Our Third Year (2011-12)

 Acton Academy

2011 – 12

Week 1

This week was an incredible beginning to Acton Academy’s third year. Tuesday morning promptly at 8:00, students began arriving. With twenty-eight Eagles this year, the Sport Court quickly filled up with tetherball, basketball, football, soccer, Four-Square and ping pong all being played simultaneously. It was the first cool morning of the summer and a wonderful way to start our first day. By 8:30, we had the full class in a giant circle, and we got right to work. This first week was designed as an orientation and community-building week. Students had several intense Socratic discussions, completed their first challenge as a class and spent plenty of time playing together. 

Less than an hour after arriving, students were given their first challenge: create a Lip Dub music video that included all twenty-eight students to the song “Rockin’ Robin”. In a Lip Dub, everyone lip-syncs a song as the camera moves from one location to another. The effect is entertaining when you dub over your movie with the actual song. Before getting started, students watched several Lip Dubs – including one created by last year’s Acton Academy students – and talked about what made them successful and what could have been improved. These ideas were used to make a rubric for evaluating their own attempt. After listing to the song several times, students had one hour to try and memorize the entire song. Those that succeeded got first pick of which part of the song they wanted to appear in. The rest of the afternoon and most of the next day were spent choreographing, making costumes and props, practicing and filming. Students worked together to create a logical flow for the camera to follow through the school and made sure everyone knew their cues. It was not an easy task to accomplish, but students showed great focus and perseverance. The final product was something to be proud of and the process provided a great bonding opportunity. 

After the fun, but stressful challenge of creating a Lip Dub, students had lots of time to explore the school, read books from the library, play games, make crafts and get to know each other during the second half of the week. We also had some more structured teambuilding activities, like the “Group Knot” challenge where students started out in a circle holding hands with two different people across from them and had to work together to get “untangled” and end up standing in between the two people holding their hands. 

There were also several opportunities during the week to discuss the Hero’s Journey, with students beginning to think about their own talents and passions and how they will use them to change the world. As a class, we read a short biography of the Wright brothers who followed a passion for flight and an aptitude for engineering and design to build something that has changed all of our lives. At the end of the week, students were invited to sign the Student Contract, a formal commitment to live the next year of their life with intention, gathering and practicing skills and knowledge they will use on their Hero’s Journey. All of the students chose to sign the contract! 

Students received another invitation this week, an invitation to travel back to the Middle Ages. Through stories, games and food, they will take a tour around the world and meet an incredible cast of characters who struggled with many of the same questions and challenges we struggle with in our lives today. Each student was given a ticket to come on the trip. Next Tuesday, they will individually make the decision of whether or not they wish to go. In order to go, they must follow three rules: be curious, listen intently and help others. 

In addition to making that decision, students will begin to settle into our regular schedule next week with P.E., individual core skills time and project time.

Week 2

We started this week off with our first P.E. session. Coach Carpenter was waiting for the students in the park with loud music to get them moving. After an intense ten minute warm-up (called “Acton Insanity”), Coach Carpenter split the class into four groups that would rotate through stations measuring different aspects of physical fitness: a half mile run, push-ups, a shuttle run and a low plank. Endurance in each challenge was timed and recorded to set a baseline for each student. After the workout, Coach Carpenter talked to the students about the general plans for P.E. this year and explained the rules: have fun, work hard and be a good sport. 

When they returned to school he awarded them each with a personalized Acton Academy water bottle to help them stay hydrated at P.E. each week. He also placed a blue or a yellow sweatband on each student’s head in a ceremony reminiscent of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, thereby revealing which section of P.E. they would be in. With twenty-eight students, there will be two sections of P.E. this year—the blue team and the yellow team. In addition to attending P.E. at different times, the two teams will be competing all semester to see which has the most overall improvement in the four physical challenges. They will be tested at the end of December to determine the winning team whose names will be engraved on a trophy. At the end of the year, they will be tested a final time and if the class as a whole improves their scores by at least 50%, Coach Carpenter has promised a celebration they will never forget. The students are very excited about the challenges and already adore their new coach.

On Tuesday, there were more new beginnings. Students received their Writer’s Notebooks and had their first Writing Workshop of the year. The first few weeks of the year will focus on developing different techniques for collecting thoughts, ideas, questions and memories in a Writer’s Notebook. These snippets of writing will later serve as sparks for longer, more polished pieces. After defining the purpose of writing – students said “to save your thoughts”, “to help you think”, “to get out bad feelings”, “to communicate with others” and “to relax” – students spread out around the school and found comfortable places to write. The first two techniques they practiced this week were writing about “unforgettable stories” – stories that you remember, even if they are insignificant to other people – and “fierce wonderings” – the kinds of questions that you can’t get out of your head. For some students, the freedom to write from their own thoughts and experiences was delightful from the start and for others, particularly if they are used to being given more structured topics, it was incredibly challenging. But for all the students, whether they wrote two lines or two pages, they experienced a few hours this week of living like a writer, noticing their own unique thoughts and observations of the world.

This week we also started our first read aloud novel as a class. With the character trait of curiosity as a focus, we are reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Students sprawl out on blankets and pillows a few times a week to just listen.

Project time was also off to a great start this week as students began the quest of finding the businesses perfect for them.  The classroom buzzed as students took customer surveys, interviewed each other about their gifts and talents, watched videos on famous entrepreneurs, and played the Lemonade Stand-Off game, among other things.  All of the activities are part of a game.  Students sail around a giant game board of islands in a sea.  At each island there is a challenge related to finding their perfect business and if they complete the challenge successfully, they get a patch for the sail of their game piece – a sailboat with a miniature version of themselves aboard – an entrepreneur's ship.  Already this week, some students earned patches for the sails of their entrepreneur ships.

On Tuesday, after each individually making the choice to take a journey through history this year, students were each given a magic carpet on which to travel back in time.  This week they journeyed to ancient Rome.  They wandered the streets of the ancient cities, seeing the Coliseum and even the emperor himself.  As the exploration continued, students discovered the vastness of the empire. This began the discussion as to whether bigger is always better.  Students considered the risks of maintaining such a large piece of land and decided that bigger is not always better.

On the heels of that revelation, the students began to discuss the large group lesson for history class. They noted that learning history with such a big group is both logistically and academically difficult.  After some discussion, the students decided to split the school into two history groups.  These groups will travel to the same destinations and make many of the same discoveries, but the small groups will provide a more intimate learning environment for everyone.

On Thursday, the two history groups traveled to ancient Britain. They saw fierce warriors painted blue with spiked hair.  Students discovered that much of ancient Celtic history was not recorded in writing but memorized in stories.  One of these ancient stories was the story of a brave warrior, Craith, who rescued a beautiful woman from a terrible giant.  The message of Craith’s story sparked the question, “Is physical or mental power more important?”  Students took time to debate and discuss the issue, though no final decision was reached.

We had our first Town Meeting this week and will make time for one of these each week. This is a time for students to discuss issues or concerns that have arisen in our community. It is also a time to suggest things that would improve our community. This week, we started by establishing rules for our school. The students agreed on two rules this year that they felt will make Acton Academy a great place to learn and grow:

1. Respect yourself; respect others; respect the environment.

2. Be proactive.

 With all of the excitement of P.E., project time, history, Writing Workshop and community building, students still managed to spend some quality time on their core skills – reading, writing, math and language. The afternoons this week were spent in busy calmness as students settled into their individual work, finding great books to read in the library and trying out new math programs on their computers. On Friday, we celebrated the end of a great week with some “Game Time” where students played board and card games such as Scrabble, Chess, Uno, Guess Who?, Apples to Apples, Set and Blokus. It was a wonderful way to end the week. Just nine days into this school year, there is already a strong sense of community. If an observer were to try and name the ten students who most recently joined us, it is almost certain they would fail.

Congratulations to Ms. Aubrie who got engaged on Thursday night!

Week 3

Students came in Monday excited to head off for another session of kickball at the park. The energetic music mix Coach Carpenter plays during their cardio warm-up is so popular, the student played it during their outdoor free time all week. 

With the heat beginning to break, students were about to eat outside several days this week. On Friday, we took an extended lunch, when the upbeat music inspired students to spontaneously break out into, first a dance competition, and then a group hula-hooping session. Earlier on Friday, with Coach Carpenter out for the day, Aubrie and Mikaela led the students in a special P.E. session where they played a number of classic tag varieties like Sharks and Minnows. 

The afternoons were filled with a focused buzz, as students continued reading great books and building their math skills with a variety of individually paced software programs. Younger students also began to work with the Montessori materials to establish a strong number sense. 

In Writing Workshop, students tried out several new techniques for gathering thoughts and ideas in their Writer’s Notebooks and spent some time each day as writers – thinking, recording and sharing with their fellow writers. 

More progress was made in the E-ship game this week as students earned patches for debating the pros and cons of hiring employees, discussing the decisions they would make if they were faced with tough choices and developing specific plans for their booths at the Children's Business Fair. Many more character points were awarded for demonstrations of flexibility, helpfulness, and perseverance, among other things. On Wednesday, students took a break from the E-ship game activities to learn about cash flow in a business by determining which of several "black box money machines" – which represented different potential investments – was most valuable. A series of auctions for marshmallows, chocolate kisses, and teddy grahams also led to a better understanding of inflation and an introduction to interest. 

This week’s adventures in history began with a multi-sensory trip back to medieval Britain with music, traditional Celtic treats and, of course, stories. They heard how the Barbarians came to Britain and began to colonize the island. As individuals, they considered how they would respond to such an invasion. Would they retreat with the Celts or would they join the Anglos and the Saxons? There were many interesting perspectives on this issue.

The courageous tale of Beowulf conquering the terrible monster, Grendel, led to the discussion of the ‘monsters’ in our own lives that may stand between us and our goals. Students named some things that might cause them fear or keep them from their accomplishments. The story of Beowulf highlighted that to be the hero of one’s journey, you must have courage. 

Thursday’s travels took students to the time when Christianity came to medieval Britain. From their magic carpets, students came upon the pope who had seen a group of slaves with blond hair and fair skin – Anglo-Saxons from Britain. The pope was angry that these people had been made captives, so angry and sad that he decided to do something about it. Looking at the world today, students realized that the pope’s decision to take action changed the world forever. Students discussed the reality that slavery has been happening for thousands of years across many different cultures. 

Based on suggestions in the previous week’s Town Meeting, several students had a focus group during lunch one day this week to discuss possible enhancements to our weekly Read Alouds. They first established the criteria for a successful Read Aloud – a good book and a comfortable place to sprawl out. They decided that students should be able to suggest books for future Read Alouds, but that Ms. Kaylie should be in charge of making the final choice based on the quality of the writing and the content of the story. They also decided that students should be able to be readers, but that they would need to practice what they were going to read at home and then be approved by Ms. Kaylie. 

On Friday, the class worked through a Decision Chain to determine whether or not there should be two simultaneous Read Alouds with different books. The main pro for having just one Read Aloud was that the shared story can be a community-builder, however this did not outweigh all the pros students saw for having two different Read Alouds – less crowded and therefore less distracting, more choice and the possibility of having one book that is less complex and one that is more complex so that everyone is challenged at an appropriate level. Given that we have an experimental curriculum, students decided it made sense for us to experiment with having two different Read Alouds. 

In our current all-class Read Aloud, they continued to enjoy The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, watching Edmund betray his siblings and meeting Aslan this week.  We had our second Town Meeting at the end of the week and everyone was brought up to speed on the plans for our next Read Aloud. Students also received their library cards and set some simple guidelines for check-out procedures. 

As we go into our final week at 1106 West Avenue, we are excited for the adventure and growth ahead, but also a little nostalgic.

Week 4

This was the final week at the house on West Street where Acton Academy has been since its founding in the fall of 2009.  It was a wonderful first home for the school, just seven students to start, and has served us well as we have grown to twenty-eight.  We have had a great start to the year here, but are all looking forward to a little more space.  We said goodbye by making a time capsule and burying it in the yard.  Each student wrote a note saying what Acton Academy means to them.  They also included a group picture from this year, a picture of the first seven students and some other mementos that they felt represented the school.  Then outside they went where students took turns digging a hole.  One student suggested that as each student dug, they should say one thing they have learned at Acton Academy, which was reminiscent of the final scene in the play they put on two years ago.  It was a poignant moment, which we followed with cake and games!

Students created their first spelling lists this week.  Instead of being given list of words to memorize, every two weeks, students will be given a spelling rule.  In small groups, they will have one week to create a list of words that follows this rule.  Any rule-breaking words they find can also go on the list as bonus words.  Then they will have the following week to study their chosen words before taking a spelling test.  They practiced this new method by finding words that either began with the twelve most common beginning sounds or ended with the twelve most common ending sounds in the English language.  They choose whether they wanted to create a list of one-syllable, two-syllable or three-syllable words. 

Students also learned to use a new website, Shelfari.com, where they keep track of the books they have read and want to read.  They can write reviews and rate the books.  We finished our group read-aloud of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and each student added this to their virtual shelf. 

In last week’s Town Meeting, students decided we should split into two groups for the next read aloud.  Teasers for the two options, Kensuke’s Kingdom and Falling In were posted in the library on Monday.  On Friday, students made their choice and began a new book. 

P.E. continued to be a highlight of the week with the “Acton Insanity” workout, kickball and a creative version of the game show “Deal or No Deal” where students were given an exercise to do – 15 push-ups, for example – and could choose to do them or select an envelope with an unknown exercise in it and do that.  Even the teachers had to participate – but the students got to decide if they took the offered exercise or took a chance on what was inside the envelope.

In history, the students visited the glittering city of Constantinople. They marveled at the splendor of the white domed, Hagia Sofia which led to a discussion about what makes a city a good place in which to live. The class was then introduced to Justinian the Just, the heroic emperor of Byzantium. They watched as his curiosity and perseverance took him from being the son of a farmer to the ruler of a great and shining empire. Examining his life, the students wondered, “What made Justinian so powerful? Was it because he was curious or because he was physically strong?”

Thursday’s adventures turned to the life of a heroic woman, Empress Theodora (Justinian’s wife). They watched as riots threw Constantinople into a state of chaos, and overcome by fear, Justinian prepared to flee.  Courageous Theodora used her powers of persuasion to convince her husband to stay.  As they looked at her actions, the students considered when they had used their power of persuasion.  Examining the life of Theodora, they discovered that studying the past helps provide examples to live by and mistakes to learn from. 

As entrepreneurs, the students are still going strong in the E-ship game – by the end of this week, some had earned six patches for their sails.  In an exercise to help students better understand cash flow, they shrunk into dollar bills and moved through a homemade picture frame business - some students (dollars) were spent at the hardware store as variable costs or sunk costs, some were spent at the local outdoor market as fixed period costs, and some came into the business as revenue.  Afterwards students split into teams to compare the profitability of four different businesses and choose which one they would want to start.  When they didn't have time to finish this game on Tuesday, about half of the class decided to continue it on Wednesday to earn a bonus.  Some lessons learned this week were: a strategy some companies (like Zappos) use is, instead of focusing on marketing, focusing on making employees happy so that they provide good customer service and word spreads about the company; what the different types of costs are and what "contribution" means; and that a marshmallow tastes much better when you earn it.

Week 5

Monday was an exciting day as students entered their new space for the first time.  They were thrilled with all the space to spread out and immediately plopped down on beanbag chairs and began looking through the baskets of books that were all over the classroom.  Just reorganizing the same library they had at the other campus gave the books a new appeal.  After exploring inside the large classroom, delighting in finding the new resting places of their familiar pieces of furniture and artwork and admiring the large bathrooms, students began exploring all the outdoor space.  So much grass to run on!

Students started the week off with their first P.E. class right on campus where there is a large, flat field perfect for kickball.  They also had some free time during the day to further explore the classroom and campus.  In the afternoon, students had a very official Socratic discussion in the MBA classroom where they discussed the question: Is it better to try lots of different things in life or focus on just one thing?  This led to a rich debate which raised several other provocative questions:  Does everyone have a calling? Can your calling be to have a negative impact on the world?  Can your inactions change the world or just your actions?  

On Tuesday, we took a field trip to the Paramount for dancing, drumming and singing in an entertaining, Cindarella-esque tale set in Africa, Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters.  Inspired by their theater experience, students enjoyed a new game brought to them by one of their classmates called “Gestures” which requires players to act out different words.

Prompted by a generous donation of books from one student’s family, we wrote our first thank you notes of the year.  In addition to this note, students decided we should thank the movers, the builders (of the new classroom), Mrs. Sandefer (for planning the history sessions and setting up the new space), Ms. Anna (for planning the E-Ship game), all the parents who drove us to the Paramount for the field trip, and several other parents for things they have done for us this past month.  Students split up into pairs to write the notes, putting great thought and effort into this display of gratitude.

In Writing Workshop, students looked back through the stories, thoughts and ideas in their Writer’s Notebooks and selected a “seed” from which they wrote a memoir vignette.  After drafting their short stories, they revised, trying to involve as many of the senses in their pieces as possible.  They also sought feedback from each other before typing up their vignettes for publication. 

This was the final week for the E-Ship game.  Students continued to learn about running a business and keeping customers happy by playing RoboRush and the Lemonade Stand-off.  They also reflected individually on their own strengths and passions and formed small groups for discussions about difficult business decisions.  All this, while trying to earn patches for the sails on their ships and money to spend at the marketplace.  At the end of the week, six students had managed to earn all eight of their patches and everyone had powerful lessons to share.  They came together in small groups to discuss the important questions they had been asking themselves as entrepreneurs over the past four weeks.  Each group discussed what they had learned and made a poster to represent their lessons.  We were able to use the Acton MBA classroom as an impressive place for them to given short presentations to the rest of the class.  One final, heated discussion broke out after these on the question, “Is it best to measure your success as an entrepreneur by: the happiness of your customers, the happiness of your employees, your own person happiness or the profit of your business?”  A vote was taken after some debate with over half the class choosing profit.

In history, the students’ magic carpets took them to the far off land of Medieval India. They traveled across the massive land, basking in the palm trees and deserts sands and shivering in the frost of the Himalaya. Mount Everest was a sight to behold! They were then introduced to Chandragupta, the first of the Gupta dynasty. They watched as the descendants of Chandragupta worked hard to take small independent cities and unite them into a large empire. As soon as the city started to flourish and the citizens prospered, a group of barbarians, the Huns, stormed the empire. They were fierce warriors who had already conquered many civilizations. Fortunately, because the Gupta dynasty had brought everyone together, the Medieval Indian Empire successfully defended itself from invaders.  Seeing the heroic defense spawned the question, “Is a country more powerful when they are united or when they divide?”

Students compared the Indians’ experience to the American Civil War and pondered the words The United States of America and what that means exactly. After some debate, they finally decided that countries are more powerful united, as long as they have the resources to defend their land and they are working together, saying, “It’s not enough to be together, you have to have teamwork.”

