Hello everyone, 

This week involved the finishing of many projects. 

To start, we finished our current class novel, Timmy Failure: Mistakes were Made. The students loved laughing along with this book and we can’t wait to watch the new movie adaptation of this book on Disney+ next week!

We also finished our Lost Cities projects and presented them to the class. The students took turns coming up to the front of the room to show off their models, their Google Slides presentations, their essays, and their posters. Each student became an expert on their city and shared fascinating information with us. The class loved learning about all of these lost cities from around the world. 

For math, we finished up our geometry unit. We started the week by focusing on quadrilaterals. The students were given a set of quadrilaterals and were asked to sort them based on features they had in common. Many of the students chose to sort the shapes into categories based on whether or not they had parallel sides, right angles, and how long their sides were. Most of the shapes ended up being sorted into the categories of trapezoids, parallelograms, rhombuses, rectangles, and squares, even if we didn’t know all of those names yet. We talked about what all these different types of shapes were and how they share attributes with each other. We used this information to create a venn diagram showing how these shapes are related to each other. 

We also spent some time talking about symmetry. We discussed what it means for a shape to be symmetrical and how to identify a line of symmetry. To practice, the students were given paper shapes and were asked to find all of the lines of symmetry they had. The students were able to rotate and fold the shapes to see if the sides lined up. We were amazed at how many lines of symmetry some shapes actually have! We also learned about other types of symmetry, such as rotational symmetry and radial symmetry. Students noticed that sometimes an image has multiple types of symmetry and other times it only has one. 

We ended our discussions on symmetry by learning about mandalas. Mandalas are beautiful circular designs that have radial symmetry and often also have linear and rotational symmetry. The students then had time to create their own mandalas. We saw so many creative designs. They turned out beautifully! 

We also had time for another fun art project. We talked about the artist that inspired the sculpture Plato painted for Greektown: Yassonas Megoulas. We looked at some examples of his artwork. The students noticed the repeated use of black, white, blue, and gold. They also noticed lots of geometric shapes that created intricate designs. We then created our own artwork inspired by Megoulas’s style. We used black, white, blue, and yellow construction paper to cut out our geometric shapes. Some were shapes that we had learned about during math and others were irregular shapes. The students glued them all together to make beautiful artwork that looks like Megoulas himself designed it! 

We also took some time to rehearse for the end of the year show. The students are becoming more confident with their lines and we’re excited to perform next week! 

Finally, we had a fun event on Thursday for National Paper Airplane Day. Every student in the school created paper airplanes and each class had a competition to see which one could fly the farthest. Our class went outside to test ours and Nathan was our winner! At the end of the day, the winners from each class went into the gym to compete against each other. While Nathan didn’t win against the other classes, we all had a blast cheering him on! 

 

Have a great weekend! 

Hello everyone, 

Most of our week was spent finishing our lost cities research projects. The students have created unique, detailed projects. They were so creative in choosing how to represent their research. Students spend their time building small models of artifacts, creating descriptive essays, colorful posters, and intricate Google Slides presentations. They’re very proud of what they have made and are excited to present their work to the class on Monday. 

For math this week, we focused mainly on polygons. The students were given a variety of shapes and were asked to sort them based on their sides. Some shapes were ones they had seen before, such as a regular octagon, but others were more unique. The students really had to focus on how many sides the shapes had, not just where they thought they belonged based on how they looked. It was also a great opportunity for the students to apply their knowledge of Greek numbers to help them figure out how many sides certain shapes had, such as a decagon. 

In addition to this math activity, we also took time to review coin counting with a game of Coin War! The students were given decks of cards with different coins on them and had to determine who had the higher card based on the value of the coins. As they went, they added up the money they acquired on their cards as extra practice adding decimals. 

