Celebrations of Learning

When I was a kid, I knew I learned something when I took a test and passed it.  Now that I am a teacher, I try hard to break that thought pattern in my students.  We celebrate our learning in a wide variety of ways.  This week, our class celebrated our writing and dancing...without taking a test!  

Thursday morning we shared our narrative stories with one another and enjoyed a little sweet snack (Oreo Thins - surprisingly delicious despite the word "thin" in the title!) with our usual morning tea.  The class worked so hard on these pieces.  It was wonderful to have an authentic audience with which to share them.  Today, each of the students wrote stories "on demand" to really showcase all they've learned about narrative writing.  I cannot wait to read them!

This entire week, Mr. Diadie has taught Captain PE African dance.  Today they celebrated with a performance.  It was very impressive to hear their learning about the continent of Africa and see their moves!  Check it out!

And finally, Hercules played in his ball for the first time this week.  I can't help but include that for your viewing pleasure.

Have a great weekend!  

Many Paths, One Solution

Our math classes are hard at work problem solving with fractions this week.  There are many times when I am in class that I wish that others could have a peek at what I get to see unfold.  Why not share a taste on this blog?

In math, we begin class with a complex problem for the students to begin working with independently in their math notebooks.  After plenty of quiet thinking/working time is provided, we open up the class to discussion and ask students to share their thinking.  So many hands shoot up into the air!  One by one, students are invited to place their notebooks under the document camera and asked to then explain their thinking to the class.  The class will ask questions, compare, and confirm the work of their brave peer.  Our goal is to collect a variety of successful methods for solving the problem at hand.  On particularly "clever days" we have three or more methods.

Today was a clever day!

Here are some pictures of our budding mathematicians and their methods from class today:

Taught About Tea

Taught About Tea

By Susanna Boeyink  

                                                                                                                                    

On September 22, 2015, Todd Rubin president of Republic of Tea came to visit Mrs. Ketzer’s fifth grade class. He came after I asked him if I could write a story about Republic of Tea for our class journalism unit in writing. We had originally scheduled to Skype with Mr.Rubin on the 21st of September, but he had to cancel because he had to travel. Later we found out that he would be able to come to Captain on the 22nd, and we could meet in real life instead of through a computer screen.

Mr. Rubin went to Clayton High for four years graduating in 1999. Mr. Rubin subsequently went on to college studying architecture.

“Architecture helped me become more creative,” he said. Mr. Rubin then went on to work at the family buisness, Republic of Tea. Mr. Rubin has worked at Republic of Tea for eight years.  His family has owned the company since he was fourteen, and he was twenty seven when he went to work at Republic of Tea.

Mr. Rubin enjoys hearing feedback from Republic of Tea customers, also known as citizens. He says that working at Republic of Tea means that you have to collaborate with others.  We later sampled some of his tea and enjoyed learning how tea was made. He showed us some of Republic of Tea’s loose tea and how people roll the leaves into a tight ball. We also learned about the five major countries where tea comes from. Also we got to learn about the differences between black tea, red tea, and green tea. Towards the end we got to take a picture with Mr. Rubin as an entire class, some of us holding Republic of Tea teas. We enjoyed learning about tea with president of Republic of Tea, Todd Rubin. We will continue to drink Republic of Tea tea in class.

The Panatheniac Stadium by Anton Kyrychenko

The Panathenaic Stadium in Athens is the largest stadium built out of pure marble and is about 2000 years old. Men used to fight with wild beasts so they built walls around the arena to protect the spectators.  The stadium was ruined because they took some marble out to use for Athens churches. The ground was covered and used as private fields. The stadium was later excavated, mostly broken and gone. When they revived the Olympic games in 1896, only part of the stadium was marble so they put in wood seats with white cushions. When the games were finished, they resumed adding marble. In 1904 the Olympics were in St.Louis. It was during the world's fair and was shown as a side to the world's fair. This also happened in Paris in 1900. This made the Olympics less popular and the Olympics committee got worried that the Olympics would die out. We almost killed the Olympics we know today! They made a second Olympics just 2 years later in Athens in The Panathenaic Stadium to save the Olympics.

Lost Feta...

