solving activity. Some houses collapsed and some decorations didn’t turn out quite as planned, but each group found a way to create a standing house made of gingerbread, candy, and frosting.

• We followed up on our experiment from the Halloween party. We discussed catalysts and made predictions. We were disappointed with the reaction our first time on Tuesday so we started brainstorming what could have been different. We realized the soap was different from our previous attempt at elephant toothpaste. After adjusting the soap, we considered other variables we could change like how we added the yeast to the hydrogen peroxide mixed with water or without. When we added yeast without water, we noticed the reaction happened significantly more slowly which started a conversation about why the catalyst was suddenly less effective.

I hope you are having a wonderful break! I will see you all in 2023 🙂