On Tuesday afternoon, I was out of the classroom. However, the students still had a fun time learning with Coach Medina reading an awesome Super Science article. The students read about how people in Vermont make maple syrup! They also learned how the weather and temperature play a big part in the sap collecting process, and used that information to analyze a table to determine when the best days to collect sap would be. 

In addition to all of this, we had an exciting field trip to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago! The students were given a guided tour of the museum, then we had time to explore on our own. The students were amazed at the size of some of the artifacts. They were also amazed at how old the items were! The mummy was one that we were particularly impressed by. It was a great experience and a wonderful way to wrap up our Egypt exploration! 

As the year comes to a close, we’ve also participated in some of our end-of-the-year activities. We helped paint the sculpture that Plato will display in Greektown. We will talk about the artist who inspired it, Iasonas Megoula, next week. We’ve also started practicing the all-school song for the end-of-the-year program. The students are doing a great job singing with strong, clear voices. We’re excited to show everyone! And, of course, the students had a wonderful time playing games with their buddies at the carnival! 

Have a great weekend!

Hello everyone,

We’ve had a fun-filled week here in room 208.  

We’ve started our final research project of the year. This time, the students are researching lost cities from around the world. Each student picked a city and has been researching its history. They’re learning about what life was like in the city, what happened to it for it to become “lost,” when it was rediscovered, and what buildings and artifacts have survived. It’s been a great opportunity for the students to see what archeologists can learn from analyzing items from the past. They’ve had a great time doing their research and becoming experts on their cities.

As the students finish up their research, they’ve started working on their final projects. Each student will be doing a presentation about their city for the rest of the class, but the students get to decide how they would like to represent their information. Students are planning on writing essays, creating posters, making Google Slides presentations, and some are building replicas of the city. The students are really taking their time to create detailed projects. We will continue working on them next week. 

For math, we’ve continued focusing on geometry. Our Dynamath article this week had students identifying different types of lines. They learned the difference between lines, line segments, and rays. They also learned what it means for lines to be parallel, intersect, or be perpendicular. For Multiplicity Lab, we looked for examples of these types of lines in our classroom. The students found great examples in our furniture, our supplies, and even made some examples with their bodies! 

We have also continued working with shapes. We did another Multiplicity Lab challenge where students were shown an image pattern blocks and were asked which blocks could fit in the hole they created. The students found countless ways to fill the hole and it was great practice composing and decomposing with shapes. 

In writing, we have continued working on our stories inspired by Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. The students are pretty much done writing the rough drafts of their stories and are currently working on the illustrations that will be incorporated throughout. The students are excited to start editing and putting all the pieces of their stories together. 

vWe also had some fun events this week. On Monday, we released our butterflies! The students loved watching them fly away to find new homes. On Thursday, we enjoyed an ice cream treat outside. It was perfect on such a hot day! On Friday, Plato had a Plant and Play event. All the classes went outside to help beautify our school. We picked up sticks and trash, pulled weeds, and planted some beautiful flowers! We had a great time! 

 

Have a great weekend!

Hello everyone, 

For math, we have continued our exploration of shapes and geometry. This week, we focused on how angles allow shapes to fit together. The students were introduced to the concept of tessellations through “tiling.” We looked at examples of tiles and discussed how they fit together with no gaps or overlaps, repeating the same pattern that could go on forever. The students used stencils to determine which shapes tile and which shapes don’t. After some exploration, we discovered that circles and ovals didn’t tile, but shapes like triangles, squares, and hexagons did. We also saw that some shapes, like octagons, only tiled with the help of other shapes. Similarly, we noticed that the way the shapes were arranged determined whether or not they would tile or if they would need the help of another shape. 

Going off of these concepts, we introduce “rep-tiles,” which are shapes that can fit together to make a larger version of the same shape. For example, rep-tiles could be squares that make up a larger square or triangles that create a larger triangle. The students went back to exploring with their shapes to see what other shapes could be rep-tiles. Right away, the students noticed that if a shape doesn’t tile it isn’t going to be a rep-tile. They also noticed that shapes that had right angles and acute angles were most likely to be rep-tiles, while shapes that were made up of obtuse angles were not. They also noticed that each reptile we found had at least one line of symmetry. 

