Our budding astronomers really rose to the challenge this week and designed some very creative and successful astronomical monuments!  Bravo to all of you - I was really impressed with the effectiveness and the diversity in your designs.

In preparation for our next class, students should read chapters 6-8 in the textbook and complete pages 20 and 21 in the Student Quest Guide.  We will continue our discussion on the emerging ideas of the earliest scientists/philosophers from Ionia and begin to look at how mathematics became an invaluable tool in the advancement of scientific thought.

This week we began our reading of Gilgamesh The Hero, a retelling of The Epic of Gilgamesh for children. It is beautifully written, and I highly recommend reading it as a family if you can find a copy. The oldest recorded story, it makes a perfect beginning point for our class as we begin our exploration of place and story. To introduce it, we started by mapping ancient Mesopotamia, where the story takes place. You can find the maps we used here: Maps, both blank, and completed. If your child did not yet finish their map work, they can use the online map to help them.

After reading the first three sections of Gilgamesh, we took some time to think about the way the two main characters are described. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are described in very vivid terms, both in terms of their physical appearance and their personalities. One is a king, his restlessness making him a burden to his people. The other is created by a goddess out of clay to be his friend. One wears a gold belt and lapis lazuli collar. The other has a clay brain and matted hair. 

For this week's homework, the students are invited to write a description of their own ideal friend. If a perfect friend was created just for them, what kind of person would they be? Please encourage them to use descriptive language to bring this friend to life.

This upcoming week, we will be learning about the geography of Africa, and the island of Madagascar. We will read from Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales, and continue with Gilgamesh.

In class this week we compared calendars that were established and used by the ancient societies of Babylon, China, Islam and Egypt.  Students worked in small groups to discuss and summarize the advantages and disadvantages of these calendars (using Student Quest Sheet from Chapter 3).

For ancient civilizations, the challenge of explaining the precise and repeating events in the sky played a key role in understanding the world around them.  Their ability to hunt, farm and survive was dependent upon accurately marking the seasons and cycles of the year.  Their careful observations provided the inspiration for the first thoughts about science, and the development of scientific thinking in general.

We also looked at examples of how ancient sun observers made use of natural geological structures and arranged stones, markers, and buildings to mark solar alignments that they observed at different times of the year, particularly around solstices and equinoxes.  Beams of sunlight and shadow would make patterns, or illuminate special locations on important calendar days.  Several of these ancient sites are shown below:

In class next week students will be challenged to create their own astronomical monument out of clay.  These small scale monuments must be designed to create specific patterns or alignments at designated times of the year.  Using a specially prepared “Horizon Table”, students will place their solar observatory structure at the center and test it with a portable lamp that represents the Sun and can be positioned to simulate the Sun’s point on the horizon at sunrise or sunset on an equinox or solstice.

I have asked students to spend some time researching ancient astronomical monuments this week to formulate some ideas for their own designs.  Come prepared to build and be creative!

Additionally, students should read Chapter 5 in the text as homework.

See you on Monday!

Our scientific convention took place this morning in order to share each group’s discoveries from last week and come to a consensus on the “Laws of Oobleck”. A law is defined as a descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances. I was interested to see how long they would stay involved in this type of discussion because of the differing ages and attention spans.

Boy, was I surprised! As each group shared an observation from last week we tested and refined statements to reflect the properties of Oobleck accurately. Students discovered that being specific mattered. They also saw how disagreement wasn’t bad, but helpful in this type of process as it helped narrow our descriptions. The students stayed involved in this for about 45 minutes! I was so impressed that they stuck with it! Testing our statements using the Oobleck, while defining each law, helped keep interest going. Here’s the list we created...

The students then moved into the next phase of our analysis, which is to design a spacecraft that is able to land on an ocean of Oobleck without sinking, explore the moon, and take off again without getting stuck, with all passengers safely aboard. They began their initial designs on paper.

We will begin next week with completing the designs and sharing them. Once their spacecrafts satisfy the requirements and account for the Laws of Oobleck they will make a model using many items they discussed at the end of class. Please remind them to bring in some of the items they mentioned. Here are some we came up with:

If you have any of these items, or anything else your child comes up with, can you please let me know via e-mail?  ([email protected]) That way I’ll know what supplies I should bring in next week.

I’ve been so impressed by the observations and scientific thinking the students have shared in class. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with next week!

“The most exciting phrase in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
‘Eureka’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny…’”
            - Isaac Asimov, author

Yesterday's class began with a personal myth share -- the homework assignment from last week. Because we have so much to cover, and only 90 minutes to fit it all in, we heard from half the class yesterday and will have the other half read their myths on Monday. For those that still need time to complete their stories...reprieve!

Susan then led the class in a series of very fun and helpful diction and inflection exercises. Students were given a "Tongue Twister" handout and another on Greek name pronunciations. It would be great if students could review these at home, as well.

Our first read through of The Golden Fleece: Part II took most of the remaining class time. Lengthier, and more action-packed than Part I, I think the students were generally surprised at the ending and enjoyed getting into the story line.

We briefly discussed some of the elements of the myth and quickly realized that we need more time to be able to dig deeply into some of the concepts that arise out of these ancient stories. We will be spending two more weeks on Part I and Part II -- re-reading the scripts and spending lots of time on analysis, discussion, and the un-folding of our next homework assignment.

On that note, for next week, students were tasked with the following:

Imagine Medea is put on trial for the murder of her two children, the Princess Glauce, and King Creon. Write a case for the prosecution or defense. We divided the class in half -- five will write a defense argument and five will write a case for the prosecution of Medea. Students should keep in mind this a creative writing exercise and it is perfectly acceptable to fabricate witnesses and evidence to support their cases. They should, however, refer to the script for basic details, as well as the handout provided to help guide them in constructing their arguments.