Later in the week, students watched as privileged Prince Siddhartha left his luxuries and set off to peacefully change the world. Now referred to as The Buddha, they discovered how Prince Siddhartha continues to change the world with peace.  Watching Buddhists monks study and think in silences, students discovered the power of silence.

We celebrated another double-digit birthday this week with pictures of the birthday boy in each year of his life, notes of appreciation, sweet wishes and homemade brownies. 

Week 6

This week we continued to settle into our wonderful new space, taking advantage of all the indoor and outdoor spaces.  Students enjoyed all the green spaces to run, organizing themselves to play football, Sharks and Minnows, Ball Tag and other high-energy games.

We started each day this week in our Read Aloud groups, coming to the ends of Kensuke’s Kingdom and Falling In.  Each group had the bittersweet feeling that comes with saying goodbye to another world and its characters at the satisfying resolution of a great story.

Ms. Zoey joined us for the first time this year, creating an incredible Art Week for the students.  Having not had regular Art class for the first five weeks of school, they made up for lost time by working with her for two hours each day this week.  Studying the colorful work of Malcolm Furlow, students were introduced to elements of line, color, shape, texture, form and space by each choosing one of his masterpieces to replicate on a giant piece of paper.  Before painting each day, they had a short drawing lesson focused on a specific technique to align everyone’s energy and build their skill sets.

With the E-Ship game completed, students turned their focus to preparations for the Children’s Business Fair.  On Tuesday, each student presented an outline of their business and then engaged in a “gallery walk”, where they went around and read each other’s proposals and wrote feedback to their peers.  Taking this feedback into consideration, they developed a short pitch for their business which they gave the following day at their “prototype expo”.  Students brought in a sample of their product or a visual to explain their service and the Acton MBA students asked them questions and gave them feedback on their ideas.  Many of the students will participate in the Children’s Business Fair next weekend and may adjust their ideas based on the feedback they received.

In history this week, students traveled west to the desert sands of Arabia.  Here they were introduced to yet another hero, Muhammad.  They listened to his life story and how he found his calling.  As he began to grow up, he realized with dismay that some people did not treat others nicely and, according to Islamic tradition, he had a vision while he was thinking in a cave and decided to change the world.  This made the students wonder, “What would I do if I had a vision?”

After learning about the formation of the Koran, based on Muhammad’s teachings, students discussed the five pillars of faith and discussed which pillar would be hardest for them to follow and if any of lessons from the Koran sounded familiar.  Wrapping up the first five weeks of time traveling adventures, students looked back at all of the places they had been: Rome, Britain, India, China, and now Arabia.  And this is just the beginning.

We celebrated another birthday at the beginning of this week, with one of our new Eagles turning eight.  After just five weeks, students were able to speak eloquently, from the heart, about their new friend, thanking him for the unique qualities he brings to our lives.

Students still had time to work on their core skills this week, focusing on math and reading.  They updated their Shelfari.com accounts with all the books they have read during this first session of school and many students even added books to their “planning to read” shelf.  Before leaving school on Friday, students went around the circle and shared their reading plans for the week off.  After about a dozen students had shared what they were planning to read, one student said, “Wait.  Do we have to read next week?”  The other students looked at him with confusion and one said, “With a whole week off, why wouldn’t you read?”

It was a great first session of school.  In these past six weeks, the Acton Academy students were passionate scholars, athletes, historians, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, friends and courageous heroes.  In that short time, they created a Lip Dub, traveled back to the medieval times, played games, worked through many challenging math problems, painted the great works of Malcolm Furlow, tested their physical limits, engaged in Socratic dialogue, creatively solved problems, read wonderful books, said goodbye to one space and settled into a new one, wrote stories from their own lives, formed new relationships, started businesses, went to the theater, listened to great stories and became a strong community of twenty-eight Acton Eagles.

During the upcoming week away from school, students will have time to reflect, relax and rejuvenate before we come together again to explore more questions and make more memories.

Week 7

The second session of school is off to a great start.  On Monday morning, the class divided into three small groups.  Each student was given a slip of paper with either the word “owl”, “duck” or “chicken” on it and told that they were to find their other group members without using any words.  Within moments the room was filled with hooting, quacking and clucking.  After settling into their groups, students shared highlights and stories from the week break with each other.  They will be in these groups each morning this session and engage in Socratic Dialogue together.  We will use excerpts from classic literature, short stories and fables as a common text from which to practice these discussion skills.

On Monday we also looked at our new schedule and discussed the changes that have been made to it.  With Art now a bi-weekly event, Mondays and Friday will start this way and P.E. has been moved to those afternoons to take advantage of the changing weather.

Later in the week in their smaller morning groups, students revisited the simple rules they wrote and committed to at the beginning of the school year – respect yourself, respect each other, respect the environment and be proactive.  After having some time together as a community we talked about what this actually looks and sounds like within different activities and times of our school day.  In our weekly Town Meeting, we compiled the ideas of the three groups into one poem.

Rules to Live By - 2011-12 Acton Eagles

Respect.  Me.  You.  This space.

We talk in discussions.  Or sometimes just listen.  Seated, but allowing personal space.  Socratic dialogues.  Which side will you take?  Calm tone of voice to make your point.  I hear your voice.  Do you hear mine?  No side conversations or games.  Limited body movement.  Leave the Velcro on your shoe alone.  You fiddle absentmindedly, but now I am distracted.  Eye contact helps you really listen.  Hands in the air show that you are not. 

Collaboration.  Group work.  Projects.  Combining our power to take on new challenges.  Face team members and stay with your team.  Offer help to others and ask them what they think.  So many voices in the room, but soft and calm and still excited.  Take care of the materials you use.  You may need them again.

Individual work.  Core skills become tools on your journey.  Try your hardest, don’t give up.  Stay focused.  It helps to be more still.  Individual, but not alone.  Use the materials to help you.  Take care of them.  Seek help when you need it and give help when you can.  Whisper help.

Story time.  Calm.  Relaxed.  Razor-sharp listening.  Ignore attention-seeking attempts to distract.  Their loss, not yours.  Together as a community.  Bonded by a common tale, but not physically touching.  Only the reader’s voice can be heard.

Free time.  Shared space.  Wisely-used time.  People to make their own choices.  Everyone included in games and activities.  Clean up your mess.  Follow the rules of the game.  If the game has rules.  No insults, no rolling eyes.  Hands to yourself.  Appropriate conversation.  Keep plans outside of school to yourself.  Louder voices, perhaps, but polite tones still.  Be generous with your help, where it is needed.  Encouraging others.  Good Job, not I’ll get you.    Joyful time.  Alone.  With a friend.  In a group. 

This week also marked a big change in the history of our History curriculum. In our studies over the past two years, the students have discovered that most of history is known because of stories told by people long ago. To harness the power of these stories and to follow the traditions of our ancient ancestors, History has been transformed into a time for story-telling.  While stories have always been a major part of the History curriculum, they are now more central.  Each morning this week, students gathered around to hear the old tales of the Sui and Tang dynasties of China and the Yamato dynasty of Japan. They even traveled all the way to Australia to hear that country’s story as well. At the end of each day’s tales, students were asked to write down one question in their history notebooks, typically related to this year’s theme of power.  The next day, before the story began, they had the opportunity to share any thoughts or reflections on the previous day’s question.  On Friday, students engaged not just their sense of sound, but also touch, taste and smell as they connected to another culture by tasting Chinese ice cream and learning to use chopsticks.

The Children’s Business Fair, which was a huge success for our students, marked the culmination of last session’s E-Ship quest.  This week, students began their next quest, taking on the role of super heroes with the power to change the world.  Their final mission on this quest will be to use their powers to write a speech that will persuade their audience to take action about a cause they believe in, and, as a result, change the world. As the first step on their quest, they must discover where they get their powers.  Then, they will seek to find what gives others power, because in order to persuade others, they must first understand them.  Finally, they will choose their cause and use their powers to persuade others to take action.

This week, on their quest to understand their own powers, they tracked their power throughout the day to find patterns for when they are most energetic and when they are least energetic (and they used this data to create graphs in Excel); they practiced breathing and meditation to build their powers of self-regulation and control; they used their powers of self-control to resist the temptation of eating their favorite candies; they used their physical strength to see how long they can hold a wall squat, and used the powers of competition and goal-setting to push themselves to their physical limits; they used their problem-solving abilities to crack a code and discover the power of language; they burned foods to test the power of sugar vs. protein; and they used their powers of focus and concentration to make a ball levitate.  

In Writer’s Workshop, we began a unit on poetry.  Students will use their Writer’s Notebooks to continue to collect their individual thoughts, questions and memories.  They will use this writing as inspiration for the poetry they compose over the next two months.  This week we spent lots of time reading other poets’ work and talking about the techniques they use, what words we love, what surprised us and what we want to try in our own work.  At the beginning of the week, students pored through books of poems and each selected one poem to memorize.  On Friday, we began Writer’s Workshop with a recital.  Students were nervous before their turns, but delighted afterwards with their performances and surprised by their own ability to memorize a poem in just five days.

With Halloween next Monday, students worked through a Decision Chain at the end of the week to determine whether or not they would wear their costumes to school.  With distraction and the concern of costume-less individuals feeling left out as the major “cons” and extreme fun and the ability to “test-drive” your costume and get feedback before the big night as the major “pros”, students decided that costumes will be permitted on Monday with the promise that they would engage their powers of self-control in the face of distraction and the clear understanding that costumes are not required.

On Friday morning, we celebrated a dual birthday, seeing pictures and hearing stories about two of our youngest students born just four minutes apart.

We had the great pleasure of welcoming the six fabulous guides who comprise the founding teaching team of Acton Academy Guatemala which will open its doors this coming January in Guatemala City.  They came this week to observe and interact with our community.  The students were energized by the idea of going on a field trip to Guatemala and have a renewed sense of desire to learn Spanish in order to communicate with their Latin American counterparts.

Week 8

Students arrived Monday morning in costume.  Having worked through a Decision Chain the Friday before, it was decided that while the costumes might be distracting, wearing them would also provide a valuable opportunity to get feedback before going trick-or-treating and bring them great joy.  In Morning Group, students discussed the question: Are you more powerful when you wear a disguise or when people know who you are?

Poetry continued to be written, read, recited and relished.  We looked at the lyrics of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and questioned whether or not a song can be a poem.  Students said that some were and some were not.  We looked up the lyrics to some other songs, ones that did not make the poem list, such as the Michael Jackson song, “Bad”, but then discovered when read, it just might be a poem.  Opinions differed (this is Acton Academy we’re talking about, after all), and the question remained unanswered.

In their time travels this week, students visited the Frankish Empire where they met Clovis, Charles the Hammer and Charlemagne. They also saw Tariq Bin Ziyad and his army conquer parts of Spain, bringing Islam with him from North Africa.  As they explored these distant lands, they continued to ponder questions about power. Is it more important for a country to build good schools or good roads and bridges?  Would you rather have a small kingdom so that it was easier to control or a large kingdom so it would be more powerful?  Many different perspectives and interesting points ignited their discussions.

During project time, students continued to explore where they get power.  A highlight of the week was the culmination of the “Mind Over Matter” mission.  After having done their best at holding wall squats individually without any goal and individually with the goal of beating their previous time, the entire class held wall squats all together to see if performing in a group made any difference.  Students discovered that for almost all of them, performing with a goal allowed them to hold the wall squat for longer, and performing with a goal at the same time as their classmates allowed them to hold the wall squat even longer.  Some students felt this boost of power was due to a desire to beat the competition, while some students felt it was due to encouragement from the crowd.  Project Time ended for the week with students creating Super Hero cards, on which they listed where they get their physical power, their mental power, and their emotional power.  Next week students will begin exploring where others get their power. 

The new Reading Time after lunch continues to be a cherished time of day with students in all corners of the room glued to their books.  The only sounds that can be heard are the occasional sigh, gasp or chuckle of an engrossed reader.  Several students also made generous book donations this week to add to our fabulous library.

Perhaps the greatest excitement of the week for some came in the form of a “fai-to”.  Students were back on MangaHigh, a competitive on-line math program, this week.  They worked hard, pushing themselves to earn gold medals in challenging math exercises during their core skills time and earning even more medals playing math games during their free time and afterschool.  While the effort has been valiant, the other school is close to a victory.  “That’s okay,” says one student, “We pushed ourselves and learned more.  We are all winners.”

In Town Meeting, two emotional topics were brought up – how to divide the outdoor play spaces and choose group games during free time, and whether or not discussing social plans for outside of school has a place in school.  Students spoke candidly, honestly and eloquently about the different sides of these issues.  We will be focusing on empathy in the coming weeks to help students continue to navigate these delicate situations.

Week 9

We began the week with the Native American saying, “Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins” and a discussion about what empathy is and how it can serve us in our lives.  Each student decorated a “shrinky-dink” (some magical form of plastic that shrinks and hardens, while retaining its shape and any markings when placed in a hot oven for 30 seconds) and then sealed their commitment to consciously using empathy over the next month by shrinking it in the oven.  We punched a hole in the corner of each so that in could become the first bead on their Empathy Strands.  Over the course of the week, if a student noticed themselves or one of their peers using empathy, they wrote a little note and put it in a jar by the Empathy Strands.  At the end of the week, we read the notes allowed and celebrated these “acts of empathy”.  For each such act, the student responsible took a bead and added it to their Empathy Strand.  We will continue doing this for the next few weeks, celebrating our growing ability to use empathy.

The ability to empathize also related to Project Time, as students moved from exploring their own power to exploring the power of others: their classmates, famous heroes, and heroes they have met outside of school.  Students each received twenty-eight of their own super hero trading cards - these are cards with their picture on one side and a description of where they get their powers (based on their discoveries from the past two weeks) written on the other side.  The goal is for everyone in the class to end up with one card from each other student.  In order to get someone else’s card, students must give that person a "power point" by identifying a strength they have noticed in that person and telling that person how, when, or why they noticed it.

In addition to looking for each other’s strengths, students read some biographies about persuasive heroes  – John Muir; Abraham Lincoln; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Lady Bird Johnson; Cesar Chavez; Sojourner Truth; and Eleanor Roosevelt – and discussed the various ways they got and used their power.  They also questioned whether words or actions are more persuasive, and watched speeches by Abraham Lincoln (The Gettysburg Address), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ("I have a dream" speech), and John F. Kennedy ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" Inaugural speech).

Finally, students shared interviews they had taken home during the week in order to ask some of their own personal heroes about where they get their power.  As they shared their interviews, they practiced public speaking and developed our Acton Academy standards for what makes a great speaker.  As students begin writing their own speeches, they will think about how empathy relates to persuasion.

Split into three small groups several morning this week, students read and discussed short stories and fables from the Touch Pebbles series.  The series is designed not only to exposure students to wonderful stories from around the world and spark interesting debates, but also to systematically help them learn and practice great conversation and discussion skills.  This week we read a tale from West Africa called “The Judge” about a dispute between two mice who cannot agree upon a fair way to share a piece of cheese.  The judge, however, abuses his position of authority and both mice end up empty-pawed, causing them to consider what made them unable to compromise on their own.

Poetry writing and reciting continued this week.  We had a particularly memorable performance from a brother-sister team of “The Meehoo with an Exactlywatt” by Shel Silverstein.  They split the poem into two parts and recited it without missing a beat, in a question, answer format that received a standing ovation from the audience.  We also had the great fortune to enjoy some poetry set to music in the form of a maritime ballad.  One of our student’s grandfathers was visiting Austin and came in to tell us about his experience in Civil War reenactments where he and his sons play the role of singing seamen.  He brought along his guitar and played us a wonderful ballad and the students debated whether it was a song or a poem or a story.

Our weekly Town Meeting provided an opportunity for students to work out solutions to several small issues within our community.  It also gave rise to the discussion of a school pet, which has come and gone a few times since our “Pitch a Pet” project this past summer.  Until now, these discussions have not led to any action, but this week, after the Town Meeting, one student formed a Pet Club, putting a sign-up and description of the purpose of the club on the refrigerator.  The club met during free time this Friday for the first time to discuss the feasibility of a school pet and brainstorm ideas.  We also took some time during this week’s Town Meeting to brainstorm a list of people to whom we owe Thank You notes.  Students paired off to work on these during their work time later in the week.

In preparation for a special experience next week, students jumped a few hundred years forward in their historical studies to the time of the American Revolution.  They watched and discussed episodes from the Liberty’s Kids series.  As they witnessed Patriots dumping tea into the Boston Harbor, they wondered whether taxation without representation was acceptable and if fighting for equality was worth risking everything.  They also weighed the differences between mob rule and responsible acts of protest and experienced the tension of the moments before the American Revolution.  Will Parliament acquiesce or will the colonists have to take action?  Moreover, is it possible for such a small band of Patriots to change their lives and the world forever?

P.E. continues to be an important part of our week with students getting intense exercise, developing coordination, practicing sportsmanship and just having fun together.  (I do not usually have the good fortune of participating in P.E. myself, but was able to this week due to a scheduling change this Friday.  I can honestly say I had not laughed that hard all week and I woke up truly sore on Saturday from the workout!)

We celebrated another Acton Eagle birthday this week with a celebratory ritual that deeply honors the individual and allows the students to practice giving and receiving compliments.

Week 10

Our morning TouchPebbles discussions included two interesting stories this week.  “The Camel and the Jackal”, a tale from India is about the breakdown of cooperation between two animals.  Students discussed ways to react when one person hurts another and it is not known if the harm was accidental or done on purpose.  They then imagined ways they could resolve the situation differently using the power of persuasion.  "The Clever Thief" is a Korean story of a king who is changed when he is challenged to see himself from the perspective of a thief.  Students discussed how seeing ones’ self from a different perspective can change a person.  Students reflected on their individual roles in TouchPebbles discussions and shared feedback with other students.  Each person picked a way they want to improve in our discussions.  We also read and discussed a newspaper article one morning that talked about the role of empathy in business.  The journalist told two contrasting stories about personal experiences with companies and their relative use of empathy.  Students discussed how empathy can actually be a tool that helps a business succeed and make a profit.

In response to the students’ thank you note for last week’s interactive performance, our ballad-singing guest offered to come in again and we accepted gratefully.  This week, we sang "Barrett's Privateers" with him which is a nine verse sea chantey, rich in nautical language.  As they had the previous week, the students showed a remarkable amount of knowledge about pirates and sailing and greatly enjoyed learning more.

In addition to writing poetry and speeches (as part of a history project) this week, students took time to write letters of gratitude to their parents as a Thanksgiving present.  Our final poetry recital was a success with many students challenging themselves to memorize longer poems including Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” and Shel Silverstein’s 48-line poem “Peanut-Butter Sandwich”.