We also connected geometry with art by making artwork with compasses, a mathematical tool that allows students to draw perfect circles. The students picked up how to use the compass quickly and had so much fun creating silly, circular pictures! 

For our Egypt exploration, we learned about Alexander the Great. We discussed how he was from Macedonia, which is modern day Greece and the area around it, and how he spread Greek culture to the places he conquered. We looked at a map showing how much of the world he and his armies were able to conquer, which was especially impressive considering how young he was. We learned about Alexander’s influence in Egypt specifically, including the founding of Alexandria, which was a hub of learning with its famous museum and library. We also learned how Alexander the Great died- malaria from a mosquito bite! The students were amazed that such a powerful man could be taken down by a tiny insect. We also had a great discussion about whether or not Alexander the Great deserves his title. The students decided that back then Alexander was probably considered great; however, today conquering other countries is not something we associate with greatness. 

After learning how Alexander the Great died, the students were very curious about malaria and mosquitoes. We watched a Mystery Science mini-lesson about what the most dangerous animal in the world is- and the students were shocked to find out that it was the mosquito! Because they spread malaria to so many people every year, they are considered extremely dangerous. We then read an article about malaria, explaining where in the world it’s located, what its symptoms are, and how it can be prevented. The students were absolutely fascinated by it (and very grateful that we don’t have it in the US!)

We also learned about another Greek-Egyptian city, Heracleion. This once great port city is now at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. We watched a documentary about the discovery of Heracleion, how archaeologists learned about the city, and what we know about what life was like there. Additionally, we learned about the fall of Heracleion. A large earthquake shook the city and, because the city was built on clay, water forced its way up through the ground and formed geysers all over the city. The ground turned to quicksand and the whole city was submerged under the sea in just a matter of minutes. The students were amazed!  

Finally, we dedicated time this week to creating gifts for Mother’s Day. While I won’t give away the surprise, I will say that the students had a great time mixing their materials to create beautiful presents! We all hope you love them!

Have a great weekend! 

Hello everyone, 

For math this week, we focused on angles. We talked about how angles are classified based on their size, being either acute, obtuse, right, or straight. We also practiced measuring angles with protractors. Once we felt confident with this, we completed a Dynamath article about the angles in kites. The students identified the different types of angles, then drew pictures of their own kits. Once their drawings were complete, they measured the angles in their designs. 

We then took our knowledge of angles to the next level by practicing with a larger set of connected angles. Painters tape was placed on our classroom tables, creating lots of intersecting lines. The students used their protractors and dry erase markers to measure the angles and look for patterns. They noticed that when two lines intersected and created four angles there were lots of patterns. We saw that opposite angles had the same measurements, we saw that obtuse angles were always next to acute angles, two adjacent angles equal 180 degrees, and that all four angles together added up to 360 degrees. We also saw that the angles of the triangles on the table added up to 180 degrees. Once we figured out these patterns, the students were able to double check their measurements to make sure everything made sense. 

We also took the time to find angles in the real world. We had another mathematical scavenger hunt. The students looked for angles around the classroom and identified what kinds of angles they were. We found angles in books, shelves, and some students even made angles with their bodies! 

The students have been loving our class novel, Timmy Failure: Mistakes were Made. We decided to turn this hysterical book into a writing project. We took some time to identify the writer’s craft in the story; we looked at strategies that the author used throughout the story to give it its signature style. We noticed first person narration, speaking directly to the reader, the use of cartoon-like illustrations that are referenced by the narrator, advanced vocabulary word choice, and of course, the use of humor. The students have been challenged to write their own short stories using these techniques. While they will be using different characters, their stories in the end should have the same feel as Timmy Failure. The students are having a great time planning out their ideas!  