On Monday, at least two students will "face off" -- one defense vs. one prosecution, in our own version of a mock trial! If we do not have time for everyone on Monday, rest assured, all will be asked to present a case before we conclude our study of Jason on March 4.

On March 11, we will move on to The Odyssey.

Lastly, Susan would like to add the following thoughts...first, is the growth and courage the kids brought with them to class this week. They were expressive and brought out their characters more. And they held a space when their classmates stepped out of their comfort zones. Please make sure students highlight their Act II parts and look back over both scripts and read the "acting note" prior to their line, (e.g., sarcastically or angrily or dryly), so they can deliver the line with that inflection. All around there was a real creative flow happening and it's wonderful to be a part of it!

At the end of class, Susan also instructed the children in stage direction and some physical exercises to help them feel comfortable in their own skin. Great job everyone!

See you next week!

I hope your children enjoyed our first class as much as I did. It is a wonderful group of children, and I look forward to getting to know them all better.

At our introductory class on Monday, we touched on story telling by telling a continuing story using Rory's Story Cubes. If you have never used these at home, I highly recommend them. It is surprisingly difficult to tell a story from the cubes. My children are much better at it than I am! The students each made a cube of their own. Please ask them to bring these back next week so that we can use them together in class. I have attached the template so that you can make more cubes at home if you would like. We also read the title story in Ted Hughes's How the Whale Became.

We began to learn basic facts about the earth, continents, and the globe using a variety of atlases as references. The students will work on developing their research skills each week, using reference books. We talked about Pangaea, and Plate Tectonics. These websites offer some simple activities if you are interested in following up at home.

Homework each week is optional. It will deepen their understanding of the material we cover in class, but is not meant as a burden. The children will not be reprimanded in class if they do not do the homework. 

This week's homework is quite simple. They have a sheet of questions regarding their own interests and preferences. It will help me to get to know them better, as well as to assess their interests and writing skills. I also sent home a sheet of information about Babylon, to give them some background before we begin reading The Epic of Gilgamesh. You can also watch an animated version of the Babylonian creation myth at The Big Myth. If you have an atlas with information about Ancient Mesopotamia, please have your student bring it to class.

Today our budding scientists discovered properties of a substance discovered recently on a new moon in our solar system. Their job was to investigate how this substance, called Oobleck for it’s similarity to the green, oozy substance in Dr. Seuss’ Bartholomew and the Oobleck, performs using their senses of hearing, seeing, touching, and smelling. We decided that tasting was a sense we would leave out of the equation for now!

These scientists really got into their job as they were up to their elbows in green goo! Even my hands were covered as we discussed our observations! Hence, the idea of taking photos was, unfortunately, put on the back burner.

Once their observations were recorded they used different tools to conduct tests on the Oobleck to see how it performed. The scientists discovered under certain circumstances the Oobleck performed as a liquid, while other times it acted as a solid. Very mysterious indeed!

Next week we plan on holding a scientific convention where groups will share their observations to create “Laws of Oobleck”, which will involve lots of discussion based on evidence gathered today. The goal will be to encourage refinement of our wording to most accurately describe Oobleck. Tests will be conducted in order to prove our laws.

Please have your child bring in colored pencils for use in our next class as we will be using them for a follow up exercise where their creativity comes out.

See you next week!

“Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen, but thinking what no one else has thought.”
   - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Prize winner in medicine

We covered quite a bit in our first class together! We kicked off the afternoon with a brief introduction to classical mythology and why it matters. We discussed what it means to be "western" and the spread of Greek myths and culture to Rome and later to countries like France and England. It's our hope to draw the connection between these earliest of stories to the progression of western literature as we know it today - making it not only interesting, but relevant!

We introduced a few main characters through our Gallery of the Gods handout, and without further ado, dove right into our first reading of The Golden Fleece: Jason and the Argonauts Part I. Parts were readily spoken for and we enjoyed Zachary Hamby's delightful and hilarious re-telling of the first part of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece. We encouraged students to highlight their lines at home and to review their parts using the reading direction given in the script. We will be going back to the script in another couple of weeks and working on diction and expression.

Our journey into the history of science (and Joy Hakim's text) began today with an overview of ancient civilizations and their quest to make sense of the world around them. 

• What is the Universe? How was it created? 
• What is Life (who are we)? 
• How are we connected to the universe? 

These are the "big questions" of science that the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, and Babylonians pondered 5,000 years ago as they gazed at the patterns in the heavens and tried to derive order from chaos.  Modern scientists still seek answers to these fundamental questions!

We discussed how ancient civilizations attempted to answer these questions using a combination of Creation Myths, superstition, and astrology.  Students completed a workbook assignment to better understand what distinguishes a Myth from Science. 

Both begin with careful observation - and that is a skill that the ancient stargazers had in spades.  After all, the world's first "science lab" was their night sky!

However, as we will continue to understand as we move forward in our journey, science relies on logic, proof and the scientific method, in addition to observation.

Students also spent some time in class today getting familiar with the geography of the ancient world by completing a map of the Fertile Crescent.  We tied this in with a timeline to help orient students to the time span we will be covering on our history of science journey (5000 BCE - 1500 CE).  We will continue to develop these timelines as we move through the text, adding important dates, discoveries, and scientists. Students should review both the map and the timeline at home this week.

Homework: Please read Chapters 3 and 4 in the text in preparation for our next class, and complete the Quest Sheet about ancient calendars on page 6 in the Student Quest Guide (workbook).

**General note:  Students are not required to complete every workbook page that accompanies each chapter. I will assign some workbook quest sheets as homework and others we will do together in class.  Unfortunately, we will not have time to finish every workbook activity as part of this course.  Feel free to do those that interest you on your own!