Students concluded a four-week drawing unit in Art this week.  They have used both ink and pencil to work on a variety of drawing skills and techniques.  They have drawn birds and cats, studied the human form and created strikingly Picasso-esque portraits of each other by drawing in one continuous motion without look down at their hand or picking up the pen.  (Not only did this produce fabulous work, but was an incredible way to practice self-control as it is very difficult to resist looking down.)  On Friday, they all drew the same rooster – or so they were instructed.  Ms. Zoey drew at an easel in front of them and talked them through the steps.  At the end they admired how different each person’s piece was, even though they all began with the same intention and followed the same instructions.  Each bird was rich with the individual personality of the artist.

As often happens in our community where the lines between school and home are blurred into what we refer to as “life”, several students brought things from home to share with the class.  While working the compost at home with his family, one student discovered several Long-Horned Beetle larvae.  He did some research at home, painted a beautiful poster depicting their life-cycle and brought in two of specimen to share with the class.  On the same day, another student brought in the two pieces of a board she had broken the previous afternoon in Tae Kwon Do.  On Friday, we celebrated the exciting move to double-digits for one of our Eagles this week with ten revolutions around the sun and a short history of his favorite foods from each year of his life. 

Before heading off for a week of rest and reflection, students took a look back at the goals they set four weeks ago.  They thought about whether they had set goals that were too easy or too difficult to attain – or just right – and if they needed to make any adjustments to their work routines in the coming weeks.

With all these things going on in the classroom and plenty of focused reading and math work too, the real highlight of the week was the history experience that was woven into the current Question and Create project.  To compliment this, the past two weeks in history have focused on the time on the American Revolution, using the Liberty’s Kids video series as the stories for discussion.

In the “Liberty’s Kids” episodes this week, the students watched as America won its freedom.   Although the news caused much celebration here at Acton, the students quickly realized that freedom can be very costly.  They watched on the edge of their seats as General George Washington commanded his little army.  At times, it did not look good, and hope was hard to muster.  There were many broken families and hearts.  Against the odds, the Americans fought like heroes and won their freedom!  They were free to establish their own country based on equality and freedom, or were they?  In the face of many threats to a fledgling country, the delegates debated several difficult and important issues.  How should this government be run?  How should the states be represented?  Is an equal vote a fair vote?  Fortunately, heroes like James Madison, William Randolph, and Roger Sherman offered compromises to placate both sides of the discussion.  This left only one major issue: what about slavery?  Is it right to write a document that states all men are created equal when only some are being treated as equal?  How do you tell some Americans that the Constitution was not written for them?  As simple as it seems to abolish slavery, the students came to understand the ramifications for such an action.  The South could fail and maybe even the entire country right along with it.  They faced the reality that many decisions are not easy.  The Constitution was eventually signed but again, it was a costly victory. 

During Project Time this week, students experienced firsthand the complexity of the decisions the founders of our country faced.  As an extension of the Question and Create project and exploration of where we get our power and where others get their power, this week students stood in the shoes of our Founding Fathers as they wrote the Constitution, argued back and forth about big issues, and decided whether or not to sign the Constitution.   

To introduce the Constitutional Convention experience, Jeff Sandefer came in and led a Socratic discussion about the colonies being loosely tied together but with the threat of a potential British attack.  He used popsicle-sticks to represent the colonies and handed one of them to a student and asked her to break it in half, which she did with not trouble.  Then, he wrapped thirteen popsicle-sticks with a piece of string and asked the same student to break them.  She could not.  He also used the image of a rock wall that could tumble down if one rock from the bottom was pulled out to represent the situation.  He then used the image of "poison in the water source" – something much less obvious that was also threatening the young country of America. The students debated which was more of a threat – a rock wall crumbling and squashing a town or poison getting into the water.  After much discussion, Jeff asked what the poison in the water could be.  What could be something less obvious that was tearing the country apart?  Everyone was quiet and then one soft voice spoke up and said, "Slavery.  Slavery was poisoning them.”

After the introduction, students were placed in small teams and randomly assigned to represent a specific state from the North or the South.  They were asked whether or not they would sign the Constitution, and if they do, if they would allow slavery or ban it.  Students spent time during the week researching and thinking in order to make a decision and form an argument based on their decision.  They each prepared a speech designed to persuade their teammates, consciously focusing on Ethos, Pathos or Logos as their primary persuasion technique.  Then students shared their arguments with their teammates and each team selected the member with the most persuasive argument as a delegate to represent them at the Convention.

In addition to the issue of slavery, they would have to vote on two other important issues that shaped our country – Should we have a strong central government, give individual states the power, or a central government whose power is divided?  Should there be equal representation in Congress for small states and large states or representation based on population?  Students volunteered to prepare persuasive speeches on the different sides of these issues as well.

To add some real consequence to the experience, each student was given two polished stones in a coin purse to represent their “wealth”.  Whether or not they got to keep this “wealth” depended on the decisions made by the delegates.  There were three potential outcomes which were discussed in detail before the Convention:

1.      Don't sign the Constitution: If the students chose not to sign the Constitution, they would roll a die.  If a 1-5 was rolled, the British would attack the weak nation and students would become subjects of the King for one school day.  That meant that students would have to pay taxes (one of their stones) and follow the proclamations of the King (extra rules that would be added throughout the day, taking away some of the liberties that the students typically have such as choosing when and where to do their work).  If a 6 was rolled, everyone would get to keep all of their wealth and their freedom.

2.      Sign the Constitution and allow slavery: If the students chose this option, half of the class would be chosen randomly to be slaves for half of a school day (their wealth would be taken away, they would be last dismissed for activities, and they would be required to do tasks like clean the desks and sharpen pencils).  Southerners would be free and determined by a roll of a die, get a certain number of marshmallows to enjoy depending on the success of the cotton harvest that year.

3.      Sign the Constitution and ban slavery: If this option was chosen, students from southern states would lose half of their wealth and the delegates representing them would lose all of their wealth.

On Thursday, we held our Constitutional Convention at which the chosen delegates from each state presented their arguments, debated, and voted about what to do.  Students (delegates) presented many thoughtful and well-articulated arguments.  In their speeches and arguments, they brought up character traits we have studied, used famous quotes, and listed facts to appeal to their fellow delegates.  

First they debated whether power should lie in a central government or state governments and eventually agreed that a central government should hold the power, but that this central government should be divided into three parts so that it does not become too powerful.  Next came the topic of how states should be represented in Congress.  There were strong arguments for each state having the same number of representatives in Congress, but delegates eventually voted that the legislative branch of the government should be split into two parts, one of which would have the same number of representatives from each state, and the other in which the number of representatives would be based on the population of the state. 

The slavery issue was the most heated.  Delegates from the southern states refused to budge on their position that slavery was necessary for their survival, and delegates from northern states refused to budge on their position that slavery was an evil that needed to be ended.  With five out of seven votes necessary to sign the Constitution, numerous votes were taken with little success.  Finally, two options for compromise were suggested by delegates: they could ban slavery immediately and the Northern states would agree to give a portion of their wealth to the Southern states to make up for their losses, or they could keep slavery with the promise of ending it in five years or when the South was able to save up enough wealth that it would be able to sustain itself without slavery (students agreed on the amount of $10,000), whichever came first.  With a final vote, six delegates voted to keep slavery for five years or until the South had saved up $10,000 and one delegate abstained.  With that, the students took quill in hand and signed the Constitution!

It was a long, exhausting, and sometimes quite heated two hours of debating, but in the end, they signed a Constitution.  Based on their decision, we met Friday morning to roll a die to see how much money the students were able to make from the cotton harvest in the first year (1=$2,000, 2=$4,000, 3=$6,000, 4=$8,000, 5=$10,000, 6=$12,000).  A 5 or a 6 would give them the amount they agreed on to end slavery, and no one would have to be a slave.  A 1 – 4, would mean half of the class would be "slaves" (for two hours rather than a half day since the decision was made to end slavery after just five years). 

Before rolling the die, students discussed what it was like to be a delegate giving a speech and defending their cause versus being in the audience.  Which was more difficult?  Which was more powerful?  Students in the audience experienced the frustration of not being able to voice their opinions and we discussed the importance of making careful choices in electing officials and also what opportunities there are for citizens today to influence political decisions.  We also talked about the emotional intensity for both the delegates and the citizens watching and honored those feelings.  Then it was time for emotions to rise again, as names were drawn out of a hat for who would be a temporary slave and who would be a master if a 1 – 4 was rolled.  It was an extremely tense moment as the die hit the floor.  It was a 6!  Cheers erupted from some students, while others quietly turned their heads in relief to wipe away the beginnings of tears.  Just the anticipation was incredibly emotional and should leave a strong memory for our students. 

Since they rolled a 6, the $2000 surplus from an extremely profitable crop was enjoyed in the form of marshmallows, with both Northerners and Southerners partaking since it was their compromise (and a bit of luck) that landed them in their current situation.  Each year, we create a role-playing situation where students can stand in the shoes of others and experience history.  They are emotionally charged and lay the groundwork for discussions throughout the year.

When we return from break, we will begin the speech-writing part of Question & Create with each student choosing a topic or issue about which they feel passionate.  They will keep this experience of becoming emotional about a cause in mind as they think about an issue or cause they want to focus on.

Week 11

We have spent the first couple months of school focused on the question of power.  We have examined different potential sources of power through our projects and other experiences.  Students have reflected on and discussed when and why they feel most empowered and how this can serve them in their lives.  They have also read books, watched interviews and interviewed personal heroes in an attempt to discover what gives other people power.

This week, we began to discuss the corruption of power and the meaning of Lord Acton’s famous quote: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Students sat in a circle and in front of each of them was a marshmallow.  (We have used marshmallows throughout this year to represent something desirable.  These students will never make a s’more without thinking about self-control, slavery, corruption and a whole host of other things.)  Each student was also given a slip of paper.  Most of them were blank, but a few had “x’s” on them.  The students who had an “x” were told that they had “absolute marshmallow power” and could take anyone else’s marshmallow.  There was some discussion as the empowered students thought about their choice.  After several minutes, their “marshmallow power” ran out and each student was told their marshmallow was safe.  As they enjoyed their sweet, the students who had had “marshmallow power” shared why they did not take advantage of their power; how they had resisted the corruption.  Students thought back to the Friday before Thanksgiving Break when half of them had been close to becoming slave masters for a day.  They thought about what they would have done and whether that power might have corrupted them.

In project time, we discussed the power a speaker has over a captive audience, and how this power can be used for good or how it can be abused.  Students watched twelve year old Severn Suzuki silence her audience at UN Earth Summit, Hitler rallying a large audience and Rachel Sequoia pitching an off-the-wall business idea at a Venture Capital Fundraising meeting.  They discussed how the speakers chose to use their power and whether they were trying to persuade people to do something that would benefit them personally, something that would not be particularly harmful or beneficial, or something that would benefit many people.  They also discussed which techniques the speakers used that were successful and which were not in order to develop a rubric with which to analyze their own efforts.

Then, students began brainstorming ideas for their own speeches.  They selected a problem they see in their world, from pollution and hunger to bullying or not being allowed to have a dog.  They examined the power of storytelling, watching clips from speeches by Steve Jobs, Jamie Oliver and Ken Robinson.  Then students drafted stories to use in their speeches to help put their audience in the shoes of someone facing their problem.  Next week, students will focus on proposing solutions to their problems - something others can do, in an effort to persuade them to take action. 

This week’s journey through history took the students to England. They saw William the Conqueror take control over England in the Battle of Hastings, studied the development of the English language, and even toured a castle!  Along the way, the pondered questions about planning, leadership, and strategy. 

In Art, students continued to experiment with different drawing techniques and also began work on wire sculptures, taking the elements of structure and form they have learned from 2-D to 3-D.  In P.E., they continued to push themselves to their physical limits in preparation for the second Acton Olympics where they hope to see major improvements in their speed, strength and flexibility.

In our smaller morning group discussions, students examined The Hound and the Hunter, a painting by Winslow Homer.  In pairs, they wrote stories to accompany the painting and then shared these.  Each group created a different account of what had led to the moment portrayed in the painting.  This led to a discussion about how differently people can interpret the same thing – whether a painting, a conversation or an event.

In our weekly Town Meeting, two students presented a schedule they made with a designated game for each early and late morning free time.  The goal of the schedule was to eliminate time wasted deciding what to play each day.  The creators of the schedule asked each student for input on what games they would like to see on the schedule and then used this information to decide what games to play and how often to play them.  The schedule came as a follow-up to a discussion during the previous week’s meeting.  Students listened respectfully and with empathy to other concerns from their classmates and worked together to come up with solutions for each.

During their individual work time, students worked intensely.  With only three weeks left until our Winter Break, they each have reading and math goals they are hoping to accomplish.  They are also working to finish revising their poetry so that it will be ready for publication at the end of next week.

Week 12

We had another focused week with students working hard to finish writing their speeches and their poetry, and pushing themselves to reach their reading and math goals for the trimester.

In our morning small group discussions, we were introduced to two great fables about power and strength, “The Lion and the Mouse” and “A Test of Strength”.  In each, small animals – a mouse and a turtle – prove they are powerful in different ways than larger animals – a lion, a hippo and an elephant— leading us to question the relative power of size, strength and brainpower. 

Another successful Town Meeting led to the formation of committees to develop Acton rules for some of the games on the new student-made free time schedule.  One student took the rules agreed upon in a lunchtime dodge ball committee meeting and wove them into story form, each play in the story highlighting a specific rule.

During project time, students applied the steps of the Decision Chain, our process for making decisions on our own, to a persuasive speech in order to lead the audience to the decision they want them to make.  As a part of this, students came up with specific actions they want to persuade their audience to commit to in order to help solve their problem.  Students also learned a few "rhetorical Jujitsu moves" - techniques they could try to incorporate into their speeches to make them even more powerful.  Most of project time was spent writing and conferencing about speeches so that students will be ready to film them next week.

History took students into the heat of battle this week. They witnessed as Christians and Muslims fought for control of Jerusalem.  Richard the Lionhearted and Robin Hood showed them what life was like in the Middle Ages and helped them ponder questions about devotion, leadership, and ethics.

With our character trait of empathy in mind, we are starting a new holiday tradition this year.  Each student selected another student’s name out of a hat and brainstormed for a book they thought that person would enjoy.  They thought about books they have seen that person read this trimester and used Amazon.com’s suggestion engine to find similar books that they have not read yet.  They read reviews of the books and chose one that we do not have in our school library to purchase for their secret friend.  They will exchange books next Friday as part of a special celebration of literature, when the Poetry Anthology will also be released.  After the recipient of the book has read it, he or she will return it to school, helping grow our library.

Week 13

We began the week by going around in a circle and each sharing one thing in our lives for which we are grateful.  With the gratitude flowing, students brainstormed people who enhanced their lives at school this trimester and set off to write them thank you notes.

Our Touch Pebbles story this week, Pandora’s Box, led us to a discussion that continued in history about whether curiosity is a positive or negative force.  History also took students to the forbidden city of Constantinople this week.  They met the great explorer Marco Polo and even got to see him get his first taste of ice cream!  Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible showed them what it took to make Russia the country it is today.  Along the way, they explored questions about curiosity and self-awareness.  Looking back at some of the heroes, tyrants and other characters they have met in the past trimester, students took time to reflect on their favorite stories and the lessons they have learned.  They also pondered how they want to be remembered and came up with their own nickname to represent this.

Another interesting discussion was sparked by a newspaper article that talked about how our senses influence each other and what this reveals about the way the brain works.  Students thought about which senses they rely on most and shared stories of when one sense has influenced another.

In this week’s Town Meeting, students continued to listen and respond to each other with respect and empathy.  They took on even more responsibility for the meeting by trying out a new technique for guiding the flow of the discussion.  Borrowed from a practice used by the Acton MBA students, students called on each other to respond to their comments and held each other accountable for actually responding to the previous comment.  At the end of the Town Meeting we reflected on the energy in the discussion when comments go directly from student to student, instead of through a facilitator.  Students agreed that it was an effective method and we plan to use it again in future Town Meetings.

The Question & Create project came to an exciting conclusion this week with students perfecting their persuasive speeches and practicing them in front of each other.  In small teams, they gave constructive feedback and supported each other in setting up the cameras and filming the final takes.  They were perseverant in their attempts to get their best shot possible, encouraging each other to film one more take with suggestions for improvement such as speaking more clearly and making better eye contact with the camera.  After uploading the speeches to their Super Hero blog, students celebrated their accomplishment by watching each other’s speeches and leaving comments on the blog.  One student went home and emailed his speech on eminent domain abuse to the Institute for Justice.  They posted it on their Facebook page and by Friday morning it had been viewed more than 100 times and had received more than 50 “likes” and several comments.

After twelve intense weeks of working out, students repeated several exercises that they did the first week of school, comparing their times to see if their efforts had translated into greater speed, strength and endurance.  The results were remarkable!  Students increased their average number of push-ups done in 60 seconds by 4.4 push-ups per students.  They increase their low-plank time by an average of 1:44 minutes per student, with most students doubling their benchmark times.  In the shuttle run, which tests speed, students decreased their average time by 2.5 seconds and in the half mile run, a combination of speed and endurance, they decreased their time by an average of 39 seconds per student.

In Art, students added colorful wire to their sculptures, bringing personality to their “stick people” before taking them home on Friday.  Students also learned the art of present wrapping this week.  One by one, they received a wrapping lesson as they stealthily wrapped the book they chose for their secret friend in the Middle School building.

With the Poetry Anthology at the printers, students took time this week to update their Shelfari accounts – online bookshelves that serve as a record of what they have read.  They reflected back on the books they have read this trimester and chose a favorite.  With examples of Staff Selection cards from a local bookstore, students made their own “Eagle Selection” cards to advertise their favorite book of the trimester.

We had a celebratory end to the week, with students exchanging books, displaying their “Eagle Selection” cards and enjoying the publication of their Poetry Anthology.  Each student shared one way that their relationship to reading or writing has changed in the past four months before excitedly opening their books and reading each other’s poetry.  Students asked their fellow poets to sign their anthologies – you never know who may become a famous poet!

We also had the special holiday treat of gingerbread house making, organized by one of our parents.  Students experimented with the structural integrity of various building techniques in constructing their houses and then let their creative design skills take over as they covered them in candy.  It was a wonderful end to fabulous trimester.  And we have so much more ahead!

Week 14

We had a great start to the new trimester and the New Year. The cars were lined up by 8am with students eager to reconnect with their peers. We started the morning by greeting our newest Eagle and each sharing one important thing we learned during our two weeks away from school. Then, the room took on a familiar quiet buzz as students plopped down on bean bags to read or got back into their math work. 

Part of their work took the form of a new phase in our Writing Workshop. For the next few months, in addition to recording observations and stories from their lives in their Writer’s Notebooks, students will focus on spelling and grammar. While learning some of the fundamental rules of our language, we will discuss ways that spelling and grammar affect the power of our writing. In the spirit of curiosity and inquiry, students will be involved in creating their spelling lists and discovering grammatical rules through exploration. This week, the spelling program was launched and as that process becomes habit, the focus will switch to grammar. For spelling, students will be presented with a rule each week and will brainstorm words that follow that rule. They will each create their own list of words that follow that rule and study these during the week, leading up to an assessment on Fridays. Students will test each other in pairs, on their individual words. In future weeks, students will also be encouraged to look for words that “break” the rule and include these as bonus words on their lists. 

