It is the conclusion of yet another great week here in room 214, and we ended the week in style with a fantastic Halloween celebration! As a first year teacher I just want to say how much fun it is to be with such a great community, and how much fun it was to see everyone’s amazing creative costumes in all the classes of Plato Academy! On top of that I would like to thank our parents for providing such an amazing lunch for the entire school! Your hard work and contributions do not go unnoticed, so thank you so much for helping create such an amazing atmosphere to celebrate one of our favorite holidays!

This week for Music Monday, we had another fantastic with Ms. Mary’s class an introduced a new topic to the students: Motown. First we introduced and added some context by talking a bit about the origins of Motown and how the record company became a genre in itself and would evolve and change both music and American culture as a whole! Then we had the students listen to a variety of Motown artists, comparing and contrasting early Motown songs to later Motown songs to see how African American artists had to first ingratiate themselves to the mainstream American audience before evolving and creating more mature and complex music that provided commentary about American society and it’s treatment of African Americans in the middle 20th century. Later in the day we started out a mini unit on horror literature that we worked on this week by reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” as a class. We then began a multi-day writing assignment that assessed and strengthened the student’s ability to use perspective, tension, suspense, and atmosphere by re-writing the story focusing on either the narrator’s neighbors, the police, death, or the old man who gets killed in the story in a 3rd person perspective.

On Tuesday we picked up where we left off by continuing our exploration of Poe and “The Tell-Tale Heart”. But first we did another collaboration with some younger students, by visiting with Ms. Soraya and Ms. Efi’s class to do an activity with some of our little buddies on the first floor! The activity involved having the younger students partner up with someone from my class, after they had sat with their partners the younger kids would describe a monster and the older ones would draw the monster to help bring them to life! Once they finished drawing them, they worked together to give the monsters backstories to show off some of their scary adventures. It was a great opportunity to grow our community and set a great example for some of our younger students while also relaxing and making some fun art while practicing creative writing. After we returned to our own classroom we finished re-writing “the Tell-Tale Heart” in a 3rd person perspective, and students grouped up to re-write the story in a first person perspective using the same characters they had focused on earlier as the new narrators for their story. In the end we of course shared our stories in our best spooky Edgar Allen Poe voices to build more anticipation for Friday’s holiday!

Wednesday we moved on to a lesser-known Edgar Allen Poe story: “The Black Cat”. Students read the stories individually and answered some questions to (again) both strengthen and assess their understandings of atmosphere, tone, characterization, and plot elements. The students did a fantastic job dissecting the story and showing off their literary knowledge by identifying the different parts of the plot, different elements of characterization, and the different writing techniques used to create Poe’s iconic spooky Gothic atmosphere and tone. As we move to the end of our first trimester, I find it important to be able to assess our student’s ability to identify and use language that helps develop things like genre, atmosphere, tone and themes. Since horror and Gothic literature have such distinct examples of all of those concepts, I found this to be a great opportunity for my class to develop and test out their ability to identify and use all of these concepts on their own!

Thursday we took a break from the spooky season festivity and started a new activity that will be replacing our mindset math activities for the next couple of weeks. This is an activity that Ms. Mary’s class is also participating in, so if any of my readers also have students in her class you may recognize it. This long term project is called Geometrocity, and is a fantastic practical application of Geometry skills that our students have learned. The ultimate goal of the project is for students to build their own mini-cities with a partner, using their geometry skills and content knowledge to assist them along the way. Phase one of this activity was for them to get all of their “permits” approved by the “mayor” (me). Our class did a fantastic job of identifying and defining a variety of geometric concepts and terms, and then created a blueprint of the Plato Academy building to finish off their application process. All permits have now been approved and we will be moving on to phase 2 within the next couple of weeks!