For our Egypt exploration, we’ve continued to focus on hieroglyphics. This week, we took what we knew about Egyptian hieroglyphics to create our own. The students worked in teams to create new pictures to represent the sounds in English. They compiled these sounds and pictures to create a brand new hieroglyphic alphabet. Once these new alphabets were finished, they created their own paper “Rosetta Stones.” Since the original Rosetta Stone was the same paragraph written in Egyptian, Greek, and demotic script, the students developed a short paragraph that they wrote in both English and their new writing system. 

We also tested ourselves to see what we have learned about Egypt through a fun game of Kahoot! The students used great strategies like process of elimination to help them answer challenging multiple choice questions. It was such a fun way to review what we have learned so far in our exploration! 

Hello Everyone, 

This week, we started reading our final novel of the year. Since we are approaching the end of the school year, we decided to read something funny and lighthearted- Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made. The students have loved the hilarious adventures of this inept detective. As the author sets up the book, we’ve been focusing on the characters in the story. We’ve discussed the similarities and differences between the characters as we analyze their thoughts, feelings and actions. We’ve also practiced using point of view by rewriting short sections of the story from different characters’ perspectives. 

For Mindset Math, we have continued working with 3D shapes and volume. This time, we looked at how we can group 3D shapes together. The students were given five rectangular prisms made from unifix cubes. They were challenged to determine, if we were to pack these prisms into a box, how big would that box need to be and how much left over space would we have? The students arranged these five prisms in different ways to try and minimize the leftover space. They documented the dimensions of their boxes, the total volume, and the volume of the empty space. We eventually determined that we couldn’t make the empty space any smaller than three unifx cubes. Then, the groups split off to answer the mathematical questions of their choice. Some chose to see what would happen if we removed one of the prisms. Others chose to experiment with adding an extra prism. One group even tried to find a set of prisms that resulted in lots of empty space, no matter how they were arranged. It was a great opportunity for mathematical inquiry and practicing how to develop strategies to answer mathematical questions. 

We continued these concepts with Multiplicity Lab as well. The students were shown an image of an irregular 3D shape, also made of unifix cubes. The students were challenged to determine the volume of the shape, then determine what the volume of the empty space would be if we put this irregular shape into a box. This was a great connection to our Mindset Math since it explored similar concepts, but challenged students to do it using 2D representations. Many of the students chose to build the structure as a problem solving strategy. Unifix cubes were also a great strategy that many students chose to use to figure out the volume of empty space as well!

We also had time for a mathematical scavenger hunt. This time, we went around the classroom looking for items that weighed 100 grams. The students were not very familiar with this unit and were shocked to see how light a gram actually was. Once they had a good sense of what 100 grams felt like, we were able to find multiple items with that weight. For example, many students decided to weigh decks of cards, which were all extremely close to 100 grams. 

Continuing with our Egypt exploration, we began learning about hieroglyphics. We had discussed hieroglyphics a bit before as they came up in The Egypt Game, but this time we took a more in depth look at how they work. We learned that in this ancient writing system, each picture represents a sound. We looked at how the hieroglyphics align with our English alphabet. The students noticed that some letters that made similar sounds were represented by the same pictures. We discussed the sounds made by English letters and how different sounds are present or absent in different languages. The students then were challenged to decode some messages written in hieroglyphics. Afterwards, they practiced writing in hieroglyphics, using them to write their names or simple phases. The students had a lot of fun with this- some of the students even chose to write their daily reflections in hieroglyphics! 

In addition to all of this, we had an exciting surprise! Our caterpillars emerged from their chrysalises! Some had come out overnight, but we were able to watch two of them break free and spread their new butterfly wings. It was an amazing experience. The students have loved observing the butterflies in their little habitat! We’re excited to set them free when the weather gets warmer. 

Have a great weekend!