Students got the chance at the beginning of the week to reflect on the past few months by going through their portfolios and thinking about what they achieved in the first trimester of school, what things they did that were effective for their learning and what new things they want to try in order to improve their experience. They are proud of how far they have come and eager to take on new challenges and continue to grow. 

The excitement on Wednesday morning was contagious as students began their Hero's Journey Project by harnessing the sun's power to make fire. This project, which will continue over the next two school sessions, is composed of two parts: a lab with chemistry and engineering challenges, and a process drama. 

In the lab, students will work through a series of chemistry and engineering challenges, building toward the final challenge of designing the automobile of the future. Specifically, they are searching for an answer to the question: What type of power will run the cars of 2030? Students will "publish" the "natural laws" that they discover along the way, and have the opportunity to verify each others' laws or disprove and revise them. 

The Process Drama this year will focus on the question: Does power corrupt? Process drama is a method of teaching in which students work through a problem or situation using improvisation. Each student creates his or her own character and must make decisions on the spot regarding how to handle various challenges presented to them within a given storyline. The decisions students make then determine the direction of the plot. The goal of process drama is to improve decision-making skills, teamwork, listening, control, spontaneity, and confidence. It also creates a safe place to explore character and philosophical questions. This year’s adventure is off to a great start with students beginning to develop their individual characters and their societies. The details of the day, however, must be kept a secret because the class has been divided into two groups who do not know what the other group is up to. 

We celebrated the accomplishments of the first trimester of P.E. with an awesome awards ceremony. After announcing the team that showed the most overall improvements in their low planks, shuttle runs, push-ups and half mile run, Coach Carpenter presented each student with a personal certificate of achievement in one of the four categories. He also gave trophies to four of our Eagles who were voted by the class as showing the best sportsmanship over the course of the trimester. Then, it was on to new teams, as each student was given a blue or yellow sweatband to represent the team they will be on for this next trimester.

In Art, students started a new project by making contour drawings of a face, using one continuous line to complete the portrait. Then they transferred these drawings onto another piece of paper, leaving light touches that will disappear under a colorful coat of pastel which they will begin applying next week. The next steps will be to paint India Ink over their pieces and begin etching away at that surface to reveal some of the color below. 

This week in History, we began a historical fiction read aloud of Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi. The book is the first in a three-part series about a boy on a quest to understand who he is and what it means to be free. It gives an accurate portrayal of medieval England and it is an exciting, suspenseful story. 

Returning to our character trait study this week, students continued to notice themselves and others in acts of empathy and celebrate each other with notes of recognition and beads for their character strands. With the next door construction crew at eye-level this week, students made large signs for the workers, using empathy to think about what might brighten their days, and posted them in the windows. 

Manners Mondays are back! For the next six weeks, students will practice a different manner each Monday and then use their new manners at a fancy waffle party just before Valentine’s Day and our February break. This week’s manner had students taking small bites and chewing slowly.

Week 15

Project Time continued to set the students’ curiosity and imaginations ablaze…and other things too! After the first challenge last week (to MAKE fire using a magnifying glass, objects from nature and light from the sun), the Hero's Journey chemistry quest continued with two new challenges this week. On Monday, students tackled Challenge #2: SUSTAIN a flame. The task was to figure out the best set-up for keeping a candle burning by asking these questions: Does a candle go out sooner in a smaller container or a larger container or without a container? Does a candle go out sooner when a plant is in a container with it or when there is no plant? On Friday, Challenge #3 was to SPREAD a fire, with the goal being to build a fire using just one match. The longest one-match fire burned for 8:04! Some of the "theories" students have published so far include: 

· It is easy to burn dead grass. It is not easy to burn acorns.

· If you put a candle in a big plastic tub and you light it, it burns longer than if it’s in a small tub.

· Fire burns the longest with no container.

· The best way to light a fire from natural materials is to put grass on the bottom and dead wood at the top.

In process drama, students began to live in their two societies. They also started doing tasks to provide or improve the food, shelter, security, education, transportation, and health of their societies. Several students had the opportunity to be the leader of their society, experiencing what it is like to have absolute power, and several other students had the opportunity to visit the other group's society as observers and try to discover their secrets. 

During this week’s Writing Workshop, the students created and practiced new spelling lists. They also discovered that grammar can have a powerful influence over language. They perused through grammatical errors in advertisements, and saw how much these errors altered the intended messages. 

As an introduction to the parts of speech, students are witnessing personified parts of speech take the stand in court and defend their rights to particular words in a clever story called Grammar-land. Mr. Noun, Dr. Syntax and Judge Grammar are just a few of the characters they met this week. After hearing Mr. Noun’s testimony, the students were sent on a noun challenge. The goal was to collect as many nouns as possible and categorize them as either proper or common. Mr. Verb and Mr. Adjective are next on the list of defendants. Their testimony will spark another week of grammatical adventures. 

Much of individual work time was spent winning a Fai-To on MangaHigh. With more students engaged than ever before, Acton Academy was able to win its first Fai-To of the year. Students also piloted a new reading assessment program, I-Station, that they can add to the tools available to them in the classroom. 

In history, we continued the read aloud of Crispin. Though on a quest to find answers about his own identity and what it means to be free, Crispin finds his journey brings more questions about the world around him. This week, Crispin’s curiosity led him to become the apprentice to a traveling juggler and to develop musical skills. As Crispin journeys with Bear through medieval England, he is wary of being caught by the steward of his former village who has accused Crispin of a crime he did not commit. 

Students had a great week in PE, playing a rousing game of Capture the Flag on Tuesday, applying the new rules they all agreed on after some experimentation the previous week. On Thursday, the students worked on their strength and flexibility by playing Coach Carpenter’s athletic adaptation of “Deal or No Deal”. They had the last laugh, as their brilliant tactics led to the three coaches having to do a combined 130 pushups. 

We had the special treat this week of hearing from one student about his experience with acting as part of his Hero’s Journey after he spent last Friday filming his first commercial. He talked about the challenges he has faced and the guides and travelers he has worked with and showed us some of his achievements – lead roles in a short film and a music video. 

With three birthdays in one weekend, we had lots of celebrations this week complete with breakfast tacos, sweet treats, a drum solo and lots of great stories about three of our amazing Eagles.

Week 16

This week during Project Time we discussed whether, in order for science to make progress, it is better to risk publishing a theory that might end up being proven wrong, or if it is better not to go public with any theories in order to avoid the possibility of making a mistake and facing embarrassment. We also discussed whether scientists should work to try to prove theories right, or if they should work to try to prove theories wrong. Teams were challenged to either defend or disprove one of the theories that has been published by members of the class so far. Students developed and conducted their own experiments in order to complete this challenge. 

In process drama, groups continued to question what makes a society great and what makes a leader great. So far, they have collected several tools for working together, including listening, kindness, and focus. 

Students took a break from their regular math programs to spend some time on Khan Academy this week. While students choose from a variety of math programs to learn on, they will all begin measuring their progress on Khan Academy. Every month or two, they will return to Khan Academy and see how much farther they can go in their “web” of mathematical proficiency. In this way, they will be able to see in more concrete and constant terms what they are learning on the different programs. 

In preparation for some goal setting and time management work, students “tracked” their time this week. Every fifteen minutes, the whole class paused to record what they were doing. They will use this information to help them understand how they spend their self-guided time, as they make plans for accomplishing their goals. 

Students continued their spelling practice during Writing Workshop this week, along with learning about new parts of speech. Students were charged with the task of researching one of four different parts of speech: pronoun, verb, adverb, and adjective. In small groups, they used classroom materials to research their part of speech. 

Next week, they will be responsible for reporting their findings to each other. Afterwards, we will return to court in Grammar-land and discover if our research was complete and accurate based on what Mr. Pronoun and the other parts of speech have to say for themselves. 

The adventures of Crispin continued this week as he learned that he is being pursued by the steward John Aycliffe because he is a possible heir to the recently passed Lord Furnival. Crispin has also learned that his fellow traveler, Bear, is not just a juggler, but also a spy. When Bear is captured by Aycliffe’s army, Crispin decides to rescue his friend, even if this brings him face to face with those who seek to harm him.

In Art, students worked on their portraits, continuing with the detailed process of layering and then taking away. Each student is at a different phase in the process – some adding bright colors to their drawings, some covering them in dark ink, and others beginning to scratch away the ink to reveal some of those bright colors.

Week 17

With an emphasis on goals and time management over the next couple months, we shifted our character trait focus from empathy to self-discipline. On Monday morning students brainstormed a list of traits that help them accomplish their goals – focus, perseverance, self-control, self-discipline – and then voted on which one to make our next character trait. The following morning, we read “The Ant and the Grasshopper” and students discussed what they admire about each of the characters and which one they are most like. They came to the conclusion that a healthy balance lies somewhere between the two – acknowledging the importance of the ant’s self-discipline, but also that of the grasshopper’s joy. 

Students wrote S.M.A.R.T. Goals this week – ones that are specific, measureable, achievable, relevant and timely. They then used these goals to help design a schedule to use during their self-guided work time over the next few months. During the first part of the year, students set goals and were then free to choose each day how to use their core work time. During this next part of the year, they will experiment with having a schedule to follow. Each student’s schedule will be different based on their individual needs and goals. Then during the last part of the year, they will reflect on which method was most effective for them. 

In this week’s Process Drama session, trouble was brewing between the two societies; is an attack coming? Both societies continued to work to discover the other's secrets and ways of life in the hopes of avoiding a conflict, but also in order to be as prepared as possible in case there is a conflict. They also started practicing specific skills they will need in case a conflict occurs. Students continue to experience power first-hand and discuss what makes a good leader and what "tools" are helpful for a group to succeed. This week they added patience to their toolbox. 

During their time in the chemistry lab, students faced a challenge to answer the question: What is fire? They were given two theories to choose between: 1) fire is a chemical reaction that happens when things come together, or 2) it is a substance that is already there inside of things, waiting to be released. They did several experiments to observe examples of both of these: splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen and rusting nails (for reactions) and squeezing orange juice and cracking peanuts (for release). On Friday, we discussed and charted everyone's observations during these experiments, deciding whether, in each of these situations, something new was created or not, whether something that was there before was no longer there, and whether there was a temperature or color change. Following these observations, fire had more in common with the chemical reactions than the releases. We then played a game in which each student became a molecule - either a molecule of methane or a molecule of oxygen. Using one spark, they had to figure out how to arrange themselves in order to set the whole class on fire. After successfully accomplishing that goal, students shrunk even further - they each became an atom of oxygen, hydrogen, or carbon. Again, they had one spark. Using a set of clues, they had to figure out how to arrange themselves to create the things a fire needs, take their spark, and set off a chain reaction to ignite the entire class. As an added challenge, they also had to figure out how to rearrange themselves after they burned. Again, after a few attempts, students were successful! 

We have started using a new tool to process our experiences during project time: the Hero's Journey clothesline. After a morning in the lab, students choose one of the elements of the Hero's Journey that they experienced that day to write about - a call to action, challenge, fear, achievement, personal change, fellow traveler, hero or guide, goal, compass, or gift. They then hang these up to share on our Hero's Journey clothesline using a clothespin with their name on it.

In Writing Workshop, students created and practiced new lists of words based on different spelling patterns and taught each other about verbs, adverbs, pronouns, and adjectives based on research they did over the past two weeks. 

This week in History, we came to the exciting conclusion of Crispin: The Cross of Lead. Many students were excited about the two sequels, recently added to the Acton library. We returned to our journey through time with Stories of the World. Students heard stories about the origins of the Plague and how this terrible sickness affected the people and landscape of medieval Europe. They also learned about the Hundred Years War, read parts of Shakespeare’s Henry V, listened to the “Agincourt Carol” and met Joan of Arc. At the end of History each day, students have begun recording lessons learned to keep a record of what ideas, facts, and stories meant most to them on that day’s journey. 

Coach Carpenter designed yet another fun way for the students to work up a sweat – “Acton Jeopardy”. The group was divided into teams of three and asked questions related to nutrition (What is a calorie?), sports (Who won the Super Bowl last year?), and random facts (How many feet are in a mile?). If a team got the question right, the other two teams had to perform a particular exercise (10 push-ups). If the team answered incorrectly, then they had to do the exercise alone. But the Eagles have become such great sports, that in almost all cases the winning team went ahead and did the exercises right along with the others! 

In our Town Meeting this week, we had a discussion about our Student Contract, which our newest Eagle has not yet signed. Students shared which part of the contract is most meaningful to them. The next day, they split into small groups and each took one sentence from the contract to analyze and explain to the rest of the class. They also shared a specific example from each of their lives of when they had followed that part of the contract. 

The Lego Club, which has been meeting after school every Monday, presented its work to the class this week. Having researched how ice cream is made, they spent several weeks creating a model of an ice cream factory out of Legos. Their intricate design included lots of detail and moving parts which fascinated the class. 

We celebrated another January birthday this week with wonderful stories and pictures (and donut holes) from one of our very special Eagles.

Week 18

Students began the week with their new schedules to guide their individual work time. Each student has a different schedule that they designed based on their current academic goals. Students were focused and productive as they learned to use this new tool. On Friday, they took some to reflect on their week and make adjustments to their schedule for next week. 

We had the fortune to Skype with Mrs. Sandefer – and Mr. and Mrs. Watson-Hemphill – who are all in India right now working at an orphanage. We sang songs and had a brief conversation with the children there. To enhance the experience, students snacked on toasted fennel seeds, a common treat in India. 

Students learned new spelling patterns this week and created lists of words that followed them to memorize over the course of the week. Back in Grammar-land, the court case finally resumed with Mr. Pronoun making his case and Mr. Noun accusing Mr. Adjective of stealing words. Through Mr. Adjective’s testimony, students discovered that words can act as different parts of speech depending on their role in a sentence. Using a special code of different colored shapes to represent different parts of speech (from the Montessori tradition), students practiced their new understanding of nouns, adjectives, articles, pronouns, verbs, and adverbs by coding sentences from the books they are reading. There was an attitude of inquiry and interest in figuring out each word’s role within a sentence – with students trying to convince each other of their findings. 

Back in the Chemistry Lab, students learned about density by seeing how many marshmallows they could squish down to the size of one marshmallow. They tried burning both the non-squished (not dense) marshmallow and the squished (dense) marshmallows to see which burned longer and which caused a greater increase in the temperature of water in a test tube. The squished marshmallows ended up pretty sticky and wet, and they were hard to burn. The experience made us reflect on what we learned last week about the three things necessary for a fire (a spark/energy, fuel, and oxygen), and left us with the question: which is more important for a fire to keep burning – more fuel, or more oxygen? If the spark, fuel, and oxygen are all there, does the amount of each matter?

Students continued exploring density with different types of actual fuel: dried grass, solid fuel, and Sterno. They measured and weighed each type of fuel, and then burned them to see which burned the longest and raised the temperature of a test tube full of water the most. After their measurements and tests, teams made predictions about which type of fuel would work best in a steam engine. Between Sterno and solid fuel, the class was split, so we tested them both – the solid fuel made the steam engine go for 7 minutes and 11 seconds, and the Sterno made it work for 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Ms. Anna crunched the numbers from the morning's tests and figured out – per gram – how long each fuel burned and the temperature difference in the water each caused. In the end, 1 gram of Sterno burns the longest (2:10) and makes the water's temperature rise the most (27 degrees F) – followed by solid fuel, and then grass. Students ended project time by writing their theories for why some fuels work better than others.

In Process Drama, the group broke their record for the “Name/Motion Game” by beating 55 seconds! At the beginning of January, each student thought of a motion to accompany their name. For the first several weeks, saying their name while performing their motion was part of the warm-up. The game was then elevated to another level where each student has to say the name and perform the motion of another student who in turn says the name and performs the motion for a different student. This week, they were able to get through the entire class in just 55 seconds. They began working with a new warm-up: putting motions to the tongue twister "Grip Top Sock". Once in character, the two societies continued to experience different styles of leadership, gather information about each other, and prepare for a possible confrontation. Students added creativity and imagination to the toolbox this week. 

In P.E., students played exciting games of Capture the Flag. Later in the week, the yellow and blue teams came together to face off with a special round of Acton Jeopardy. During Free Time, students enjoyed the beautiful weather, playing soccer, football, dodge ball, and tag. We have just one 5th grader this year, and he began the service portion of his Leadership Training this week by coaching students one-on-one during free time in ball handling skills. An avid athlete, he has chosen this as his way of showing leadership within our community. The other students are thrilled and his sign-up sheet for next week was filled in a matter of minutes. 

This week the Acton Historians traveled to England, Spain, Portugal, India, Africa, and America. They heard stories of mysteries and family feuds during the War of the Roses in England and explored the gold and salt rich kingdoms of Ghana and Mali. Students tasted Naan while learning about India’s powerful emperor, Akbar (after Skyping early that day to India). On Friday, students learned about the routes of the great explorers Columbus, Magellan, and Vespucci. One of the greatest lessons learned from this week is that America is named after explorer Amerigo Vespucci. 

In Town Meeting, with no pressing community issues to tackle, we took the opportunity to discuss the question: What should a teacher’s role be during free time? Students agreed that a teacher should be there for safety, but debated whether they should step in as coaches or referees. Some students argued that teachers should pick the teams and settle all disputes to make things “fair”, whiles others countered that learning how to navigate these tricky situations on their own was an important part of their learning. We did not leave with a consensus, but with the conversation to be continued. 

After some good discussions last week about the Student Contract, our newest Eagle signed his name to it on Monday afternoon to the supportive applause of his classmates. We also celebrated the completion Ms. Anna’s third decade of life with heartfelt words of love and gratitude from the students to their beloved guide.

Week 19

In a continuation of examining the relative effectiveness of various types of fuel, students participated in a simulation to consider the difference in the risk, difficulty, and cost of gathering wood, coal, or oil for fuel. We questioned: Is something better if it is cheap and easy to get, but doesn’t work as well, or if it is expensive and hard to get, but works really well? 

Those who decided to collect wood played the game “Pick Up Sticks”. They were to remove trees (sticks) one at a time from the pile without disturbing the remaining sticks. (They had to harvest carefully enough to protect the soil and be able to replant more trees; if any other sticks were disturbed, their turn ended immediately). Students who decided to collect coal played Operation. Inside each hole on the game board was a piece of coal (the game piece to be removed) and rock/soil (a small piece of construction paper on top of the game piece). Their goal was to remove the soil and rocks, then remove the coal, then put the soil and rocks back in the hole – all without causing a mine collapse (buzzing). Finally, those who chose to go for oil played Battleship. Their goal was to find their opponents' oil reserves (battleships) in the fewest turns (least cost for exploration) possible. 

