Guest Student Post: Projects, Projects and More Projects

This part of the blog post was written by Lindsay as part of her continuing study of Vivian Maier:

The last couple of weeks the 5th and 6th graders have been creating projects based on their M.O.O.T (Mars Out Of Time) characters. M.O.O.T is a website where 5/6s act as historical figures of their choosing and solve problems related to creating a Mars colony. They have been making paintings, stories, games, and more all week. Here is what some of the students have been creating.

Oliver S. (Andy Warhol) is painting a picture in the style of Andy Warhol in a Mars theme. The painting will be either of the rocky surface of Mars, or of a spaceship. Andy Warhol made the famous ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ painting.

Evan (Gengis Khan) & Ben (Shigeru Miyamoto) are making a board game about Mars. The goal of the game is to conquer the Martians on the planet Mars. Genghis Khan was a warrior, and Shigeru Miyamoto was a video game designer.

Kit is portraying Georges Remi, also known as Hergé. Kit is drawing a comic in the style of Hergé. The comic is about a few kids who live in the Mars colony. But when disaster strikes, it’s up to them to make it right. Hergé is the writer and illustrator of the famous comics, called Tintin.

--Lindsay

In addition to the MOOT projects that Lindsay wrote about, students are working one or more other projects as well including: video documentaries, book projects, and/or completing a story. [--Sam]

Oliver S is working on his documentary and Olie is making a game for his book project.

Trials, Bias, Prejudice, Baltimore, and Polygons

Some social issues that we've been exploring in class recently have given some context for the recent events in Baltimore. 

A quick reminder about other S-K blogs

The specialist teachers have blogs as well, be sure to check them out! Here are a few links: 

Monica maintains a Middle School Art blog. Check it out! 

Imogen has a blog for her classes. It can be found here. Here are some recent entries that are particularly relevant to the 5/6s: 
- les vrais?

- toi et moi

In addition to those, it can be really useful and interesting to check out the other classroom blogs. Find a list of links to those here. 


Finally, just to add some visual interest to this post, here are some maps made of my room and the middle school commons from a recent activity: 

A treasure trove of photos

Gathered around a new pal at Mary Beth Doyle.

We took a stroll down memory lane with the last fifteen minutes of the day yesterday, looking at a bunch of photos from the school year (so far). There's no rhyme or reason to these, and at least a few have probably already been posted, but we thought you might enjoy seeing them all regardless. Enjoy!

Pi Day, Pi-kus

Jason and Sam's classes had a lot of fun with π the last couple of weeks.

We watched videos from Vi Hart and Danica McKellar, baked some pies and wrote π-kus. Gabe spearheaded the pie-baking with help from Ariana and Ben. On Friday, we all sat down for a celebration of π.

Ben made an Apple π. 

A π-ku is a poetry form (made up?) by Sam. It's a three line poem where the letters of the words are the digits of π. Like a traditional haiku it is three lines, but instead of 5-7-5 syllables, it is 5-7-5 words. A few of the classes π-ku are shared with you here:

π-kus

It's a pity, I think

wondering if anyone really can adore homework.

Educators provide boatloads for us.

How I know a thing.

Knowledge of powers great will never foretell

anything's history. Mystery, it's me.

Jason's Documentary elective

As I'm sure you know, we recently started our second round of electives for the year. My (Jason) elective is Documentaries, where we'll be both watching and creating films. We've met a few times so far, and I thought you might like a peek at some of what we've watched together: 

Mars Out of Time (or "MOOT.")

Belgian cartoonist Hergé has recently joined our class. 

Over the next several weeks, you'll be hearing a lot about the planet Mars, and something we call "MOOT." 

"MOOT" stands for Mars Out of Time, which is a new spin on one of our favorite annual projects. For many years, Summers-Knoll students have had the opportunity to participate in Place Out of Time (or "POOT"), a simulation run by the University of Michigan. The idea behind Place Out of Time is brilliant: What if we could bring the great (and lesser) minds of history to ponder a contemporary issue?