Hello everyone, 

Even though it’s a short week, we’ve been hard at work finishing up some larger learning activities. 

For Mindset Math, we continued our working on our City of Cubes puzzles- a large, multi-day lesson. The students finished creating their 2D images to help show how to build their city. Groups created aerial views, front views, side views, and even angled views. It was an interesting challenge for students to figure out how to represent these figures on a flat surface. Once the images were done, the groups switched puzzles. They did their best to follow the images to recreate the 3D structure depicted. As the students built, they took notes about what was helpful in the puzzle and what could have been more clear. Once we finished, the students looked at the original puzzles and saw how accurate they were. We discussed the challenges that students faced when creating their structures and their images. We also talked about what made a puzzle clear versus what made a puzzle confusing. The students had many insights into what they could have done differently and what strategies they liked. We also agreed that puzzles that included aerial views and angled views were the most helpful. At the end of it all, the students were incredibly proud of themselves for succeeding in this challenging assignment. 

We also continued working on our pyramids. The students have been working hard to try and make their pyramids as sturdy as possible. As our final students finish up, we’ve begun the next phase of this project- measuring the volume of the pyramids we’ve created. We started by discussing what information the students are going to need to calculate the volume of a pyramid. One important piece is the area of the base. Since many students chose to create a triangular base, we spent a good amount of time learning how to find the area of a triangle. We discussed how since a triangle is half of a rectangle, we need to multiply the base times the height, then divide by two. After practicing this, we moved on to applying this to the formula for finding the volume of a pyramid: area of the base times the height, divided by three. We started by doing some examples as a class. We broke down the formula into smaller, step by step pieces that students felt were manageable for them. We did examples with both triangular and rectangular bases so that students could practice this process with both types of pyramids.  Then the students went off to measure their own pyramids. They measured all the necessary dimensions and followed our step by step process to get their final answers. It was also a great opportunity for the students to practice multi-digit multiplication and long division. 

We also finally finished our novel, The Egypt Game. We discussed the character development that we noticed throughout the book and how we could tell that certain characters had changed. We will begin our final class novel on Monday. 

We’ve also continued working on our Title IX essays. The students have finished their planners and are creating rough drafts of their essays, incorporating the techniques that we have learned throughout the year, such as connecting ideas, transitions, strong opening sentences, and conclusions. As students finish, we will begin the editing and revising process. 

For spring, our class received caterpillars to observe. The students have loved watching them grow and crawl around. Our caterpillars have now formed their chrysalises and we are excitedly awaiting them to emerge as butterflies. The students were already pretty familiar with the life cycle of a butterfly, but none of us really knew what happened inside of a chrysalis. We watched a video explaining how the chrysalis is formed when the caterpillar sheds its skin. Once it hardens, the inside of the caterpillar turns to goo, then its cells transform into the parts needed for a butterfly. We also watched a timelapse video showing the transformation. The students were amazed! 

Have a great weekend!

Hello everyone, 

For Mindset Math, we have been focused on 3D shapes. Specifically, we’ve been taking 2D representations of shapes and creating 3D models of them. The students were given a set of images showing different views of a 3D rectangular prism made out of red, yellow, green, and blue unifix cubes. The students were challenged to take these different views to accurately create a model of the prism. The students had to mentally rotate the images to figure out how each of the sides fit together, looking for patterns in the colors. It was a great challenge to show the difference between how we represent flat shapes and polyhedrons. 

In a similar activity, the students also were given a puzzle where they were shown three views of a unifix cube “city,” composed of towers of different colors. We looked at pictures of the Chicago skyline taken from different directions. The students noticed that even though the buildings were the same, some were hidden by others when taller buildings were in the way. The students were shown front views, side views, and aerial views of the same cube city. They had to use these different views to reconstruct the city. Because of the nature of 2D images, some students mistook taller towers behind shorter towers to actually be stacked on top of each other. We all decided that the aerial view was the most helpful in determining where the towers were actually supposed to be placed. 