Friday was Plato Academy’s annual Halloween celebration! We started off the day by having students do something new-yet-familiar by writing 100 word scary stories! They did a great job coming up with interesting creative ideas, writing them out with the help of graphic organizers, and even doing some peer review all in one day! After they all finished we gathered around a beautiful video of a fire (thank YouTube!), turned down the lights, and read all of their stories around the campfire (a must-do activity for all kids in my humble opinion!) Afterwards we had some more excitement by painting our mini pumpkins, many of which still need to dry so they will be coming home with their students on Monday! To end off the day we had a fantastic Halloween parade, and I’m super proud of Room 214’s example they set by starting off the parade and showing plenty of Halloween spirit for the younger students! Their excitement was so contagious and the Halloween parade was a tremendous success!

Science With Ms. Pam: This week in science class the students started a new unit by exploring DNA and how it is structured. The students watched some videos and took notes about DNA concepts and how they relate to the life-science concepts they have learned so far, and then went on to start making their own DNA models by spelling their own name using genetic code!

Math with Mr. Zafeiris: This week, students took a test on equations and polynomials. Together, we reviewed and discussed each question in detail, ensuring a clear understanding of the concepts. We also explored graphing inequalities, focusing on how to represent solution sets on the coordinate plane.

The students performed exceptionally well and showed great enthusiasm and curiosity in these areas of mathematics. It was wonderful to see their confidence and analytical thinking grow throughout the week!

Happy Halloween !!!

I hope everyone has a lovely safe Hallo-weekend, and I look forward to next week where our class will continue sharpening some of our literacy and writing skills by participating in some critical thinking activities. I’ll see everyone on Monday, happy Halloween!

It was another jam-packed week here in room 214 as we finalized some of our long-term projects and assessed our skills and knowledge as we concluded our World War One unit! We did not only conclude our unit for history/ELA, but also had a final assessment for science, and had the big payoff to an event we have been preparing ourselves to participate in for many weeks: Homerathon. I felt a great sense of pride as an educator this week, as I got to see so many examples of these amazing students doing incredible things! While I am proud of all of our hard work and how everything has paid off, I also look forward to seeing everyone continue to learn and grow, and to get to do even more incredible things as the school year progresses!

On Monday students turned in their final papers for their WWI research projects, and finished developing the corresponding visual aids for their projects. They’ve done an amazing job of going through the (sometimes grueling) process of selecting topics, researching, taking notes, developing a thesis, developing body paragraphs, developing introductions and conclusions, and eventually putting everything together in concise, well–reasoned argumentative papers that demonstrate both their knowledge of their WWI topics as well as their skills in research, writing and revising. I’ve seen some really great work so far, and I’ve loved the different and creative methods students have used to showcase their skills and knowledge! Students have effectively argued how America helped the allies win the war, how women changed the face of the war and lifted their status in society simultaneously, how Germany can be convicted as guilty of starting the war, or alternatively how some German actions in the early years of the war could be justified. I really can’t emphasize enough how impressed and proud I am of each students work! We also used more time on Monday to practice for Homerathon by having students read their parts in both small and large groups, and identifying any pronunciations that needed work, and developing the proper cadence to read from poems that are meant to be shared orally.

Tuesday saw students presenting their findings of their research projects to the class, as students informed one another about their respective topics while practicing more of their public speaking and presenting skills. We had students present a variety of visual aids, including slideshow presentations, posters, and an audio recording simulating a letter home from the trenches set to a series of photos that put a more emotional spin on showing the hardship of soldiers fighting on the front lines of the western front in WWI. I was again blown away by everyone’s hard work, and couldn’t be more proud of how far everyone has come in just the first couple of months of the year. Tuesday we also concluded our content for the WWI unit by having students engage in a simulation of the negotiation for the treaty that would end WWI: the treaty of Versailles. In this activity each student assumed the role of one of the major powers present at Versailles, and they negotiated from the perspective of their nation. This helped students get a more in-depth understanding of the various motivations that can occur during peace negotiations, as well as pre-viewing a bit of content for our eventual World War 2 unit by seeing how the harsh terms of the treaty of Versailles helped contribute to the rise of fascism in 1930’s Germany, and the eventual start of WWII.