By Anton Kyrychenko

Today my mom and I went to a restaurant for lunch before going to the boat from Athens to Crete. When we got the check, the man gave it to me, even though it would be more logical to give it to my mom. "He's so relaxed" the man exclaimed.  There was something strange because we didn't get the appetizer we ordered. When we looked at the bill, everything was written in Greek but we were suspicious because there were 6 things listed. Our two meals and our orange juice, bread, our nonexistent appetizer, and a bottle of water that we had sent back unopened. So my mom told me that since the waiter gave the bill to me and not her, that maybe he did that on purpose so she wouldn't see it and she said I should try going to the waiter and tell him about the problems in our bill. I walked up to him and said "Sir, excuse me. Sir, but we looked at the bill and we didn't get our feta dish (baked feta with tomatoes and peppers) but it is listed on the bill." "Oh, oh," he answered with a look that told me that he was surprised we noticed. I think it was because the bill was in Greek. He was about to leave and change the check but I stopped him and asked, "What is this?" "Oh, water," he answered. "But we sent the water back without opening it," I told him. "Yes, yes, okay, sorry, sorry" and he left. I came back to the table knowing that they knew they didn't give us the feta…. 

What I did today in Athens, Greece

by Anton Kyrychenko

This is the Temple of Zeus.  We can see lightning everywhere around the Temple of Zeus. This is the first  rainstorm since before May. Is Zeus ang---- BOOM! Zeus, c'mon let me finish?

 Above is the Theater of Dionysus and below is Odeon of Herod Atticus. The Odeon of Herod Atticus is still a functioning theater.

Below is the Parthenon.  The Parthenon was used for storing treasure. The Parthenon is surrounded by  other buildings, all of which are part of the Acropolis and you could see the whole city from up there.

Building Our Community

Happy weekend, families!  I hope everyone is enjoying the turn of the weather towards fall and the comfortable settling in to the school year routine.  Autumn, officially begun with the equinox this Wednesday the 23rd, is my favorite season of the year.  If you haven't figured it out already, I love school (surprise, surprise).  But I also love football, campfires, comfy sweaters, and drinking hot tea on chilly days.  Fall in fifth grade is fun because we are coming into our own as a class and the students are becoming convinced in their roles as leaders in the school.  They proved it on Friday.

We had our first "community team" meeting this past Friday, the 18th.  This Captain tradition mixes up all of the students in school and divides them into twelve mixed-age teams, grouping siblings and families together.  We meet in our teams periodically throughout the year and share common learning about a variety of topics impacting our Captain community.  Last year, we studied courage.  On Friday, we met in our teams for the very first time and it was our fifth graders who facilitated the entire session.  Your children led their groups in a get-to-know-you activity to help illustrate how connected we all are at Captain.  Although I only have photos from my team, I have it on the word of many other teachers who came to me to compliment our class that your children were fantastic leaders.

We are also in the process of giving our classroom library a little make-over.  This year the teachers are studying how to build their classroom libraries in a way that will serve the students best.  One thing we noticed was how uninviting the books organized into baskets appears in the fifth grade area.  I have a dream that we could transform our little classroom library (of a little over 600 books) to look more like Barnes and Noble or other bookstores.  It's never safe to let me go to a bookstore alone.  I would stay all day because I love looking at all the books and it is so hard for me to narrow down my choice of purchases.  I would love it if we all felt that we could hang out all day in our classroom with the books getting lost in all the choices!  To help me in the process of beginning this transformation, a couple of students have volunteered some of their free time this past week.  Dr. Martin caught them working on the library this week and sent me these sweet pictures.  It's looking good so far thanks to these volunteers!

Finally, I have some exciting news!  During our journalism unit, Mrs. Cohen put us in contact with a Clayton alum, Mr. Rubin, who is now the company head of the Republic of Tea in California.  One of our classmates emailed him to ask him some questions for a news story for the blog.  To our delight, he offered to Skype with our class.  Plans were made and calendars marked.  On Friday, I received an email from him that he was canceling our Skype appointment...because he's coming to visit in person on Tuesday!!!!!  You'll have to keep checking the blog for the story!

Looking Ahead:
Tuesday, 9/22 - Visit from Mr. Rubin from the Republic of Tea at 1:00
Thursday, 9/24 - Picture Day
Friday, 10/9 - Early Release Day (teachers will be preparing for parent teacher conferences)
Monday, 10/12 - Thursday, 10/15 - Parent Teacher Conferences (remember to sign up here)
Thursday, 10/15 - Friday, 10/16 - No School (parent teacher conferences)
Friday, 10/23 - PTO Sponsored Family Dance 6:30 PM at Captain
Friday, 10/30 - Picture Retake Day & Halloween Parade and Parties