Each game had different costs associated with it, and each type of fuel had a different market price per pound, so while they played, students kept track of their costs and their revenue. After the games, they crunched the numbers in order to figure out their end score: their final profit.

To warm up their bodies and tongues for Process Drama, students continued working with the tongue twister "Grip Top Sock," adding motions for one new line. So far, we have: "Give me the gift of the grip top sock. A drip drape, ship shape, tip top sock. Not your spin slick, slap stick, slip slop stock." After warming up, the members of the two societies separated once again to go about their business: following the rules of their unique societies, experiencing different styles of leadership, gathering information about each other, and preparing for a potential conflict with the other society. 

Students used individualized schedules to guide their individual work time again this week, with some adjustments made based on last week’s experience. At the end of the week, they reflected on their accomplishments and whether or not they think having a schedule is beneficial to them. 

As part of their grammar study, students continued to choose sentences from the books they are reading to analyze and code according to parts of speech. In their read aloud book, Grammar-land, they finally heard the testimonies of Dr. Verb and Mr. Adverb which concluded the court case. As the jurors, the students continue to compile evidence for each of the parts of speech by using their code to determine which words belong to what part of speech. When they return from break, their new discoveries will lead them to some punctuation rules. 

In History this week, we learned about the Mayan, Aztec and Incan Empires. Students listened to stories about the mysterious Incan fortress of Machu Picchu and the powerful Incan Empire and tasted spiced, dark chocolate, a delicacy made by the Mayans and Aztecs. The also heard The Sad Night, a book which describes a battle between the Aztecs and the conquistadors who arrived in Tenochtitlan. 

In Art, students finished mounting their “distorted views” portraits which they have been working on this session and began making masks to accompany them. 

In addition to having some of our wonderful parents come in as Reading Buddies this week, we have several parents now acting as Assistant Coaches in PE. Coach Carpenter continues to challenge and motivate students to push themselves physically, while having fun and practicing good sportsmanship.  Students enjoyed intense games of Capture the Flag, striving to find a balance between competition and fun. 

Friday began with a special breakfast to celebrate Valentine’s Day and the culmination of our Manners Mondays. Chef Sam (Ms. Kaylie’s husband) came in to make Belgian waffles and students choose from an abundance of toppings to decorate them. Seated around a giant, heart-shaped table (folding tables cleverly arranged and covered), students practiced their manners and enjoyed this Valentine’s Day tradition.

As another Valentine's Day treat, during Project Time, students made edible molecules and chemical reactions out of candy and toothpicks. They simulated several of the chemical reactions they have studied this winter – combustion, electrolysis, rust, and photosynthesis. After creating the correct molecular models for what went into a particular reaction, they rearranged the atoms to show the product of the reaction. Once the reaction had been correctly portrayed, its products were eaten. 

This was followed by a special History time where students learned that the first Valentine was likely written in the Middle Ages by a French Duke who was imprisoned in the Tower of London after being captured in the Battle of Agincourt. 

Students exchanged valentines after lunch. There was so much time and care put into the valentines, many of which were handmade – for 29 friends – and the students eagerly opened them, taking time to cherish each one. Our final Valentine’s Day act was to spread our love by writing thank you notes to people who have done kind and thoughtful things for us this session. Students brainstormed a long list of recipients and then split up to write sweet notes of gratitude. 

Students had two other opportunities this week to express their gratitude through written words. We celebrated Mrs. Sandefer’s birthday this week, and said goodbye to Ms. Mikaela who will not be returning after the break. For both beloved guides, students wrote notes of gratitude and appreciation.  

Mrs. Sandefer showed her love for the students and for country music, by teaching them a line dance on her birthday. She also added some wonderful new stories from around the world to our library. Ms. Mikaela showed the students how significant a role them have played in her Hero’s Journey by reading poignant excerpts from a journal she has kept these past six months. She also presented them with a recently published book of Shel Silverstein poems which they will greatly enjoy.

Week 20 

After a week and a day away from school, students were excited to be back and eager to talk about their vacations. On Tuesday morning, through the lens of “self-discipline”, students shared moments from their week by recounting instances of self-discipline, and celebrated these by adding a bead to their character chains. They then eagerly set off to work – settling in on beanbags with a good book, booting up computers to practice typing, tackle math problems or take a new Spanish lesson or getting out their writer’s notebooks to capture a story from the break. Several students called me over to their computers or their books to proudly display the progress they had made, working while away from school. 

We celebrated two birthdays our first day back, complete with photographs, embarrassing stories, poignant birthday wishes and decadent desserts. In closing group, we talked about the history of Mardi Gras and agreed that with all the treats, we had done a good job indulging on Fat Tuesday. Inspired by the traditions of Lent, we all reflected on the many things in our lives for which we are grateful and thought about what would be most difficult for us to give up. 

Students continued their focused grammar study this week, exploring everything they have been learning about parts of speech with some new online interactive games (accessible from home via links of the student website) and some creative twists on traditional games created by Ms. Aubrie such as Parts of Speech Bingo and Parts of Speech Memory. 

Now that students have changed chemical energy into thermal energy by burning different types of fuel, this week they continued on their quest to determine what will power the cars of the future by starting to explore how thermal energy can be used to do work. Students were challenged to see if they could remove a balloon stretched across the top of a beaker without touching it – only using the energy of heat. They put water in one beaker and left a second beaker empty, then stretched a balloon across the tops of both beakers and placed them over burning candles. After starting a timer, they watched the beakers to see what would happen. After a while (for some groups, a pretty long while), balloons started popping off the tops of beakers! However, for some students, the air-filled beaker popped first, and for others, the water-filled beaker popped first...so they were left with the question of which is the better way to use fuel to move something – by heating air or heating water? Next week they will return to this challenge and take a look at experimental design and variables to come up with ideas to solve this puzzle. 

Students went back to their masks in Art, adding detail to their designs. They talked about the masks as stand-alone pieces, but also as one more layer to the portraits that they have been working on this winter. 

Our parent-volunteer Assistant PE Coaches returned this week to help Coach Carpenter with Acton Jeopardy and Capture the Flag. The students pushed their bodies hard and answered over 90% of the Jeopardy questions correctly. They had fun playing Capture the Flag, which also lead to several good learning opportunities related to honesty with “flag grabbing”. 

In their theatrical warm-up for Process Drama, students continued working with the Grip Top Sock tongue twister, adding movements to accompany another line. They have now choreographed one complete stanza: 

Give me the gift of the grip top sock.

A drip drape, ship shape, tip top sock.

Not your spinslick, slap stick, slip slop stock;

But, a plastic elastic, grip top sock.

In their two societies, all students have now had a taste of what it feels like to have absolute power – and everyone has been able to see how their classmates react to being in power. All students have also had the chance to visit the other society, and this week, in addition to thinking about what makes a good leader, students spent some time considering which society they prefer – their own, or the other – and why. 

Some of the thoughts on leadership that have been shared over the course of the process drama are:

·         A good leader needs to be clear with what they expect.

·         A good leader needs to have a balance between being easy-going and kind, and keeping order and sending people to jail for breaking rules.

·         A good leader takes charge and makes things happen.

·         A good leader pays attention, walks around the whole society, and knows what is happening in the society.

·         Listening makes a good leader.

·         A good leader needs to enforce the rules.

·         A good leader needs to be understanding and give others time to react to his commands.

·         A good leader needs to be patient.

·         A good leader doesn't abuse her power, is understanding, and explains why she is punishing people.

·         A good leader doesn't get distracted by unimportant things and reminds his followers to do the same.

Some comments on societies:

·         I would rather live in a society where rules are clear and I don't feel left out.

·         I would rather live in a society where there is more action and fun and variety.

·         I would rather live in a society that is quiet and peaceful.

·         I don't want to live under a dictatorship.

·         I liked living in the society I am not from because I like the challenge of trying to figure out another society's rules.

The last few Town Meetings have been pretty quiet, which means it is the right time in our year to switch to a more student-driven process. A blank sheet of paper was posted on the refrigerator Tuesday morning with just the title “Town Meeting” and the numbers 1, 2 and 3 listed on it. From previous years, many students knew what this meant – going forward, we will hold a Town Meeting whenever there are at least three agenda items. On Thursday afternoon, there were three items listed, so a Town Meeting was scheduled for the following day. 

Taking community improvement seriously, two of three items were curriculum suggestions – incorporating MadLibs into our parts of speech study and a return to Hinky Pinky riddles at the end of the day. There were a few concerns, particularly about the Hinky Pinkys, which resulted in a creative solution that pleased the entire group. The main concern was that some people solve the riddles more quickly than others which results in frustration on the part of the individuals who don’t get enough time to contemplate the riddles, and also on the part of the individuals who solve them quickly and are then made to wait. While one student argued that this was a great way to practice patience, students decided in the end that the riddles should be written on a board at the beginning of the day and then solved quickly at Closing Group. 

The final issue inspired more heated emotions, but the students were incredibly respectful with their approach. This very serious topic had to do with the rules, or lack thereof, to “Jailbreak Tag”, the Acton-invented tag game that more than half the class plays each morning. The student who put this on the agenda came prepared with three simple rules typed out that she wanted to make official. To this she added, “And of course, we all need to use logic, these rules don’t cover everything.” The first two rules did not elicit much reaction, but it was clear that the third rule was controversial. One student, in responding, acknowledged the value of the first two rules, complementing their author, and then went on to gently voice his concern with the third rule. After some debate, students came to an understanding of the purpose behind the third rule, but there was no consensus as to whether or not to include it. A committee was formed to investigate this and other possible solutions further and the Town Meeting was concluded.

We finished the week off with an hour of Game Time.  Before choosing activities and playmates, we discussed the purpose of Game Time – to bring our community closer by creating opportunities for people who do not normally play together to bond over games.  At the end of the day a student came up to me and said, "Ms. Kaylie, I really think I bonded with someone new today.  I made a new friend."

Week 21

Following last week’s successful student-driven Town Meeting, three new items were quickly added to the Town Meeting agenda on the refrigerator: daily riddles, dodgeball rules and puzzles. With a full week, however, the first suitable time for a Town Meeting was Friday morning. The meeting was added to the schedule. Anyone can add items to the agenda and once there are three listed, a Town Meeting is held, facilitated by those community members who added the agenda items. If the idea or concern is addressed before the Town Meeting happens, the person who originally added it to the agenda can remove it. With the addition of a morning Hink Pink underway, I began posting a riddle each day and the item disappeared from the agenda. I also opened up a new puzzle and set it out on a table – and that agenda item also disappeared. Coincidentally, Coach Carpenter introduced a new sport at PE on Tuesday – dodgeball! Students not only played the game in PE, but had time to discuss the rules at the end of class. Dodgeball was also erased from the agenda. 

With the time already set aside for a Town Meeting, but no agenda items to discuss, we took the opportunity to discuss as a class an idea that sprung from one student’s recent injury. Having suffered a concussion at home two weeks ago, one student had been creatively searching for ways to occupy herself during free time and PE, since she was not able to exert herself physically. Having considered “children’s librarian” as a potential calling, this student thought she might be able to use her free time to help out in the classroom by serving as our librarian. She checked out several books on librarians from her local public library and arranged an interview with her favorite children’s librarian to find out more about the job. In addition to keeping the books in classroom organized, she also planned to offer book recommendations to other students, but wanted to know if there were other duties. 

The idea was presented to the class for feedback. One student told us a cautionary tale about her babysitter, who graduated college thinking she wanted to pursue a certain career only to find out that she did not find it fulfilling or enjoyable. She said it was a really good idea for all of them to “try on” different callings now before getting to a similar point. Another student agreed that it was very exciting for this student to “get a head start” on her calling. Then one student said she was not sure this was fair. She also wanted to get experience in her calling, but did not think there was any applicable role for her in the classroom that would do this. Students continued to debate the pros and cons of having a student serve as our librarian. They concluded the conversation agreeing that their classmate should be allowed to be our librarian, and that other students should also be able to take on a job within the classroom, but not required to do so. One student announced that he would be holding a meeting at lunch that day to help other students brainstorm jobs within the classroom that would fit within their potential callings. 

Students continued to work on the Excellence Goal they set at the beginning of last week. On Friday, they reassessed themselves in their area of focus and plotted a second point on their progress graphs. While students continue to work on their reading, writing, language, and math skills during their self-guided work time, they have now each selected one area that they want to focus special energy on and are tracking their progress each week towards a specific goal in this area.

In Writing Workshop, the students plunged into the rules of punctuation with a focus on end marks. Together, they explored why writers use punctuation at the end of a sentence. They also played a wide variety of grammar games and activities meant to engage and reinforce learning, read playful books about punctuation, and even listened to LL Cool J rap about punctuation. Grammar Gumshoes, a punctuation card game, and new online games are just a few of the activities they were free to enjoy. 

In History, students reached a pivotal point in their journey, coming the end of the Middle Ages. They will do some map work next week before ending this year’s studies with a medieval celebration. After learning about Shakespeare and watching part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, students discussed the elements of a good story. Later in the week, they listened to tales of exploration starring Sir Walter Raleigh, John Cabot, and Jacques Cartier. Multiple failed expeditions led students to a discussion of their definition of failure. Students were quick to reject the idea of failure as a negative thing, explaining that it is an important part of the learning process. One student even said that she believes failing early is beneficial, because you learn from those experiences and are stronger later on. 

The 1st and 2nd graders went to the ZACH Theater to see a humorous adaptation of the popular children’s book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. They had a great time and were excited to thank the director, our very own Nat Miller, the following day at Process Drama. 

On Wednesday, we learned about Leap Day and celebrated by bounding through the classroom instead of using our typical, soft steps. The following day, we celebrated the completion of another revolution around the sun for one of our now eight year old Eagles. We were treated to interesting facts about the birthday boy and delicious macaroons. In addition to solving the daily Hink Pink and riddle, we ended each day this week with a MadLib – a silly, fun way to celebrate and reinforce our new knowledge of parts of speech. 

There was an exciting turn of events in process drama this week! Since January, students have been divided into two societies – one rural, land-based society, and one urban, city-based society – each with their own set of rules and particular ways of life. Within these societies, each student had the opportunity to be a leader, holding absolute power over the group for a portion of a day. Students experienced a variety of leadership styles: kind and quiet, strict but understanding, disorganized and distracted, clear and effective, and yes, even corrupt. At the end of each day, the societies processed how their leaders handled their power. As a group, students talked about what made each leader great, and also what they would do differently to be a better leader. 

During this same period of time, each student also had the opportunity to visit and observe the other society, looking for clues as to how that society lived and functioned. Their goal was to figure out the other society’s rules, either to be accepted into that society and avoid conflict with them in the future, or to have an advantage over them if there were to be a conflict with them in the future. 

Recently, rumors were spread that trouble was brewing between the societies and that it was likely a war was about to break out.  This week, aware of the impending conflict, each society faced the task of choosing a permanent leader. Before voting, they reflected on all of the characteristics they have noticed throughout this experience that contribute to someone being a great leader. They were also told that the leader they chose would get to make the decision about whether or not to go to war, and that this leader would get to decide the process for determining whether or not to go to war (in other words, the leader could decide to make the decision entirely on his own or choose to have a discussion with the society). 

After the vote, both newly-elected leaders decided to discuss with their groups whether to go to war or attempt to negotiate peace. They also faced the question of what to do if their society decided to try for peace, but the other society decided to attack – attack back or surrender? 

Separately, members of both groups brought up instances in history when going to war led to the downfall of a great society – for example, students cited greed and an emphasis on war leading to the downfall of the Ancient Roman Empire. While the Chad*, leader of the City Society, and his constituents were in the process of drafting a peace treaty, Tex*, the leader of the Land Society, sent a messenger with a note asking Chad to meet him outside for a discussion. The two leaders met in neutral territory and shook hands on negotiating peace!  

*Each student created a character to be during the Process Drama, complete with name, family members, occupation, strengths and fears.

Chad and Tex returned to their groups and began drafting the points they wanted included in the peace agreement. Would the two societies be allies but remain separate? Would they join as one society, and if so, who would be the leader? In their second meeting, Chad proposed that the societies remain separate, as allies, and members of societies could change citizenship if they wanted. Their main reason for wanting to remain separate was to avoid the potentially volatile and lengthy process of choosing just one leader.  Tex proposed that the two societies join as one, with Tex and Chad as co-leaders and a “judge” as a third party to solve issues when the two leaders disagreed. All citizens of this combined society would live on the City Society's land, while the other society's land – more suitable for crops – would be farmed, with the products shared among everyone. After a large group discussion between both societies and separate votes by the two societies to make a final decision, Tex’s proposal was agreed upon and a judge was elected with one final vote.

The outcome of these past eight weeks was an unexpected one to those who planned this year's Process Drama.  Similar plot lines in the past have always led students (at other schools) to war, followed by a negotiated peace.  The Acton Eagles surprised us all by adamantly insisting that an attempt at peace come before any war.  If, however, they were not able to negotiate peace, both societies had decided that they would go to war rather than surrender quietly or flee their land.

Back in the Lab during project time, students continued exploring why fire and fuel matter if we want to design the car of the future by looking at ways fuel is used to move things. Continuing with the balloon experiment from last week, students discovered that fuel can be used to create heat, which can move air, which can move objects (like balloons) OR fuel can be used to create heat, which can boil water, which creates steam, which can move objects (like balloons). Based on numerous trials, an improved experimental set-up in which they controlled for all of the other variables they could think of, and some help from our lab precision experts, Drs. Keller and Duncan, the class found that heating water and creating steam is a more effective way to move objects than just heating air. After coming to this conclusion, students had the choice to continue running trials of this same balloon experiment, to create their own balloon experiment to test the effects of other independent variables besides water vs. air, or to design their own experiment showing another way heat creates motion. 

Of course, a description of project time this week would not be complete without mention of our unintentional fire. When a paper bag caught fire, we got to test out our emergency procedures for putting it out. As the essence of experiential learning is learning through experiences, this exciting incident allowed us to take a look at our safety and emergency procedures and find room for improvement; we are now set to be even more prepared for another emergency, should one happen, in the future. 

Week 22

In project time this week, teams continued to experiment with heat creating motion and to practice good experimental design. Some groups redesigned the previous week’s balloon experiment by changing another variable or adding new variables. Some groups chose to use other liquids besides water to create steam, some groups experimented with heating different amounts of water to create steam, and some groups used other materials, like cans instead of beakers or disposable gloves instead of balloons. An interesting discovery was made with a glove experiment – instead of the steam popping the glove off the beaker like it had popped the balloon off the beaker, the steam ended up condensing in the glove, collecting water in the fingertips (a total of 13 ml of water moved from the can to the glove).