Wednesday was the conclusion of our World War One unit: the unit test. Comprehensive content tests are nobodies favorite thing, but they will absolutely be a part of students’ academic lives as they move through high school and college, and it is important to be able to develop skills in both test preparation as well as test taking, especially as many students will be taking their HSPT or equivalent entrance exams in the upcoming months. The test was 20 multiple choice and identification questions, with 4 short response questions to ensure students could demonstrate their knowledge of the content we have learned over the past 2 months at various levels of depth, as well as giving them a chance to justify their reasoning for their claims they made in response to the short-response written questions. After we concluded our exam, students practiced for Thursday’s upcoming Homerathon, and fine-tuned each students part in preparation for their performance.

Thursday we took a class trip down to the Chicago Hellenic Museum for the big day of Homerathon! Before the readings our class (as well as Ms. Marianthi and Mr. Zafeiris) walked around Chicago’s Greektown, where I got a chance to see some of the artwork students made last year for public display! It was really cool to see how great the students’ piece looked, and it was fun to see the pride on their faces as they got to see it displayed publicly. After our brief walk around the neighborhood, we stopped off for some lunch (Greek food of course 🙂 ) and then moved over to the museum for Homerathon. For those uninformed Homerathon is an activity the Hellenic Museum and UIC have collaborated on for the past few years where readers from all over Chicagoland contribute by reading the works of Homer in both ancient Greek as well as a variety of other languages (English in our case) as a celebration of Greek culture, heritage and oral history. The students all did an absolutely SPECTACULAR job in their performances as well as in representing the school with pride and class. I really cannot overstate how proud me, Mr. Zaf, and Ms. Marianthi were after watching the performance. Students prepared for their readings for weeks, and they got to see their hard work pay off as they made great readings in both languages. This was a phenomenal long term learning experience for students that also saw an amazing and fun day in the short term.

After all of the excitement of this week, I decided to give the students a bit of a break and reward for Friday. We had a class vote on Wednesday on which WWI film to watch, and the students chose “Flyboys” a 2006 film starring James Franco about the first volunteer American aviators to fight for the French prior to the US joining WWI. This was not only an entertaining movie, but also another learning opportunity has students got a chance to see many things we discussed in class in a more colorful and engaging context, as well as getting to learn a bit more about the war in the air, which is a subtopic of WWI I would have loved to get more in-depth with, but unfortunately did not get the opportunity due to how busy the class has been! It was a ton of fun to further build our community and send off our WWI unit with a relaxing day of enjoying some literature through film!

Math With Mr. Zafeiris

For Math this week, students learned a bit more about some irrational numbers, as well as how to solve and graph inequalities, this included using some real-life examples of how inequalities could be represented, and how they might be used to solve problems. On Friday for geometry students started to look more into 3D shapes by examining parallel intersector lines and skew lines.

Science with Ms. Pam

Last week we looked at some of the processes inside a cell – photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and fermentation. We spent this week preparing for the unit 3 test and completing the recycled cell models.

The students spent a lot of time and care preparing their cell models, which were turned in on Thursday. I can see the thought that went into finding recycled objects that reflected the function or shape of the organelle the object was representing –  folding two colors of ribbon for DNA, using old batteries for mitochondria. I have been asked to have the students share their models with the rest of the school and will set something up in a couple of weeks.

This coming week we start studying DNA; its discovery, shape, and function. We will look at how DNA combines to form diversity and thus increase survivability in a species.

We had a slightly abbreviated week this week at Plato Academy, I hope everyone enjoyed their extended weekend and was able to enjoy a little extra time off to rest and recharge! The week may have been a bit shorter, but we still had a jam packed schedule this week in room 214, as we moved forward on our final project for the WWI unit, and participated in the Quiz Bowl!

