Thanksgiving Party

Creating turkeys and a snail: part of our pre-Thanksgiving activities.

Presenting with Elmo

Nick B. uses the class document camera system to demonstrate the telegraph he built with his uncle. This came at the conclusion of our trimester study of electrical circuits. All the students are learning to use the "Elmo" with their presentations.

Geography Bee and Me

Yeh, that's me with my son Gulliver and Harrison Schmidt the last man to set foot on the moon. It was 1998 and Gulliver had just won his first (or was it his second) New Mexico Geography Bee. Astronaut Dr. Schmidt was the guest moderator.

You can tell by my grin, that this was a pretty memorable experience for me. How many times do you witness your child succeed at something as difficult as a public academic contest, and meet one of the few people who walked on the moon! I admire the amount of hard work it took for Gulliver to win the state championship twice. I am in awe of the dedication, intelligence and bravery of the men who went to the moon.

The Shorecrest Geographic Bee will be held in December and January. The first part is held in 4th through 8th grade classrooms to determine a grade level winner and alternate. The school final is held in Janet Root Theater with the grades 3-8 in the audience.

I've encouraged my class to prepare by doing the online Geo Bee Challenge a couple of times per week. We will soon begin to practice for the Bee itself.

Besides coaching my son in his quest for the National Geo Bee championship (he finished in the top ten of the nationally televised final), my fifth grade teacher team at The Potomac School in the Washington, DC area piloted the Bee at its inception in the '80's.

By the way, Dr. Schmidt was the last of the Apollo astronauts to arrive and set foot on the Moon (crewmate Eugene Cernan exited the Apollo Lunar Module first). However, as Schmitt re-entered the module first, Cernan became the last astronaut to walk on and depart the moon.

Fall of Berlin Wall Memories

Twenty years ago, my Potomac School fifth graders enjoyed an extended "freedom" recess to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. By chance (in an era before cable and the internet) I recorded the NBC Nightly News live report. Next morning I showed the tape to my class. (I rolled in the huge VCR and TV to my classroom.) Then to underscore this momentous turning point in history I took my class out for an early and extended recess. We played all sorts of "freedom games." Certainly some of those now thirtysomethings are having one of those "where they were and what they did" kind of recollections today.

Today we will spend a few minutes on the subject. Homework tonight will include visiting the link posted here with a family member. Maybe we'll even have a special recess to share in the celebration.

What are your November 9, 1989 memories?

photo (copyright free) courtesy of Wikipedia entry on Berlin Wall

Weekly Class Logs

Our weekly class logs are an important note taking tool that turn into a unique souvenir. Students are encouraged to make the most of this feature of our classroom. Each week (and they are numbered) students do the following: draw and decorate a border on a blank paper, label it with the week's number, divide it into five daily sections, record the date, daily holiday/quiz, today in history edit feature, record memorable new vocabulary, experiences, lessons, projects etc., weekly Geo Bee Challenge results. Students are encouraged to illustrate, doodle and generally make these as attractive as possible. We don't devote a lot of time to this. I suggest they update them several times each day and then again in the evening add to them as they reflect on their day's activities.

I learned about this tradition when teaching in Europe many years ago. Over the years I've shaped the exercise to fit my American students. This is my first Shorecrest class to be able to keep it going.

My hope is that our families enjoy viewing the weekly log and help keep this project growing.