11/23/17

Choice Days


Monday and Tuesday before our Fall Break were "Choice Days." The goal was to "take the lead with learning."

Morning and afternoon students could pick a "passion project" or a topic of interest and dive in!

So, we had a really excellent time learning about our "passion." 


Lannie wants to get into the music production business. For "Choice Days" she explored a powerful online mixer called "Audiotool." It has special effects, synths, drums, and a lot of other features. Some were hard to figure out, but it was really fun. She started to create beats that she can use in her Exit Presentation at the end of her year.

Sheldon plans to graduate in January. So, he used the time to work on his Exit Presentation slides. 

Students in Learning 4Life Success earn only a C if they do the same level of work on their Exit Presentation as everyone else. But, most of us want to get an A! So we do extra. We add more photos. We select background music. We practice our introductions so we can say them smoothly. We practice "Stand and deliver" all year long so we know how to do an oral presentation just like we will need to do in college or the workplace. 

Sheldon worked really hard finding music and photos to upgrade his basic presentation. It will be excellent!

Tre is preparing for college. He will be studying to become a paleontologist. So, he spent his Choice Days digging deeper into what it will take to follow the path to his dream job! He is creating a spreadsheet comparing all the colleges he is looking at. He is also exploring several college paleontology websites and is deciding what reading he needs to do before college starts next fall. Tre's passion has been strong for years. Now, it is finally time to start to make his dream come true!

Itancan started writing a book during his Choice Days. The title is "A Mysterious Portal." He began to develop the setting and characters for a fiction novella he is writing. (A novella is like a short novel.) He is using his creative thinking and writing skills to make his draft. 

At the end of each day's learning, everyone had to do a "Stand and Deliver" oral presentation to tell the class what they'd done. On Tuesday, we also showed our work to our classmates and teacher. We had to explain what we'd created. Sister Patrice made a video of some of us so we could see how much better we are with Stand and Deliver. 

One really funny thing that happened was that Sister Patrice didn't know how to use the iPad video so she accidently made the videos be in fast motion! We all had a chance to laugh at that! In fast-motion, our presentations are very, very short!

Doing oral presentations can be kind of scary. But we are getting better with practice. We liked being able to tell about our passion project from Choice Days! Maybe we can do this again!

11/17/17

Pizza- a great way to end a great week!

This week was very busy. In addition to turtle visits, circumference and area of a circle formulas, independent clauses joined by coordinating conjunctions, a visit to the University of Minnesota-Morris, and mastering decimals and percents, this week included not one but TWO pizza events!

Thursday the afternoon class dined on two delicious pizzas, compliments of Itancan, who had saved enough (in our "Earn and Learn" check book project) to host a feed for his classmates. Pizza tops geometry ANY day!

Tre did the same for the morning class on Friday, temporarily bumping long division of decimals and word problems using percents and fractions to make way for pepperoni and sausage.

Not wanting to ignore math entirely, we ate 6/8 of the pizza, which is 75% of it.

Good work earning and learning! So glad we could share!


Congratulations!

Wiyohiyanpa earned both A Honor Roll AND Perfect Attendance
awards. That's impressive!
We are more than halfway through first semester. This week we honored those who earned Attendance Awards, B honor roll and A honor roll. Here are a few of the students in Learning 4Life Success who were honored! Congratulations!

Yay, Lannie!! Way to go!


11/16/17

Anna Visits Our Class

Meet Anna. She is a Painted Turtle. That beautiful coloring is natural, not really painted.

This week, Anna had a chance to go to school. How many Painted Turtles do you know that attend high school?

Anna is still a young turtle. She could grow to be as big as a laptop! Lannie got Anna as a gift from her mom. Anna isn't the only turtle Lannie has had for a pet. So, Lannie knows a lot about Painted Turtles.

Anna does not mind being held. But she really likes walking around. She explored the floor of the classroom and also walked easily across the desks. When Lannie gently placed Anna on her back (on her shell), Anna wiggled and stretched and finally flipped herself over using her neck and her feet! It took a lot of work, but she did it.

A turtle's shell is actually part of its skeleton. We could feel the "spine" bumps on Anna's shell.  When Lannie held her, Anna stretched her neck out and looked around.

I wonder what a high school classroom looks like to a Painted Turtle, don't you?

11/9/17

Skills to Pay the Bills

"What's this added charge on my utility bill?"

Nyton completes a deposit ticket for his pay and bonus checks.
That's not a normal question from a sophomore. But, in all three math groups in Learning 4Life Success, bill paying, earning wages, earning bonuses, and keeping an accurate checkbook register has become normal.

It's all part of our "Earn and Learn" project, a simulation that helps young adults develop skills they'll need in the working or college world. Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors are becoming familiar with deposit tickets, bills, and balances. 

"Rent" of our chair and work space goes to Sister Patrice, our "landlord."
There's plenty of opportunity to find solutions to real-life financial challenges:
> What do I do if I can't make rent?
> If I stay on task, hey, I can get a wage bonus!
> Should I save some of my hard-earned income for something in the future, or should I spend it now?
> I forgot my pencil. Should I rent one for $10 per period, or is it smarter to buy one for $20?

Learning to keep a check register is an important life skill.
Rent. Utilities. Wage earning. Savings versus spending. Lease or buy?

These are adult questions. It's been exciting to be able to learn about them in our simulation!

In fact, as students talked about this simulation to their parents at our recent student-parent conferences, several parents said, "I wish I had someone to teach me this in high school!" and "Maybe I should sign up to be in your class!"


11/2/17

Recycling during Math Class

Way back in 2015, Sister Patrice helped the students in Karen's PEACE class make a really cool dragon game we called "Dragons' Quest" after the class finished reading the novel Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. 
Artwork and Design by Students in 2015

Players start with dragon eggs (which the students made) and using dice and game cards, move across a carefully constructed game board featuring:
> Magic Stones (allow you to pass on a hard question)
> woods and mountains (both risky to travel through)
> a bridge where your dragon egg "hatches" into a dragon (small and plastic- don't worry!)
And more!

Today, we resurrected the game and used math review cards for a fun activity reviewing area, perimeter, and volume. Our eggs traveled from the "Hatchling Nest" as we computed perimeters, solved word problems using area or volume or perimeter, recalled formulas, and practiced multiplication facts along the way!

No winner yet... the game continues tomorrow!
Some questions were tricky! 

On one, we had to decompose a shape to figure out the total area! On another, Sheldon had to determine how many cubic feet of water would fill a swimming pool. And, on another, Lannie had to find both the area of the roof (a triangle... so... A= 1/2 (base times height)) and of the wall (so, a rectangle, A= L X W).

Andrew's skill in multiplying by 11 was apparent. Itancan was usually the first one to compute the area or volume in his head. And, Kenzie completely lucked out- one time she drew a question card that Sister Patrice had forgotten to write a word problem on! So, it was a free card!

Beware of danger as you try to get your dragon
safely home!
We are only about halfway to the dragon's lair, so we carefully marked our place with a sticky note. Tomorrow, we'll see which dragon makes it home first!