On Tuesday, we got back to work on our research papers for the World War One final project, by first going through a tutorial on how to write body paragraphs for a historical research essay! After the class went through the tutorial together, they were able to apply their newly learned skills by starting the writing process on their body paragraphs for their research papers. I decided to approach the writing process a bit out of order, as it can often be a bit more daunting for students to write their introduction paragraph first, and since introducing and previewing the content of the body paragraphs is what makes up most of the introduction paragraph. With this in mind, students could write their body paragraphs first, which would then make it easier to write introductions as they already know what information they need to include to give their readers a “sneak peak” when reading the introduction paragraph. As students wrote, they utilized the sources they took notes on using a graphic organizer they filled out in class last week, the combination of research, analysis, and writing are skills that will definitely come in handy as they move forward to high school, so having experience in researching and utilizing a variety of sources will give them a big leg up as they progress through their academic careers!

On Wednesday we continued to work on our body paragraphs for the research paper, but also added on the finishing touches of our research papers: the introduction paragraph, and the conclusion paragraph. As they learned on Tuesday, writing body paragraphs can make writing introduction paragraphs easier by understanding what ideas they will be “introducing” to the readers. While it may have seemed weird the day before, it was amazing to see it “click” in so many students brains as their introductions became much easier to write by knowing exactly what it is they were needing to include in their first paragraph, in addition to having the most important part of their first paragraph: the thesis statement, already pre written in class from last week! Wednesday also saw some of our 8th grade students participating in the Quiz bowl against some other schools from the local area! It was a great performance, and our students did an amazing job representing Plato academy to the local community! I would like to use this opportunity to apologize as their was some confusion as to who would attend the quiz bowl. There was a miscommunication between myself and administration, which led to a bit of a mix-up in terms of who would attend and who would not. I sincerely apologize for this miscommunication, and promise to work with administration to ensure we do not allow for any confusion regarding things like field trips moving forward, so thank you to everyone for their patience regarding quiz bowl!

Thursday we took a bit of a break from our research projects and engaged with our second lesson of “mindset mathematics”. In this lesson students interacted with both 2D and 3D geometric objects, by making prisms out of clay, and then cutting those prism in order to try to create different shapes from the new faces created by cutting the prism. By doing this students were able to both visualize and get a tactile understanding of how 3D geometry and 2D geometry interact. As we discussed how the shapes would change based on how they were cut, we also had students draw their results in both 2D and 3D on dot paper, so students gained an enriched understanding of how 2D and 3D shapes interact, as well as how to illustrate those shapes on paper, which can be a huge asset when working with word problems in mathematics. Thursday we also began to intensify our practice for the upcoming “Homerathon” which will be taking place at the Chicago Hellenic Museum next Thursday! As their English teacher, I have obviously emphasized the English portion of their readings, and we all worked together to make sure our pronunciations and cadence are as sharp as they can be heading into Homerathon! Students also work with our team of Greek teachers to practice their reading sections in Greek, so with a bit more practice we will be all set to go and have wonderful performances in 2 different languages! I would highly recommend for all of my readers for you to encourage your students to read their sections aloud to you in both languages! Its great practice, and can be a fun family bonding experience oriented around one of the most significant cultural works in western civilization: Homer’s Odyssey.

Friday we returned to our research projects and started to put the finishing touches on our papers as well as starting (and for many finishing) our visual aid component for the research project! This can be anything from a poster or a tri-fold, to a slides presentation, to a video essay about their topics! Students have created some amazing and visually stunning companions to their papers, and have included so many interesting photos, propaganda posters, political Cartoons, drawings, and relevant quotes that bring WWI to life and help to back up their thesis in an appealing way! The work I have seen is so impressive, I have decided to give the students a bit more time to really perfect their work, by extending the due date to Tuesday for their visual aids, rather than Monday. I really can’t wait to see how everyone’s work looks, and am excited to get a chance to decorate our classroom walls with the amazing posters I’ve seen for everyone’s research projects!

MATH WITH MR. ZAFEIRIS:

This week in Mathematics, students practiced algebra questions to strengthen their problem-solving and reasoning skills.

In Geometry, they solved problems involving angles and the perpendicular bisector, applying geometric concepts to real-world examples.

Students showed excellent effort and growing confidence as they worked through increasingly challenging exercises.