Other groups chose to create their own experiments attempting to show heat moving something. Some of these experiments included showing heat moving a paper bag on a balance or showing heat creating steam and transferring that steam from a breaker through a straw. 

On Friday, one of our student’s fathers came in to share his Hero's Journey. He told us all about what it was like to work on a navy submarine, in charge of its nuclear power generator. He described some of the types of jobs he had to do, like using the periscope (and having to stand on his tip toes to do so because it was too high up for him). He described what it was like to live underwater for a long period of time in very close (and sometimes quite smelly because of the stale air) quarters, not knowing what time of day it was except by looking at his watch. He even told us what it was like to go swimming from a submarine with someone with a rifle on the lookout for sharks! After he shared his story, he explained some of the basics of nuclear power, like how in a nuclear power plant, uranium atoms split and give off heat energy. That heat is used in the same way that heat coming from burning coal is used – to heat water and create steam to turn a turbine. He compared the energy you can get from uranium to the energy you can get from coal, showing that 7 tons of uranium produces the same amount of energy as 3,000,000 tons of coal! Finally, he set up some dominoes to explain a chain reaction and show how the control rods are used to keep the chain reaction under control.

To see some of this wonderful presentation, check out the following links:

·         Hero's Journey Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIdfuM9g6cc

·         Hero's Journey Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ZjVpLg6X0

·         Hero's Journey Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHJbCqFZAiA

·         Nuclear Power Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GAMMEyCe38

·         Nuclear Power Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRiKbWcL3Sw

Inspired by his talk, students returned to their quest. After having experienced the ability of heat to create linear motion through their previous experiments, students were challenged to change linear motion into rotational motion by building a turbine or a piston that can spin wheels.

In Process Drama, the two societies came together as one for the first time since the peace treaty last week. Co-leaders Chad and Tex (character names) led the group through the process of creating the new society's rules and deciding its name; then folks went about their business living in the new society. With the new society and new rules, new issues quickly arose. Having a co-leadership rather than one all-powerful leader proved more complicated than expected; how are leaders supposed to share power and still get things done? Having a bigger group all together led to a new need for limited resources to be shared and divided. The group learned first-hand the frustrations of not having an organized and efficient decision-making process, and they also realized the need for an effective tool the leaders could use to get everyone's attention. Just as they were getting settled into their new way of life, there was a new development: a ship headed their direction with unknown intentions. Next week, they will try to solve some of the problems their society is facing and find out who is on the ship. 

Grammar Time was all about commas this week. Students explored using commas in a series, using commas with a conjunction, and using commas to separate phrases. They even learned about the often debated Oxford comma (sometimes used in these weekly updates, and sometimes omitted). They also continued working on an array of grammar activities designed to help them with punctuation and parts of speech, including writing their own MadLibs for the class to enjoy at the end of each day. 

Despite fickle weather, students enjoyed PE this week. They love having the choice of which sport they want to play and took the opportunity to show great sportsmanship when volunteering to play their less desired sport when there were uneven numbers. They also played Acton Jeopardy, working hard and learning nutrition facts. 

In Art, students were excited to work on their final project of the year – an homage to Andy Warhol and endangered species. In colorful pop-art style, each student has chosen an animal as the subject of a pastel poster and they were busy this week sketching drafts before beginning their final pieces. 

We have a new printer and had a meeting to discuss its use in the classroom. Several students had calculated the costs of black and white versus color printing and provided the rest of the class with this information. The group debated whether or not there should be specific rules regulating when people can print, but decided as a class that we did not want that restriction. Instead, everyone committed to using their judgment, thinking before printing, and printing on recycled paper that had already been used on one side unless it was an important document. 

History focused on maps this week. Students began the week with several map reading activities where they practiced naming and labeling. Then they were then given the challenge of drawing a map of our campus. Each student attempted to take their mental image of our space and commit it to paper. They were so intent on their campus drawings that the classroom fell into an unprecedented silence. When History was over, no one was finished. The silence was broken with an announcement that while Core Skills time had begun; students were welcome to continue their map work. The room gradually returned to a more typical, productive buzz, and several students expressed frustration that they could no longer concentrate. We decided to have a completely silent work hour. We used exaggerated facial expressions and written notes to communicate, and an almost eerie silence reigned for the entire hour. At the end of the hour, we came together as a group and each shared one word to describe the experience. While there were a few frustrated students who did not enjoy the experience, the majority of the class said it was challenging, but wonderful and productive. That afternoon, several hours later, we had another hour of Core Skills time and it was not silent, but unusually quiet, though no one had announced this plan.

The results of the silence and hard work were beautiful and varied. The maps were hung for everyone to admire and students were then invited to vote for the map which they felt would be most helpful to use on a treasure hunt. The top four maps were used the following day on a treasure hunt. Four treasure chests were hidden around our campus, with x’s to mark their spots on the four chosen maps. In teams of seven, our adventurous historians headed out on Friday morning to find their treasure. All four teams were successful. In their treasure chests, they found a letter and seven identical pouches each with a key and a golden token. 

The letter read:  

Because you were curious,

Because you were bold,

A key to the world is now yours to hold.

To unlock adventures, just remember our days

Of stories and maps and medieval ways.

Your minds can take you to that time in the past

And the things you have learned will last and last.

You’ve earned a gold token for a trip we will take

With feasting and jousting and crafts we will make.

We’ll board a big bus and travel together

To celebrate history no matter the weather!

Next Friday, in celebration of the completion of their History quest this year, we will board a bus and travel back to the medieval times to the Sherwood Forest Renaissance Fair. 

Week 23

When the students walked into the classroom on Monday morning, things were not as they normally are. Instead of desks arranged in clusters to encourage collaboration, the desks were lined up in rows, all facing the same direction. Instead of coming to a large discussion circle on the floor to start our day, students were asked to take a seat at their desk and wait silently for instructions. I placed a piece of paper face-down in front of each of them and directed them to leave it until I invited them to turn it over. Back at the front of room, I told them to turn over the paper and read the directions: Each symbol below stands for a letter of the English alphabet. Figure out the code and translate the sentence to English. This is your ticket to Project Time. If you have a question, raise your hand and wait to be called on. You may not leave your desk or use any books or your computer. There was no pattern or logic to the code. Each symbol randomly represented a letter. After a couple minutes of students looking at their papers with confusion, I began holding up one symbol and its corresponding letter at a time. Slowly, I went through the alphabet, until the message was revealed: Right now you are dependent on me to solve this. 

I invited students to gather in our regular discussion circle and we discussed the experience they had just had. What was that like? What does it mean that you were “dependent” on me? The discussion that followed led us to the concept of dependent versus independent learner. Students agreed that they would rather be independent learners, acknowledging the hard work and productive failure that come with this role. Students talked about the skills and character traits they need to develop in order to be successful independent learners and debated the relative difficulty and importance of each. 

Students agreed that one of the most important skills for being an independent learner is the ability to strive for excellence and persevere after failing to reach a goal. With this in mind, they continued striving for excellence in their individual work time and in their group work. 

Continuing with a focus on punctuation, students practiced using commas this week, and added quotation marks into their growing set of skills. They also continued to play games and activities designed to reinforce the various grammar skills they have been developing over the past few months.  With several homemade games, a few store-bought ones and a number of on-line games, students began to more systematically analyze each game in terms of its effectiveness for them personally. As an independent learner, it is important to be able to assess various learning tools and understand how you learn from them and this was a good opportunity to practice this. 

In Process Drama, students reentered their newly united society and came together for a Town Meeting. With two leaders, one from each of the original societies, co-leading, new issues arose the previous week regarding the separation of responsibilities. There were other issues, as well, that arose, in this new society. They addressed and resolved several of the issues in their Town Meeting before a ship of Watchers from other societies arrived and they had to make a quick decision about how to greet them.  They decided send a few representatives out in peace to greet the ship. These Watchers explained that their societies were having problems, and they asked the citizens of Awesomeopolis (the student-chosen name of the joint society) for help. In small groups, the citizens designed several short skits to expose some of these problems and help others come up with solutions.

Back in the lab, students continued building their turbines and pistons. Groups shared their models with each other, and then wrote theories on which works better to change linear motion into rotational motion, a piston or a turbine. 

Even in Art and PE, the spirit of excellence and personal growth are thriving. Students pushed themselves physically in their PE exercises and then enjoyed Dodgeball and Capture the Flag. In Art, they continued with their Pop Art posters of endangered animals, adding vibrant colors to their detailed drawings. 

Wednesday was National Pi Day (3/14) and we started the day by reading a playful definition of the discovery and naming of the number, Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi, and nibbling on tiny pecan tarts. Inspired by the story, one student proved that the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter of the circle is Pi by measuring one of the large round rugs in the classroom. Another student showed his enthusiasm for the day by memorizing the first 39 digits of Pi and reciting them for the class at the end of the day. 

We had the pleasure of hearing Temp Keller, an independent consultant who is working with Acton Academy in curriculum development, talk about his Hero’s Journey. We also took some time out to celebrate the seventh birthday of one of our students with wonderful pictures and sweet popsicles. 

The biggest excitement of the week was on Friday, when we all boarded a bus to take us back in time (and east of Austin) to the Sherwood Forest Faire, a Renaissance festival that was our celebration for completing this year’s history studies of the medieval times. With students dressed as knights, maidens, jesters, kings, queens, Robin Hood, and Joan of Arc, we enjoyed a day of feasting, jousting, music and performances. We were greeted at the gate by our “fox fairy” guide and stopped first to watch a couple blacksmiths at work. In small groups, we explored the forest, stopping to play games (knife throwing being the most popular), run through a maze, pet chickens, sit at King Arthur’s round table, watch an oversized game of chess, and swing on a giant swing. We were treated to several shows – an incredible exhibition of birds of prey, a jousting demonstration, and a silly dog show. There could not have been a better way to celebrate the Middle Ages!

Week 24

With a focus on “striving for excellence” and being “independent learners” this session, we began engaging in group critiques this week – a process that we have come across in writing and art before, but are now formalizing as a class. This concept of relying on feedback from others to help take a piece of work through various draft stages to a final product is one we plan to use in many aspects of life and work at Acton Academy. 

This week, we began with two brief role plays – one where Ms. Kaylie harshly and vaguely critiqued Ms. Aubrie’s writing and her effort and one where Ms. Kaylie kindly and specifically critiqued Ms. Aubrie’s writing, giving her some positive feedback at first and then some very precise and clear suggestions for improvement. In both scenarios, Ms. Aubrie verbalized her thoughts after receiving the different forms of feedback, including how she responded emotionally and physically in the two situations. The students dissected the two versions of feedback and came up with an Acton definition for critique: exchanging ideas to improve something. 

Students shared times when they had been in a situation similar to what Ms. Aubrie experienced and talked about how they felt. We discussed questions such as: Which is easier giving or receiving feedback? Which is more important? In typical Acton fashion, the opinions were varied and the reasons profound. 

Over the course of several days, we moved from issues surrounding giving and receiving critique, to the purpose of critique. We played a simple game that uses positive reinforcement to shape someone’s behavior. One person steps out of the room and the group defines something that they want the person to do. When they come back into the room, the group provides positive feedback in the form of clapping whenever the person gets closer to the desired behavior. With several successful behavior-shaping experiences under their belts, students agreed to three simple rules for critiques – be kind, be specific, and be helpful. 

To practice these rules, we critiqued a drawing of Ms. Aubrie’s, establishing a format for our critiques. The person seeking feedback presents their work and explains their goal with this work; critics give first warm feedback (things the person is doing that are helping them reach their goal), and then cool feedback (things the person could do differently to get closer to their goal); the person seeking feedback verbally reflects on the critique they received. 

There were several opportunities to practice our new method this week – along with Ms. Aubrie, three students volunteered to undergo several rounds of critique in an effort to improve a drawing; we critiqued each other’s skits during Process Drama (with this new process and the combined knowledge and experience of all students, the skits improved remarkably); and we had breakfast tacos one morning and played “food critic”, offering feedback to Taco Shack. Taco Shack, if you are reading this, please add more cheese to your tacos and maybe experiment with grilling them – the texture would be awesome. 

We had our third Manga High Fai To this week, which had students competitively solving math problems in a successful effort to beat the challenging school – which happened to be located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They also continued to work hard on their excellence goals, MadLibs, and other work. Grammar Time introduced them to the semi-colon and the colon, which in turn triggered a workshop on telling time – writing the time being one of the uses of a colon. 

This week in Project Time, we shifted from exploring ways of using fuel and heat to create energy to ways of getting energy more directly from the sun – using wind turbines and solar panels. On Monday, students used a kit to build a wind turbine, and on Friday, they used a similar kit to build a solar panel car. For both of the kits, students considered whether they worked better by following written directions or directions on a DVD, and we talked a bit about the advantages and disadvantages of both.  Then, students got to choose which method to use to build their kits. 

Ms. Anna was also secretly conducting her own experiment during Project Time. On Monday, each student received a note card and they were told they might or might not receive stickers to stick on the card during the course of Project Time. What Ms. Anna did not tell students was that they were receiving stickers each time they asked a teacher a question they could have could have answered in another way, by using some of the tools of an independent learner (reading the directions carefully, asking another student, observing others, or looking more carefully at the supplies table). On Friday, students received a second note card. This time, Ms. Anna listed these tools of independent learners on the board to remind students of them, and she told them that they would get a sticker each time they asked a teacher a question they could have figured out by using one of these other tools. Ms. Anna's question for her experiment was: Do Acton Academy students become more independent in their learning if they are reminded of tools they can use to work on their own and if they keep track of how often they ask a teacher for help? In the end, the total number of “teacher questions” that could have been figured out independently went down from 32 on Monday to 9 on Friday. After the experiment, students also discussed times when asking a teacher a question is important.  The purpose of the experiment was not to make students feel they should never ask teachers questions, but rather to get them to think about whether they can figure something out independently before seeking the assistance of a teacher. 

On Friday, we celebrated a decade of life for one of our students with traditional Indian treats and a slideshow of her life. Then, we celebrated a glorious, sunny, not-sweltering, spring afternoon with time outside to play and dance and enjoy each other.

Week 25

Our second trimester ended this week with the celebratory culmination of this year’s Process Drama. For the past few weeks, students have been working on a Live Portfolio, which took place this Thursday evening. We welcomed parents and siblings to school and began the evening with a rousing rendition of “Grip Top Sock”, a tongue-twister set to motions that the students created over the course of the past three months. It is one of the many warm-ups that they do on a weekly basis with Nat before transitioning into their characters. After this, parents were invited to enter the two societies that the students developed during this year’s Process Drama. The families had the opportunity to spend time in each society before trying to guess their unique rules. Then came the performance portion of the evening in which students performed short scenes they wrote to address some of the problems they faced when their two societies eventually came together and lived as one – problems they decided were universal ones that societies often face. The evening ended with a poignant compilation of reflections on leadership that the students gave during interviews over the course of the Process Drama after they took on leadership positions in their societies. Students worked hard during the week to prepare for the evening, which was a big success. 

It has become our tradition during the last week of each six-week session of school to sit down as a group and brainstorm all the people we want to thank for doing something for us during that session. With sharp memories and grateful hearts, students always come up with a comprehensive list and then set to work writing thoughtful notes. We celebrate their hard work and sweet thoughts by reading all the notes aloud and signing them before sending them off. 

We had our final critique for the eagle drawings that Ms. Aubrie and three of the students have been working on these past two weeks. Instead of verbal critique, which is what they received for their first two drafts, this last critique was a written one. All three drafts of the each drawing were displayed and students were given sticky notes (orange for “warm feedback” and blue for “cool feedback”) and they spent time examining the drawings and writing feedback. One of our critique rules is to be helpful with feedback, which includes not repeating other peoples’ comments. However, students discussed that as the person receiving feedback, you have a choice whether or not to use it and it is helpful to know if just one person thinks you should keep or change something, or if several people think the same thing. With this is mind, students added check marks to previously written comments if they agreed with them. This had the added benefit of encouraging students to really read and analyze each other’s critiques. 

With students now creating their own experiments in Project Time using their turbines and solar-panel cars, there has been an emphasis on the scientific method. This week, we took a trip to the Paramount Theatre to see a production called “The Science of Magic”, where a magician performed and then led us through the steps of his tricks, showing us how science could explain the visual illusions. He used the steps of the scientific method to take us through several “experiments” that produced seemingly magical effects. 

In addition to getting ready for their Live Portfolio, attending the theater, and spending time in “the lab”, students also continued to work hard on the Excellence Goals they set six weeks ago. On Friday, they took their sixth assessment, evaluating whether or not they had achieved their goal. Some had, and some had not. Each student reflected on their own goal and progress, asking themselves: Was my goal realistic? Did I aim too high or too low? Did I practice enough? Was my practice the right kind? Do I need more time? Some students made plans to work over the upcoming two week break and reassess themselves when they return to school. Others decided to set a new goal for the next session or to continue working towards their original goal, but with a new practice plan. 

The end of this trimester also brought us to the end of our Grammar Workshop, with students now more aware and excited about spelling, parts of speech, and punctuation. They continue to write MadLibs, incorporating all these skills into a community-building activity that we enjoy at the end of the day whenever time allows. 

This week was also the end of our Studio Art program for the year, with Music replacing it next trimester.  Students finished their vibrant, pastel endangered animal illustrations and began manipulating them in PhotoShop – tweaking colors and adding slogans. These will be printed in poster format and displayed along with other artwork the students have done this year at Amy’s Ice Cream on 6th and Lamar later this spring. 

Friday started off with a birthday celebration in the morning and ended with several rounds of highlights from the trimester. It was a festive end to an action-packed three months.

Week 26

The third trimester of the third year of Acton Academy has begun. At the beginning of the week, students reflected on their Excellence Goal from the previous session before setting a new goal. A handful of students achieved their goal by the last Friday of the session, several students continued to work towards their goal during the two week break and were able to achieve it on Monday, and the other three-fourths of the class did not reach their goals. They reflected on whether the goal has been unrealistic, whether their practice had been insufficient or ineffective, or whether they just needed more time. Some students were satisfied with the progress they made and decided to choose a new area of focus for this session’s Excellence Goal, while others wanted to continue working towards their original goal. One student had made a goal last session to improve the quality of his handwriting, and this session is working towards maintaining the improved quality of his handwriting, while increasing his speed. In addition to spelling, handwriting, and typing, students now have math facts and vocabulary as areas to choose from in forming their goals. 

Having spent several months exploring combustion, energy, and engines, students spent time this week in small groups researching different types of fuel and engines in order to determine the ideal combination to power the “car of the future”. While doing their research, they considered the cost, safety, speed, infrastructure needs, and environmental impact of the various options and debated these as a class at the end of the week, coming to a greater understanding of the benefits and trade-offs of the different fuel and engine options by sharing their knowledge and opinions. 