After solving our “city of cubes” puzzles, the students worked to create their own. They worked in groups to design 3D cities and then used dot paper to create their 2D representations. Some students even tried out isometric dot paper to create angled views that showed depth. They loved how they could create a 3D effect with it! The students will attempt to build these models next week.

 

We didn’t just focus on rectangular prisms and cubes- we also explored pyramids. We read an article about pyramids around the world, including Egypt. We learned how the Egyptians used them as tombs and how no one really knows how they were built. The students were then challenged to build their own pyramids. They used toothpicks and connected them with clay to form their structures. Some students used a traditional square base, while others used a triangle base. The students are using the engineering process and are attempting to develop strategies to give their pyramids the support they need in the center and to keep the walls from drooping. We will continue working on our pyramids next week. 

Another part of our Egyptian exploration was a virtual field trip. Using our computers, we were able to explore the tomb of Queen Meresankh III, located just outside the Great Pyramids of Giza. The students wrote down observations of what the tomb looks like today, noticing artwork, false doors, and items that archeologists have added so that they can study the tomb. They were also able to click on items in the tomb to learn more about them. After exploring what the tomb looks like now, we were able to view a digital reconstruction of the tomb to see what it would have looked like when it was first built. We also took some time to learn a bit more about this Egyptian queen. We learned she was the granddaughter of King Kufu, who we have discussed every so often throughout our exploration. She’s most famous for having such a well preserved tomb, and many of the items are in museums around the world. 

We’ve also started a new writing assignment. Every year, Plato Academy middle school students participate in the Hellenic Bar Association Law Day essay written contest. Our class wrote practice essays to help prepare them for this in the coming years. This year, the essay prompt was on the importance of Title IX in American education. We learned how Title IX helps to prevent discrimination against girls in school sports and academic programs. We had many great discussions about how girls had been discouraged from participating in sports and the students had great observations on how women’s sports aren’t given the same treatment in our society as men’s sports. We also used this essay as an opportunity to work on our opening and closing sentences, learning strategies to engage our reader and how to strongly close out an essay. 

For science, we followed along with a Mystery Science lesson on what happens to the human body when it spends a long time in outer space. We learned about astronauts on the International Space Station, specifically focusing on Scott Kelly, who spent a whole year in space. Once Kelly returned to Earth, he noticed some changes in his strength, balance, and height. The students made predictions on if each of those things had improved, gotten worse, or stayed the same. Then they did some tests for their own strength, balance, and height. We did push ups on the floor and all the wall to compare how much easier it would be to lift yourself in zero-gravity. We also tested our balance and measured our heights. Ultimately, we learned that Kelly became weaker and had much worse balance from spending a year without Earth’s gravity. We were also amazed that he temporarily became two inches taller! 

Have a great weekend! 

 

Hello everyone,

A good part of this week was spent doing finishing touches on our conference and getting in our final practice before the students presented to their parents. The students were so proud to show off all of the amazing work they have done this year! 

Another good chunk of our time was spent finishing up our big projects before spring break. One of those major projects was our persuasive essays about masks at Plato. The students have finished typing up their rough drafts and are ready to meet with me for editing and revising once we return to school. 

The students also worked hard on the scripts that they have been writing about their boats. They took time to carefully describe the items inside and either talked about them as if they had never seen them before or they discussed what these items tell us about the person who had the boat. Once the scripts were finished, the students went onto Flipgrid to record their documentaries. It’s been wonderful to watch the creative videos that the students came up with! 

We also finished finding the area and perimeter of the classroom. The students collected their measurements for their individual rooms that they were assigned to, calculating the area and perimeter of each of those spaces. Then, we all came together as a class and used this information to determine the area and perimeter of the whole room. As we compiled our data, we realized that some numbers didn’t make sense. This was a great opportunity for us to practice making reasonable estimates and double checking our work. We retook some measurements and then our answers made much more sense. Then, we used our revised information to determine the total area of the room. The perimeter was a bit more challenging, since we have interior walls inside the classroom. We had a short debate over whether these interior walls should be included in our perimeter. We ended up deciding that our perimeter measurement should only include the exterior walls. After some extra calculations, we finally finished this project! 