SCIENCE WITH MS. PAM:

Students continued working on their recycled material cell model projects to finish up their cell unit! Students also got the chance to take notes on their study guides to help them prepare for the cell unit test they will be having next Thursday!

I hope everyone has a great safe weekend, and I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday!

It was our first full week of October in room 214, and we had a particularly exciting week as we settle into the new month and enjoy our beautiful fall weather as the leaves begin to change!

On Monday we started off with our Music Monday activity of the week, where we had students look for their own “modern day Dylan”, and examine some examples of why their artist of choice makes meaningful protest music for our modern age. Students chose a variety of artists to research and made posters showcasing their lyrics, to explore how and why these musicians promote social and cultural change through their art. After we split from Ms. Mary’s class we began to finalize our research questions for our WWI research project, and started to do some initial research into our topics of choice, making sure to question our sources along the way to make sure they were legitimate and trustworthy! In math on Monday we began to examine linear equations in slope intercept form, and how to graph them. We also learned how to graph linear equations in standard form, and introduced systems of linear equations.

On Tuesday we continued our research project by having another research day, where students got the opportunity to really do a deep dive on the sources they chose by taking notes and looking at both primary and secondary sources. By analyzing these sources we got a better understanding of all of our respective research project topics, and got more practice reading and interpreting historical information! In science on Tuesday students moved on to part 2 of their Egg lab; at this point the shells had been completely softened and/or dissolved by vinegar, and students submerged their de-shelled eggs into a liquid of their choosing. We had everything from blue Gatorade and grape juice, to apple cider and coca-cola. Students also started their science project where they are making models of cells using recycled materials.

Wednesday we took a break from our research project, and did some practice with synthesizing important information from reading, by reading about Hiawatha and the Peacemaker, an oral history passed down over hundreds of years that serves as the origin story of the Iroquois confederacy of Northeastern Native American tribes. Students concluded the activity by assuming the role of Hiawatha and writing a journal entry where they reflected on the nature of leadership, forgiveness, and unity. We also practiced for the upcoming NAQT Quiz bowl some of the 8th grade students will be participating in next Wednesday. For those not participating this was still a fun educational trivia activity, where they got to practice many skills that will be practical to use on the HSPT. For Wednesday’s math class we continued working with systems of linear equations and solving them by graphing.

Thursday we moved on to the next step of our research projects by having students write the thesis for their research papers. Knowing how to write a thesis is an essential skill in high school and college, and getting to practice making and defending claims with evidence so early in their academic careers will surely prove invaluable as the students mature and grow into their best academic selves! I’ve been seeing a ton of great material, and I can’t wait to see everyone’s finished products as we continue to improve and develop our research projects! In Thursday’s science class students learned about cellular metabolism, specifically students looked at photosynthesis and fermentation to see how cells process energy in a simple and controlled way!

Friday was one of our most anticipated days of the school year so far: our trip to Cantigny in Wheaton! Students in both my class as well as Ms. Mary’s class got a chance to see some of our nations historical armored vehicles that helped our soldiers fight over the last 100 years, and students also got a tour of an incredible museum exhibit that showcases the conflicts of the Army’s 1st division ‘Big Red One’. It was amazing seeing students finally get to see some real life examples of all of the weapons, uniforms, and environments that our soldiers fought with in WWI and beyond, and our students got a bit of a preview of upcoming content by seeing the expertly designed exhibitions about the 1st Divisions experiences in WWII, and Vietnam! We also got to learn some amazing facts from our experienced and knowledgeable tour guides, while climbing plenty of tanks along the way 🙂

I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend and I look forward to getting back to business on Tuesday before our big day at the Quiz bowl on Wednesday! I’ve included some photos from our Cantigny trip on this post, but I’ll also include a link to our school photo album from the trip, as there were just too many great pictures to fit in one blog post! You can access that album by clicking here

It is the conclusion of another exciting week here in room 214, and our students have been learning a lot as well as building an even stronger community at Plato Academy! This week saw our students involved with a couple of our class fundraisers for our class trip: pink drinks, and the bake sale! I would like to especially shout out the girls of our class: Charlie, Christina, Fotini, Julia, and Marie, who have done an incredible job coordinating, promoting, and staffing our pink drink table and raising money both for our class and for breast cancer charity!