The format of the discussion was a game. Each student was given four cards that represented the four roles they could play in the discussion – opener (someone who provides a new piece of information or topic into the discussion), supporter (someone who supports what another person has said and adds new evidence), challenger (someone who challenges what another person had said and provides evidence), and summarizer (someone who summarizes the points that have been made and then moves the discussion forward by asking a related question or adding a new perspective). The students began the “game” sitting in a large circle. Ms. Anna asked a question to start the first round and students that wished to participate held up their “opener” card. After she called on the first student, she took a step back. The student took a step into the circle and began speaking. When the “opener” was done, he or she called on another student who was holding up a card and that student stepped into the circle. In this way, an inner circle was formed of people who chose to “enter” the discussion. When one student finished speaking, he or she would call on another student to speak. Students were conscious of the role they were playing, and those that did not wish to contribute verbally had the opportunity to listen to the other points being made and observe the dynamics of the discussion. After a certain number of minutes, the “round” ended and everyone stepped back out to form one large circle, before Ms. Anna asked the next question. It was an interesting exercise in the art of discussion, and will hopefully have a lingering impact on future, unrelated discussions. 

With History over for the year, we returned to our literature read-alouds this week with The Borrowers, a fictional tale full of fantasy and creativity. Students are starting each day by stretching out and listening to the story, igniting their imaginations before they transition to designing their cars in Project Time. 

Ms. Zoey took over the Middle School building for a couple days early in the week so that students could come in during their work time or free time and finish any art projects from this year that they had not completed. Instead of regular weekly art classes with Ms. Zoey this spring, we are focusing on another branch of the Arts. This week, we had the first two classes with our new music teacher, Louis Ontko, who specializes in teaching children the fundamentals of music through song and movement. Students will be learning about rhythm, tempo, and pitch by using their bodies and voices to make music. 

With only a little over a month to go until the final Acton Olympics where students will measure their speed, strength and agility for the third time this year, the workouts in PE are getting even more intense. Students are also rotating through the sports that they have focused on this year – playing a different one each week. 

Student enthusiasm for writing MadLibs, which were introduced as part of our grammar study this winter, led to the development of a Writing Workshop this spring devoted to MadLibs. They began this week by enjoying several MadLibs and then discussing which ones were most successful and why. From that discussion, they developed a rubric for scoring MadLibs, and then set off individually or in pairs to write their own MadLibs. The rubric they created will later be used to help them assess and revise their own work. 

Friday was a celebratory day with two Eagles celebrating the completion of another revolution around the sun – a ninth and a tenth revolution. Students had some focused work time and lively free time between the two ceremonies which were complete with baby pictures, funny stories, heartfelt birthday wishes, and sweet treats.

Week 27

Students began this week by brainstorming all of the design specifications for their cars, taking into consideration main purpose, size and shape, comfort, beauty, cost, environmental factors, safety,and other special features. They used the information they researched and discussed last week comparing different types of engines to decide which type of engine they want for their design, and they looked online for pictures of car designs that inspired them. During the week, they worked on drafts of their car exteriors, interiors, and engines, attending workshops specifically on drawing their engines and determining the cost of their cars. As a class, they critiqued examples of design sketches and developed criteria to strive for with their work. All students have had their work critiqued at least once in small groups, and several students requested and received large-group critiques, as well. 

After reviewing their S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely) goals from last trimester and reflecting on their progress, students set new S.M.A.R.T. goals for this trimester and got to work on these. They also focused on their new Excellence Goal, assessing their progress on Friday to determine if they are on track to accomplish the goal or if they need to adjust their practice. 

In the MadLib Workshop, they continued to dissect and analyze this unique genre, writing a few as a group and using the rubric they created last week to assess them. During their Core Skills time, students are also working individually and in pairs to create more MadLibs for the class to enjoy. 

Last week, the class discussed what character trait to focus on next, after having concentrated on using and recognizing others using empathy and self-control in the last months. Students nominated focus, courage, kindness, honesty, and creativity – providing reasonable arguments for each, including how they will be particularly relevant given upcoming activities or events. After some debate, we decided that each student would choose the character trait they felt they needed the most practice with right now. To earn beads for their character chains, they will notice themselves or someone else using this trait. 

We had another opportunity to Skype with Acton Academy Guatemala. The Sandefers were there visiting, and had taught them the Banana Dance, which they performed for us. We learned more about what they are doing in school and about their passions and goals. Despite being in another country, we feel a deep connection to them – bound by a common mission and spirit. 

We celebrated another momentous birthday this week, the beginning of a second decade of life for one of our Eagles, with revolutions, pictures, kind words, and cake.

Week 28

The Acton Engineers proudly displayed their “car of the future” designs for parents and grandparents this week in an Exhibition of Learning that was the culmination of a project they began in January. From learning how to start a fire, to testing different types of fuels, to building pistons and turbines, students have been immersed in a study of energy. After much hands-on experimenting, research, and debates, students have focused in the past couple weeks on each choosing an engine and fuel source for the car they wish to be driving in ten years. They thought about the design of the car and any special features they wanted to include and set about drawing interior and exterior views, as well as a blow-up of the engine. This week, they critiqued each other’s work in small groups, with the aim of improving their renderings. They each created a display to show their car and wrote a one minute sales pitch. On Friday morning, the students celebrated their hard work and exciting learning by welcoming families to the school. Each student stood by their display as parents and grandparents came up to ask them probing questions about their car concepts and their designs. 

With the anticipation of Friday’s Exhibition of Learning looming, students still managed to focus on their core skills goals this week, spending time solving math problems on DreamBox, ALEKS, ST Math, and Khan Academy. They also continued to read voraciously – at school and at home. (One of my favorite parts of the day is greeting each child in the morning, as they hop out of their cars, often with a Kindle or a book in hand and excitedly tell me how many pages, or what percentage, of their book they have read since leaving school the previous afternoon.) With varied individual goals, Spanish, Hindi, and Hebrew could all be heard, as students practiced their foreign language of choice on RosettaStone. 

With the last MadLib workshop this week, students have been fully equipped with techniques for brainstorming, writing, assessing, and formatting their own MadLibs. They continued to create and edit their silly stories this week, and have until the end of the session – three more weeks – to submit entries to a group collection to be published this summer. In order to submit a piece, the student will have to receive a minimum score from three different peers on the rubric that the class created. They practiced using the rubric on the MadLibs they created in small groups during the workshop and all agreed with their low scores – group writing can be very challenging. 

We finished The Borrowers, which we have enjoyed together during Morning Group. The imaginative tale has sparked lots of conversation, and when something is misplaced in the classroom, “it must the Borrowers” is now often the response. 

Despite the rising temperatures, students worked hard in P.E. this week, and also enjoyed one of their music classes outside on the field. Incorporating simple dance steps into the class, students sang, clapped, and danced to a beat – learning basic rhythms with their entire bodies. 

After several weeks with no Town Meetings, students finally called one this week. Town Meetings are thirty minutes long and are scheduled according to need. A list is posted on the refrigerator and when there are three items on the list, a Town Meeting is called. If there is only one issue, but a student feels it is urgent, an exception is made, but generally we wait until there are several issues to discuss. Often items are crossed off before a meeting is ever called, because the issues are solved outside the structure of a Town Meeting. (Earlier in the school year, there is a regular time blocked off each week, but as the year progresses and the community learns to solve problems less formally, Town Meetings often become less frequent.) In this Town Meeting, students discussed the use of “bad words” at school, concluding that if a word makes some feel uncomfortable, it should not be used in our community. They talked about the importance of empathy in communication and recommitted to being conscious of their word choices.

Week 29

After the conclusion of the Hero's Journey Energy Project with the Exhibition last Friday, students worked this week on putting together their project portfolios. They began by looking through all of their project work since January. Together, they traveled back through time, flipping through the artifacts of their journey: lab partner contracts and accountability reports; observations and theories; experiment write-ups; reflections on challenges, accomplishments, and more for the Hero's Journey clothesline; charts comparing and contrasting chemical reactions to gain a better understanding of fire; score sheets from the simulation for collecting different types of fuel; articles and charts comparing different types of car engines and sources of energy; discussion critique forms and discussion game playing cards; drafts of car designs, research and calculations to establish car and fuel costs, and final car designs and pitches shared at the Exhibition. 

Out of all of this work, students chose just three pieces to include in their portfolios: one to represent their greatest achievement during the project, one to represent their greatest challenge, and one to represent their greatest lesson learned. After writing reflections on why they chose each piece, students presented their project portfolios to one another on Thursday.

Mr. Sandefer joined us on Monday to launch a mini exploration into the Malthusian Debate. Over the week, students took time to research the following questions.

·         Is the world running out of resources? 

·         Should we expect prices for food and resources like oil to go up, year after year, or will human ingenuity and the free market always find creative ways to satisfy our needs?

·         Do you base your positions in questions #1 and #2 on basic belief (faith), simple logic (1+1 = 2), or evidence drawn from data? Which is more convincing?

·         Who won the bet between Simon and Ehrlich? How did the outcome of this bet influence your position?

On Friday, students broke into study groups to share their findings before coming together for a fascinating Socratic discussion led by Mr. Sandefer. After the discussion, students shared lessons learned, both about the topic and about the Socratic Discussion method. Some of their lessons included: it's better to have a point [evidence] than to say something you really don't know is true or not; if you have a problem and you're not absolutely sure you can help it or how to solve it, wait before you do anything because it might make it worse; people have the right to choose the number of kids they have even if the population is going up, because people are creative and can come up with other solutions; take in other peoples' ideas quickly enough so you can respond right away to the last thing that was just said, not something that was said a long time ago in the discussion; listen to other peoples' points and think about what they say before deciding your position; sometimes it can be really hard to change somebody else's mind; don't repeat points, make different points; don't make your point too long - be concise.

In Music, students started learning about the blues and all the different types of music that actually came from the blues. They listened to some music and learned the basic chords and rhythms of the blues. One of their challenges was an improv beat/sing-off, in which students partnered up and sang different beats which their partners had to repeat back. Another challenge divided the class into two groups, with each side keeping a different beat and singing a different variation of the chords at the same time.

With the Hero’s Journey Energy Project complete, students enjoyed extra time to delve deeper into their Core Skills. They indulged in their various math programs, reading, and writing. When time permitted, they even had the opportunity to test their entrepreneurial skills with a game of Lemonade Stand Off. Tracking their time was an area of focus this week as well. The students were given a chart to help them record what activities they engaged in during Core Skills. Next Week, they will use these charts to carefully examine how they managed their time. 

The first three Mad Libs were submitted for the final book this week! Mad Lib creation continues with much excitement and creativity. Students had the opportunity in Writing Workshop to further explore the genres in which Mad Libs can be written. They looked closely at fables and discussed the many different morals they portray. The discussion of fables also led to deeper concentration on their selected character traits. 

At the beginning of the week, students voted to read the biography of Charles Darwin for the morning group read aloud. Together they learned about the voyage, adventures, and struggles of the famous scientist. They discussed the power of curiosity and courage to change the world. 

In light of the rainy weather, Thursday’s lunch time was concluded with a dance party. The students enjoyed blasting some tunes, flashing the lights to that special dance floor effect, and rocking out to their heart’s content. 

Energy in the news inspired several discussions this week, with students reading articles about greenhouse gases and the first boat to use solar energy for global circumnavigation. 

Weeks 30 & 31

With newspaper articles as our shared text, the focus of the discussions during Morning Group the past two weeks included alternative energy, issues surrounding the length of the school day, and a debate over rights related to personal property.  With each article, students considered the costs and benefits of various solutions to the problems presented, acknowledging tradeoffs and arguing adamantly.  When an issue did not stir enough emotion or everyone seemed to be in agreement, a new angle was presented to force more difficult decisions.  One such discussion was about public beaches in Texas and whether the government has the right to force someone to sell their land to compensate for the eroding land.  The group was in agreement that this was absolutely an injustice using as support that the words “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property” had originally been considered for the Declaration of Independence.  To stimulate more debate, we instead looked at the case as if, instead of public beach, the land was home to an endangered species, and one of its only remaining habitats.  Opinions shifted.  What about a protected species? More changes.  In another article, about wind farms in Texas, students were in support of this green energy source, until it was revealed that half a million migratory birds die each year in the process.  Then we had a debate.  And what about a longer school day?  Or shorter vacations?  After learning about the US rankings compared to other countries, some students were arguing that we should go to school on Saturdays.

Recently students learned several new on-line programs that allowed them to put together a mini e-portfolio.  First, they worked with a program called VoiceThread that allows them to record clips of themselves talking.  They played around on the program to get to know it and then each made two mini-movies.  For the first, they looked right into the web-camera above their screen and talked about their Hero’s Journeys.  They recorded and watched until they were satisfied.  Next, they uploaded a graph of their progress on their first Excellence Goal and talked about the process and what they had accomplished. 

The next step was creating an e-portfolio page using a new program (just launched at this year’s SXSW) called Pathbrite.  They are in their beta version and the students were excited to be able to provide them feedback on the user experience and suggestions for the future.  In addition to adding their VoiceThreads, they also uploaded a screenshot of their Shelfari account, a recent sample of writing, and a piece of work from their most recent project.  The last thing they did was go on-line and find an image of one of their heroes to add to their page.  A number of students were surprised and delighted to find that their parents “on Google”.

In the last week of the session, students took a break from their regular math programs – DreamBox, ST Math, and ALEKS – to spend some time on Khan Academy.  For most of them, it had been several months since they had used the program and they were excited to see how many new “proficiencies” they were able to achieve.  Many students were surprised that they had “learned so much from just playing on DreamBox” or another program.  Their e-portfolio page has a link to their Khan Academy “exercise dashboard” where this progress can be seen.

The session ended with an incredible display and celebration of the work students have done in P.E. and Art this year.  The final Acton Olympics were on Thursday morning.  Students were wearing their team color – either yellow or blue – and were cheering each time they saw anything their color – a car, a store sign, the clothing of another pedestrian – as they walked to the park.  The Olympics began with their regular P.E. warm-up set to loud dance music, while parents watched and cheered from the sidelines.  After stretching, the physical tests began – low plank, push-ups, shuttle run, and the half mile run.  Students had been promised a pool party if they averaged at least a 50% improvement in all four categories over their September scores.  Many of them had already reached this point at the mid-year testing in December, but the party was not a guarantee.  With a number of students beating their low plank time by 300 – 400 percent, the deal was sealed.  The walk back to school was slower, as students caught their breath and compared scores.  Once back, they decided not to go outside for free time, too exhausted from the morning’s workout.  After about ten minutes and a popsicle, however, most of the students were down on the field playing soccer.

After school, students headed over to Amy’s Ice Cream where their artwork from the semester was adorning the walls.  It looked incredible.  Bright pastel portraits of endangered animals with clever slogans written by the students, “distorted image” self-portraits, festive masks, and wire sculptures surrounded the happy artists, as they enjoyed their ice cream.

Week 32

For the first three weeks of this summer session, students will work on weeklong mini-projects, designed to ignite their curiosity and get them thinking about what kind of project they might like to design and execute on their own during the second half of the summer.  They will be left with ideas and questions at the end of each week that they can be thinking about as they prepare to plan their own mini-project.

This week's mini-project was building paperclip machines.  The week started with a discussion about how students think they learn better: by following instructions, or by tinkering and testing out ideas.  Do they learn more when challenges are easy enough that they always succeed, or do they learn more when they sometimes fail?  Do they learn by being told things, or do they learn by making things?  

Students were shown a model of a paperclip machine and told that their goal was to make that same design – however, they were given the option to use directions or to just try to figure it out on their own by playing around with the tools.  The following day, students were given even more choice: continue to make the same machine as the model, or create a completely different machine out of paperclips.  Afterwards, students reflected on which day they learned more, with most students claiming to have learned more the second day - by trying lots of ideas and failing.  

A related discussion centered on the ideal level of challenge a school should provide for its students, with strong arguments for different amounts.  One student said that easy challenges allow you to experience success which builds confidence and can be a motivator for taking on greater challenges.  This was countered by the point that unmerited success can be a disadvantage because it does not prepare you for challenges you will face in the real world.  Another student agreed adding that easily earned success can cause you to develop a skewed sense of risk assessment when facing future challenges and potential threats, which could be dangerous.  Another student agreed that a school should provide challenges where students do not always succeed, arguing that too much success can lead to a fear of failure, which could make them too risk averse, and afraid to take on new challenges.

At the end of project time on Thursday, students shared their creations.  Watch a few of them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N71wumZnrE&feature=youtu.be.  Some students did not have a finished product, and we talked about which was more important: the final product created, or the process of creation.  Links to all of the videos watched and articles read can be found on the Hero's and Callings page on the student website.  

To focus their work during this last session of school, students took a look at their 3rd trimester core skills S.M.A.R.T. goals and briefly reflected on how far they have come on those and if any have changed since they were made six weeks ago.  Then, it was off to work, with purpose and direction.

The class honored a beloved author who recently passed away, Jean Craighead George, by learning about her life and mapping her Hero’s Journey.  Having read My Side of the Mountain as a class last summer, we started another of her books as a read aloud this week. 

In addition to building paperclip machines, working hard on their core skills, listening to great stories, and having fascinating Socractic discussions, students also got to play the drums during music class with Mr. Louis and learned some new core-strengthening moves from Ms. Liana, our favorite Pilates instructor.  With temperatures well-over 90° already, students will have twice weekly indoors Pilates lessons this summer as their PE.  While many students still brave the morning heat to play outside, free time activities have expanded, with more students staying inside than before – playing invented games, writing skits, and making crafts.

We welcomed our 30th Eagle into our class this week.  As the younger sibling of one of our other students, she was no stranger to the community, but it has been wonderful to have her with us all week.  We were also treated to a presentation from one of our students who did an internship this winter and spring on a farm.  She showed us pictures as she talked us through the stages of planting, tending, harvesting, and selling produce, leaving many with the desire to go volunteer on a farm.

Friday was the first of our summer theme days – Crazy Hair Day…and crazy it was!  From dyed eyebrows to mustaches, and giant feathers to tons of tiny ponytails, it was evidence that Eagles go all out.

Week 33

This week's mini-project was knitting hats.  We started the week by hearing the story of a 9-year-old girl named Ellie who had the idea to start a business selling knitting craft kits using yarn spun by widows in Rwanda (www.kidknits.org).  Ellie was inspired to do something to help people in Rwanda after she met a woman named Immaculee Ilibagiza, who survived during a period of war and genocide in Rwanda.  Through Immaculee, Ellie learned more about how difficult life in Rwanda is for some people, and she began to think about ways she might be able to make a positive difference.  She had recently learned how to knit hats, and she thought knitting was a lot of fun.  She had the idea that she could knit and sell hats, then give the money to widows in Rwanda who needed it.  After talking with her parents, they decided that an even better idea could be to give these widows jobs by selling knitting kits using yarn spun by these widows – that way the widows would have jobs and be able to support their families, and others could enjoy the fun and satisfaction of knitting hats.  Thus, the idea for KidKnits was born.  On Monday, we got to Skype with Ellie and her father, Steve, and learn more about them, their heroes, and how KidKnits works.  During the week, students learned more about how the yarn for the kits is made, and read a play based on the true stories of some of the widows who make the yarn.

