Friday, April 20, 2012

Hi, Folks,

Wonderful hike today with your boys. A perfect day for it; overcast and cool, geese honking on the river, big fat worms wiggling around in the mud. With Bo’s dog, Doobie, leading the way, a good time was had by all. I do so love those hikes. However, I am always a bit pressed for planning time on hike days, so please excuse my brief note.

First, a slight modification to the conference schedule:

9:00-9:30-Aidan R.

9:45-10:15-Oliver

10:30-11:00-Max

11:15-11:45-Bo

12:15-12:45-Gabriel

1:00-1:30-Aidan H.




Next, here’s a little taste of some  dramatic tales of heroes, gods, goddesses, and monsters. Not your traditional Greek myths, no, these are Hirsch Academy myths...written by your own junior Sophocles (Sophocleses? Sophocli?) and Homers! The students and I are hoping to get some of these stories typed up soon for a class literary magazine.


…[a thousand monsters] were hiding underground.Then they killed everybody on Earth! Except one person because he was hiding underground with Hades and Hercules and Hera. They made this chemical that can bring people who are dead back alive...

...The Underworld is a scary place because of ghosts and zombies and monsters. I visited Hades the god of the underworld. I talked to Hades and asked if I could be his son...

...One day Ares, Artemis and Athena were visiting Hades in the underworld. Zeus came running. He shouted the titans are coming!Titans? said Hades. Yes said Zeus. They have got Hermes and Apollo!...

...Once I got to the island, I found the golden fleece. I tried to grab it but the Hydra came out!...

...Aidalese asked the king if he could slay the Button. The thing about the Button was it had three necks. But instead of heads, it had bottoms on its necks!...

Here’s our latest cool science experiment -- The Seven Layer Density Column
Ask your child how this works. And what happened when we dropped objects into the jar. Did they float? Sink?


Do this project at home! Let the awesome Steve Spangler show you how:

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/seven-layer-density-column





One independent reading assignment this week was for the students to fill Pandora’s Box with their own “evils”. I asked them, “What do you think are bad or scary things in the world?” Here’s Gabriel spelling out some “evil” words:


Such a smart boy, our Gabriel. Let me look a little closer. Yep, envy, war, despair. Great vocabulary words, Gabriel!

Hold on...What does that say?
OLD AGE? Yes, my friends, to a 9 year old, old age is definitely one of the world’s greatest evils. I’m afraid to ask what he considers “old age”...



Have a great weekend, you youngsters, you!

Amanda and Erin