On Monday we joined forces with Ms. Mary’s class once again for more cultural literacy aka “Music Mondays”. We spent another week looking at some classic Bob Dylan songs, this time we had students working in small groups doing a deep dive analysis of the lyrics to “The Times They Are a Changin'” and “Like a Rolling Stone”. We had some great discussions about how these songs represent both personal and societal change, and how Dylan used his lyrics to tell metaphorical stories about his songs characters while also making commentary on current events and society. Monday we also finished up our class conferences and had our students examine the importance of a writers ‘voice’ by analyzing another New York Times story submission to their “modern love” column. Students got to look at examples to think about and practice how they would want to give their 100 word memoir an authentic voice.

Tuesday we had what I like to call a “taking care of business” day. We took a bit of a break from our typical class content to participate in a couple of school wide activities: students took their CBM math assessments, where they were tested on some of their geometry and algebra skills so our teaching and administrative teams can get a solid grasp of where are students are at in terms of mathematical skills and content knowledge. We also had some time to do “art to remember” where our students showed off their drawing skills! For any unfamiliar readers, be on the lookout for the opportunity to purchase some “art to remember” merchandise ranging from magnets and key chains to post cards and T shirts featuring the artistic styling of your students!

Wednesday we jumped back into World War One to look at one of the main causes for the United States joining the war: the sinking of the Lusitania. We started out with a class poll asking: “did the sinking of the Lusitania justify the USA joining the war?”.Our students worked in groups to analyze a collection of primary and secondary sources about the sinking, and then shared their findings and thoughts with one another, before watching one of the earliest popular animated films ever made that showed the students what US citizens were learning about the ships’ sinking back in 1915 when it happened. It also showed students how propaganda sometimes bends the truth or downright lies to people to achieve political and diplomatic goals.

Thursday students viewed a collection of videos to explore a variety of perspectives on how the USA’s involvement in WWI actually impacted the outcome of the war. Some students looked at how nationalism played a role and the direct impact of full US support on the allied war efforts; some students got to see how important fundraising was to the war efforts and how the US went about collecting money from their citizens to pass along to the allies. Two other important perspectives we explored were those of African Americans, and the perspective of women in the war both on the home front as well as overseas. In the end students taught each other about their assigned area of expertise in the form of a good old fashioned class discussion, as well as by making some lovely examples of WWI Propaganda posters that I have now posted around the classroom for all to enjoy 🙂

Friday was a very busy day for Plato Academy (and especially room 214) as we had some of our favorite fundraisers: the bake sale and pink drinks. But Friday wasn’t all about raising money, we took some very important steps in our ELA and Social Studies units as well! We started out the day by introducing the summative project for the WWI unit: the World War One research project. In this project students will be researching a topic of their choice related to the war, looking at both primary and secondary sources, all before synthesizing their findings in a one page paper where they will answer their research questions and prove their thesis through their writing! They will also be including a visual aid or presentation so they can help educate their classmates on their topics. We will be working heavily on these projects in class over the course of the next two weeks, but as a heads up their may be some work to take home and finish relating to the project as well, particularly for their visual aids. I can’t wait to see everyone’s finished product! We also took a major step in our 100 word memoirs today, by having the students write their first rough drafts! I’ve already seen some really impressive stories, and I’m looking forward to seeing how all of our students are able to revise and perfect their work through the revision process.

Next week we will be continuing the final steps of both our WWI unit as well as our 100 word memoirs, before finishing off the week with an amazing field trip to Cantigny to look forward to! Be sure to be on the lookout for the permission form emails for that field trip, and thank you in advance to any of our parent chaperones who volunteer to help us out with our field trip, without you this wouldn’t be possible so thank you! I hope everyone has a great safe weekend and I’m looking forward to Monday already 🙂