 Some of the questions we pondered while knitting included: 

·         Whose responsibility is it to create opportunities for people struggling with poverty: the people struggling, individuals (like Ellie), larger organizations, or the government?  

·         Is it better to help others by giving them money, by giving them a job, or by doing something else?

·         Is not doing anything to help others when you have the ability to help them a corruption of power?

·         As a consumer, should you base your decision to buy products on where the products come from and how they are made, or something else?

·         Would you rather buy soft, brightly colored, uniform yarn that is made out of synthetic materials in a factory, or natural, hand-made yarn that is not as soft, bright, or uniform?

·         How could you take something you love to do to come up with a business that could help others?  

Our discussions were very interesting!  Most students argued that it was better to help others by giving them a job rather than just money one time, if possible.  Many students argued that it is up to individuals to help others, claiming that if everyone who was born with money/resources helped just one person who was born without resources, they could make a huge difference.  Some students made the point that larger organizations or the government might have more ability to do bigger things, like build roads and schools, but that individuals could do smaller things.  Some people felt that individuals struggling should take the most responsibility for changing their own lives, because they need to learn how to rely on themselves.  Most students agreed that it is up to consumers to learn where and how products are made and base their buying decisions on this information; however, some students pointed out that if companies took the responsibility of making healthy and safe products, consumers could buy anything on the market without having to worry about whether it was good for them or not.  All students agreed that they would rather buy natural, hand-made yarn that they know is helping others rather than softer, more brightly colored factory-made yarn.  Key lessons learned at the end of the week included: how to knit, how yarn is made, what life is like in Rwanda, what seems like just a little money to us in the United States seems like a lot to widows in Rwanda, and to try new things because you might find you are good at them.

We had our last music classes with Mr. Louis, which included singing our favorite songs from our time with him, moving to different rhythms, and taking turns on the drum set.  Student each shared a lesson learned in music over the past couple months, and they ranged from learning about the Blues to overcoming shyness.

We continued to challenge our bodies with tough Pilates work outs, and also had a three-day series of nutrition workshops.  With help from a parent who specializes in child nutrition and allergies, students learned about what the USDA and its team of scientists consider nutritious for children, as well as hearing from several of our parents about how they approach nutrition planning for their families.  We talked about how scientists are constantly learning new things about the body and brain which influence what they consider to be “healthy” and that this has changed over time and will almost certainly continue to change.  Families often have different ideas about what is healthy and their meals are influenced by these, as well as by individual preferences, dietary needs, cultural backgrounds, and religious beliefs.  We also talked about the reality that what is healthy for one person, might be toxic for another.  With all their new knowledge in mind, students had fun designing their “perfect meal plan”, considering not only a balance of grains, fruits and vegetables, dairy, and protein, but also what types of sugars, fats, and vitamins they need.

This led us to an important discussion on food allergies and what you can do as a friend to help keep someone with a food allergy safe.  In July, we will have a student with a severe peanut and tree nut allergy join us, and we are going to make the Elementary School a “nut-free environment”.  Students spent time brainstorming great snacks and lunches that do not include nuts, but that do provide the nutrition they need, and created a list to send to their families.  Instead of being disappointed about having to replace peanut-butter in their lunches, the students were excited by the idea of expanding their palates and eager to make our environment safe for a new fellow traveler.

With all the wonderful things going on in and out of the classroom this week, students also took their annual standardized test.  With just a quick discussion the previous Friday about the purpose of the tests to alleviate any anxiety, students happily and calmly showed off the reading, writing, and mathematic core skills they have worked hard to master throughout the school year.

Friday was a celebratory day where we honored the authors we love by dressing as characters from a favorite book, spending extra time reading, and making book recommendation cards.  In the morning, students finished their hats, knitting as they listened to one of their favorite poets, Shel Silverstein, read his own work.  The most exciting part of the day was when Ms. Aubrie surprised students by giving them each a copy of Acton Academy’s first book of student-written MadLibs.  They spent time honoring themselves and others as authors by breaking into pairs and small groups to enjoy the product of their hard work.

Week 34

This week's mini-project was a field study and introduction to GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Students began by observing themselves in our classroom environment. They were told to explore the classroom for 5 minutes, and then decide where they wanted to "plant" themselves, keeping in mind that they would have access only to the resources within their reach from the spot they chose to sit. The classroom had been rearranged with fans in one area, snacks in another, and comfortable seating and other potential attractors or detractors in other areas. After students chose their spots, we looked at their distribution around the classroom: Were they clumped, evenly spread out, or randomly spread out? Was there a relationship between noise and distribution of students? Was there a relationship between food and distribution of students? Or a relationship between other students or classroom materials and distribution of students? 

After making observations and noticing relationships in the classroom, students brainstormed questions they had about relationships between biotic and abiotic factors outside on our campus. Some of their questions included: Are there more insects at a higher elevation or a lower elevation? Does the amount of plants affect the amount of insects? Are there more insects in damp soil or dry soil? Will the soil pH level at our new campus go up or down after the construction? After writing down their questions and hypotheses, they headed outdoors to count plants and insects, read elevation and noise level, and collect soil samples. On Tuesday, students collected the same data from the site of our school's future campus. While at the future school site, we also got to meet with Tom Hatch, the architect for the new school. He showed students the plans for the buildings and gave them a lesson in reading blueprints before taking them on a walking tour of the site. 

On Wednesday, one of our parents introduced students to the basics of GIS and shared some examples of how she had used GIS in her job and how mapping data can be used to solve real world problems. Students then began testing their soil samples for levels of pH, phosphorus, nitrogen, and potash, and began to enter their collected data from Monday and Tuesday onto spreadsheets. We ended the week by mapping the data students collected and graphing some of the different variables to look for relationships. Some of the greatest discoveries this week included: how to use a soil test kit, how to observe things more closely, how to map data, that a map can explain data more clearly than a spreadsheet, that damper soil (from our current campus) has a higher pH than drier soil (from the future campus), that the point with the most noise had the fewest insects and the point with the least noise had the most insects, that you can dig deeper into the soil on our current campus than on the future campus (where there is a lot of concrete below the surface), and that the way we counted insects may not have been very accurate because it was hard to see insects where there were a lot of plants and also insects keep moving, making them hard to count. 

With testing out of the way, students got back in to their core skills work this week and really spent some quality time reading, writing, and solving difficult math problems. For some students, much of this time was spent engaged in a MangaHigh Fai-to with a school in Ireland. So far the score is 2 – 2, so the Fai-to will continue into next week until one school has won five rounds. 

Early in the week, we celebrated two birthdays with a slideshow that condensed twelve years of life into four entertaining minutes, donuts, breakfast tacos, and lots of kind birthday wishes. Friday was an especially festive day. We all headed out to Coach Carpenter’s house in the morning for a day of splashing in the pool and celebrating a successful year of P.E. with major gains made by all the students in their personal fitness and their sportsmanship. Thank you to the Carpenters for being incredible hosts and planning an unforgettable day for our Eagles!

Week 35

We had the pleasure of welcoming some of our soon-to-be Eagles to the classroom this week. During these last three weeks, all of the students who will be starting in September will spend a day or two with us to ease the transition in the fall and get them excited about their new adventure. This week’s visitors fit right in – making friends, playing math games, reading books, and even choosing mini-projects to work on. 

Students started working on independent projects this week. During the last three weeks of the school year, they are working either on their own or in small groups to complete a project of their own choosing. They must also plan some way to present their projects to the rest of the class in two minutes (a film, poster, skit, pitch, etc.). 

They began by considering which of the three mini-projects this summer inspired them the most, and whether they would rather build something, start a business to help others, investigate a question to solve a real-life problem, or do something completely different. Each student considered the possibilities, and then wrote a S.M.A.R.T. goal (a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely goal) for their project. 

The classroom has been buzzing with activity! We have knitters, stop motion film makers, regular film makers, Rube Goldberg machine makers, talk show hosts, a storybook author, a sock puppet maker, and a fan maker. On Friday, two students who will not be with us for the rest of the summer presented their projects. One presented a video of his successful Rube Goldberg machine, which included a train going down a ramp and hitting a net, which launched a Lego man's head into a target. The other student presented his experiments with fire by setting up a smoke “bomb”, which consisted of a paper cup soaked in hairspray with a yarn fuse. 

Other great successes this week included: several completed hats, getting a talk show off the ground, lots of progress on stop motion characters and props, and several first drafts of film footage. Interesting discoveries and lessons learned so far include: stop motion is more difficult than just using a flip camera because you have to make sure you keep the camera in exactly the same position for each shot; salt puts a fire out; you can use scrap pieces of yarn to make a multi-colored hat by tying yarn pieces together; it is difficult to make a clay car; if your first idea doesn't work, start a new project as soon as possible; googly eyes stick better with craft glue than with Elmer's glue; how to charge a digital camera; and the more hats you knit, the faster you get. 

With only three weeks left in the school year, students stayed focused on their core skills goals this week, choosing just one or two areas to concentrate on each day, and monitoring their progress closely. They also spent time bonding over board games, running around in 108° heat, and strengthening their bodies with Pilates workouts. Ms. Aubrie finished reading The Magician’s Elephant, our final read aloud for the year to a round of applause from the students. 

The week ended with a day of celebrating music. We made flutes with Topo Chicos and experimented with how the tones vary as the water level goes down; we created Kazoos with combs and wax paper (we may have an Acton Kazoo band in the making); we made decorative rhythm sticks with beads and wooden skewers; and we danced to a c.d. consisting of one song chosen by each of the thirty Eagles. We were also treated to hearing a recording of Ms. Anna singing with her college a cappella group and were amazed at the different sounds that can be made just with voices. The day ended with fabulous performances from a dozen of our Eagles and a few of their family members on the piano, violin, and drums. Mr. Louis and several parents and siblings came to enjoy the concert.

Week 36

Students continued working enthusiastically on their individual projects this week. The final presentations will be done on the last day of school, but we were treated to a few presentations this week from students who are headed off a little early for their summer vacations. On Tuesday, two students presented their stop motion animation film “Thriller” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl_JvSdCM7o) and two others presented their film “Stranded” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWZyn9CLl3E). On Thursday, another student shared her collection of sock puppets with the class, which she plans to donate to Dell Children's Hospital, and during free time, two students hosted their talk show, shooting footage for a commercial for the show. Highlights from project time included: setting up for the talk show, seeing the photos taken for a stop motion film on the computer for the first time, finishing a catapult, figuring out how to balance a domino just right for a Rube Goldberg machine, and finishing a (very detailed) clay vampire. 

Students also continued to work on their individual work goals – focusing on reaching a certain level in a math program, finishing a great novel or series, or editing a piece of writing. With all of the work being done on projects and core skills, there was still time for playing games and enjoying friends as the end of school year approaches. Friday was another celebratory theme day, “camping day”. Students dressed in their camping finest and brought tents, sleeping bags, and other gear to school. We read ghost stories and played games around the campfire (yellow and orange construction paper flames flickering in the wind created by the fan blades to which they were taped), snacked on S’mores, practiced tying knots, learned how to set up tents, and made birdfeeders out of orange rinds. To cool off during the heat of the day, students splashed around on a slip n’ slide and ran under a sprinkler. 

In honor of the 4th of July, students re-watched a couple episodes of Liberty’s, including one about the first Independence Day. They sang along to the theme song, and enjoyed seeing the familiar characters. 

We read an article about a retired American Olympic swimmer, Janet Evans, who came out of retirement last year at age 40, after 16 years, to try and qualify for this summer’s Olympics. She did well in some earlier races this year, but did not qualify for the team in last week’s trials. Students discussed whether or not she had failed. One student argued that since her goal was to make the team, not making the team was a failure. Another student clarified, that she had failed at her goal, but not as a person. Many students agreed that while she may have failed on one level, she had succeeded on many more. One student said that while she did not make the team, she succeeded because she did something that could inspire others. 

Having finished The Magician’s Elephant at the end of last week, students gave the book a quick critique, including both warm and cool feedback, and then some additional advice for selecting read aloud books to help Ms. Aubrie in her search this summer for more fabulous books to share. The book also triggered a discussion that began with the question: If you were given the option, would you want to know your future?, which quickly morphed into a discussion of whether or not your future is still your future if you know it or if it changes with each passing moment. This lead to students questions if, in fact, there is a future at all, with some students arguing that there is just present and past.

Week 37

The final week of the 2011-2012 school year was filled with challenges, productivity, and as always, great fun. We welcomed a new Eagle into the nest this week and got to know her a bit. We are so glad that she was able to come this week and are excited to have the rest of the new Eagles join us in September.  We also celebrated the birthdays of our two youngest Eagles this week with kind words, beautiful pictures, funny stories, popsicles, and mochi ice cream.

Individual projects wrapped up this week. As students reached their goals, they used their extra project time to experiment with new ideas (like knitting necklaces, coasters, and hair pieces in addition to hats), teach fellow students newly acquired skills (like how to load pictures and videos from a camera onto a computer), and assist classmates who simply needed extra hands on deck in order to reach their goals.

On Friday, all students shared their final projects with the class. One group of knitters displayed the hats they will be donating to a charitable organization in Anchorage, Alaska, Bean's Cafe (http://beanscafe.org/#). Between the five of them they made a total of 17 hats to donate!  Other knitters presented their work as well: one student displayed the belts she has been knitting, and then passed around a sign-up sheet for people who want her to knit them a belt over the summer, another showed off her Harry Potter "Sorting" hat, and a third exhibited the hat she made for herself and the headband she made for her dog. After all of the knitters, more “makers” presented their projects. One student showed everyone the fans she made and decorated, another student explained his model of the solar system, and another demonstrated his variety of launchers. A student then performed a live puppet show skit of a soccer game (with help from a friend), another shared some knowledge about wilderness survival with a PowerPoint presentation, and another showed a video of a couple of his Rube Goldberg machines. Finally, the stop motion animators shared their videos with the class which can be view on-line: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHtVO63T23U, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GPPqDs8omE.

Some of the shared highlights and lessons learned from the individual projects included: playing around on Windows Live MovieMaker to figure out how to add special effects to a photo; learning that the faster you knit, the more likely you are to make mistakes; realizing that you can't just start a project but that you really have to think about what you want to do first; learning how many steps there are to publishing a book and how challenging it is to think you are done and realize that you still have more to do; realizing that projects don't have to stop at school, but that you can take them with you on family trips; learning how to take a song from a YouTube video and make it into an mp3 file to use in iMovie; becoming more familiar with iMovie; and realizing that you are the only person who can say whether or not something that you worked on was a failure, because you may have learned something from it that other people don't realize.

The students had their last Pilates classes this week. With a new twist on frog, adding some competition into the hopping fun, students are extra sore, but also feeling much stronger. They wrote Ms. Liana a thoughtful thank you note which they presented to her after the final class.  Students also wrote to the other guides, parents, and friends who have supported them in one way or another this past month, including the exterminator who sprayed for crickets.

Throughout the week, the students participated in some thought provoking discussions. Using Ms. Aubrie’s experience with a wounded bird and an article from the newspaper, they debated whether people should interfere with nature or let nature run its course. Many interesting ideas and perspectives were brought up as they balanced the potential for animal dependency on humans and the importance of showing kindness to animals needing help. Another article raised issues surrounding the importance and value of college. Students debated whether it was important for someone who is already experiencing financial success to attend a university. One Eagle asked the question, “If I graduate and don’t go into the job area that I studied, did I waste my time in school?” After much processing and discussing, someone finally stated, “Knowledge is never a waste.” Most eagles seemed to agree on this point but remained divided on the value of secondary education.

The last discussion of the year was taken from an article about a new energy-producing turbine the attaches to a residential plumbing system. Students discussed whether everyone should have one of these installed in their home to reduce their impact on the environment. This raised questions about cost, effectiveness, and reliability of the turbine. They weighed many factors and did not reach a unanimous opinion. They also debated whether the true value in this product lies in its ability to help developed countries save energy or its potential to bring electricity to countries whose power sources are unreliable. Many stated that bringing energy to underdeveloped countries was its greatest value. However, one student stated, “There are a lot more countries in the world that make a lot of pollution. There is a smaller fraction of the world that lives without energy. The countries that make pollution have the power to destroy the entire planet.” This comment caused a surge of questions, comments, and ideas ranging from the necessity of power to man’s responsibility over the environment.

The Eagles came dressed in their best sleep attire for Pajama Day on Friday, including slippers, blankets, and stuffed animals. They were greeted with a cup of cereal and milk as they arrived, and breakfast tacos provided by several of the families were served for lunch. Students had plenty of free time to nap, snuggle with their stuffed animals, and relax in their jammies.  Universal’s Despicable Me provided the afternoon entertainment. Students grabbed a pillow and snacked on popcorn as they enjoyed the show.

As the week came to an end, students wrapped up their work, cleaned out their desks and cubbies, and reflected on the year. They looked back over their third trimester goals and discussed whether or not they completed them and why. They also took some time to think about all the different experiences they have had and when they felt most powerful this year. With the overarching question this year of: Does power corrupt?, we began the school year by posting a big rainbow in our classroom listing the following sources of power: happiness, community, money, freedom, persuasion, imagination, using and changing nature, predicting, and planning. We asked students during the first week of school which of these brought them the most power. Over the course of the year, through our projects and discussions, our understanding of these sources of power has grown. We ended the year by returning to this same question: Which of these sources of power gives you the most power? Here are some of the students' responses: 

·         Community – So many fellow students gave me lessons learned and helped me and pushed me this year.

·         Community – Being in a community, like your family, gives you control over other people, like other people who are younger than you.

·         Imagination – It is one of the key things for everything! It starts a chain reaction, and without it, nothing would be possible.

·         Imagination – You really need to think and be creative to get ideas and get stuff done, and to get ideas, imagination helps.

·         Happiness - Without it, you would be bored, like when no one wants to play with you at free time.

·         Predicting - If we couldn't predict, we wouldn't know a lot of things. Being able to predict sparks a reaction to help you find your answer.

·         Community - It is more powerful to work with other people than to work alone.

·         Imagination - Without it, we would practically be like the cave men. Imagination lets us make things! Without it, we wouldn't have anything.

·         Freedom - Without freedom, we wouldn't be happy.

·         Money - Without it we wouldn't be able to buy anything.

·         Happiness - Otherwise we would be sad all the time and we wouldn't do very much.

·         Community - If everyone was working separately, it would take a long time to get power, like to get power over other countries.

Some of the students' highlights of the year included: the lip dub, pajama day, process drama, the independent projects, camping day, going to Sherwood Forest, doing and writing Mad Libs, birthday celebrations, and winning the PE trophy and personal awards.

Thank you to all the wonderful families that made this year such a success!