Building Community

In understanding how much work it takes to create a class play, our class wanted to honor the 5th grade production of Romeo & Juliet. The kids made bobbleheads for each of the actors and left a message wisdom and luck. We loved making them and the grateful reaction from the actors. Break a leg!

What is Excellence?

Together we are working to answer this question, and answer how can we help each other achieve excellence? We practiced this while holding our own Council of Excellence with peers. In continuing to analyze and catalog historical artifacts through creating art, we paused in the middle of our work to join small councils. In these councils we stated our observations of the work, asked questions of the artistic historian, and shared our suggestions to create excellent work through accuracy. After our council conversations, we returned to our work as artistic historians. In reflecting on this question and our process, the students felt that their conversations encouraged them work for more accuracy and return to really look at their own work. They also enjoyed using that level of accuracy to look at others' work.

Drawing Breath

This year we've shown great dedication to practicing mindfulness daily. We've participated in a number of courses, including learning about how mindfulness impacts the brain. Together we've learned about mindfulness through visualization, breathing, focused listening, reflective thought, power of smell, and practicing stillness. Our current course is about mindfulness through drawing. Inspired by Sam Winston's art piece Drawing Breath, we've worked on our own pieces of mindful art. Each line represents a breath, an inhale or an exhale. Over the length of a week, we've added to our pieces, which now represent over 40 minutes of breathing. This process, we've discovered, "invites us to discover awareness, not just with our minds, but also through our bodies."

Examples of students' work in drawing their breath. Our breath comes from our center, and that is where we started.

Who Is In My Family?

This past month we've been busy researching our families. We asked ourselves a question to guide our familial research, and then set out to interview our family members. Some of these questions included:

• What was everyone's passion?
• Where did everyone live?
• What was everyone's professions?
• Did anyone have my birthday?
• What does everyone's name mean?

Researching our family trees inspired many of us to dig deeper and deeper. Some kids returned to school with scrolls of information. The trouble with that much information? New inspired questions always rise up, and inspire us to dig deeper into our family histories.  

Archeological Dig

In trying to understand life in the colonies, and knowing the best history comes from interpreting primary sources, we experience an archeological dig from Williamsburg. Constructed from actual artifacts from the colonial town, we tried to hypothesize the relationship between the objects. First we analyzed the artifacts by looking closely and measuring them. Then, using primary source photos and advertisements, we began to identify the artifacts. Finally, we built hypotheses about what could have existed in the area 250 years ago. Our next step, researching interesting trades.

Fort James

We spent March learning about colonization, the establishment of Fort James and Jamestown, and the Powhatan Indians who lived in the Chesapeake region. We used a variety of primary sources to help us understand the fort structures of the times, and together we built a model of Fort James. Our primary sources included the Captain John Smith map of Virginia, royal documents from King James, archeological dig reports, and pieces of art. We've also been listening to Ms. Akehurst read Blood on the River, a historical fiction about the first 2 years at Fort James.

We are well informed!