Finally, we concluded our apple mummification experiment. We recorded our final observations of how the apples had changed throughout this process and we compared the apples in our mixtures to the control. While the control apple became a bit moldy, the other apples showed a variety of qualities. Mixtures that included sugar were very rotten, while mixtures that included vinegar and salt looked perfect. Based on what we observed, we decided that the simple salt and vinegar mixture was best for creating mummies. The students had so much fun with this experiment! 

We ended the week with the Greek Independence Day program. The students had worked so hard these past few weeks during rehearsals. It was wonderful seeing that hard work pay off in such a beautiful performance. We were all so proud! 

Have a wonderful weekend and a restful spring break! 

Hello everyone, 

Throughout this week, we’ve continued reading The Egypt Game. During one of our chapters, a character’s pet parakeet died and her friends decided to mummify it as part of their game. Once we read that, we decided to make some mummies of our own- apple mummies! We read a short article about how the Egyptians would create their mummies, then we got to work. Groups of students were given three apple slices, vinegar, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Their goal was to come up with the best solution to mummify their apples. The students created three different mixtures with their choice of ingredients. They had so much fun mixing each of their solutions (and some groups ended up with a surprise vinegar and baking soda explosion!) The students hypothesized which mixture would work best. Throughout the week, we’ve been checking on our apples to see their progress. The students have been taking notes on their observations. We will determine which solution worked the best next week. 

On Tuesday, our fifth graders were given an amazing opportunity to attend Leadership Day at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. The fifth and sixth graders from various Plato classrooms traveled with me to the museum. We sat with students from other schools and discussed what it means to be a leader. We were also given time to look around the museum at the wonderful exhibits they have. The museum also had Chazzie Grosshandler, an inspiring transgender highschool student, speak about acceptance. We all were amazed by her story! Finally, we came up with a tentative plan to help make Plato a better place by starting a recycling program. It was an awesome day! 

For Dynamath, we began working with area. We discussed how to find the area of rectangles, then we applied this skill to determine how to find the area of an irregular shape. The students came up with lots of great solutions, such as breaking the shape into smaller pieces, or finding the area of a bigger shape, then subtracting the missing parts. Then, we looked more closely at how to calculate perimeter. We applied both of these skills by measuring to see if we could find the area and perimeter of our classroom! We began taking our measurements and will finish this activity next week. 

On Thursday, we dedicated most of the day to rehearsing for the Greek Independence Day program. We traveled to the Prairie Lakes theater and the students went up on stage with other Plato classes, showing off what they have been working on. They all looked so confident up on stage and we can’t wait to perform next week! 

On Friday, Ms. Anna’s class came up to our classroom. Each of our classes had been making Egyptian funerary boats, and the younger kids wanted to see how ours turned out. We set up a gallery walk so that the other class could come around to see each boat. We loved showing off our creative designs! 

Speaking of our boats, we have started our final writing piece to go along with our creations. The students will be pretending they are archeologists three thousand years in the future and that they have discovered their boats in an archeological dig. They will be creating Flipgrid “documentaries” explaining the items that they have discovered. Some students have chosen to explain what these items might have shown about the person who the boat belonged to, while others have chosen to talk about the items like we have no idea what they are, since we likely won’t use the same items in three thousand years. We have started working on our scripts and will finish up this activity next week.  

Friday was also our St. Baldrick’s Plato For Kids event! This year we had three shavees: Henry, Dimitri, and Petro. We all went down to the foyer to cheer them on! We also got a special PE time with the middle schoolers with dodgeball and dancing. We all had a blast!