Matthew summarizes the week

Matthew armed with a new pencil

Hi, this is Matthew, a student of Jason's class, A.K.A The Argonauts. Since October, we have been doing a research papers on ancient civilizations. We are now trying to finish them. Some people had to start over. For example, I am doing the Ancient Greek military. I think that many people are doing very well.

We have also been working on our Place Out of Time stuff. This week on P.O.O.T., we worked on something called a Bio-Cube:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/cube_creator/.

Everybody is still trying to keep their own person a secret, and people aren’t succeeding much. So I won’t post my, or anybody else's, person.

In Music, we have been studying The Sphinx Organization, which is an organization for teaching kids without access to music to learn strings. Every year, Sphinx has a competition in musical skills, involving the people that Sphinx taught. We went on a field trip to watch three finalists compete for 1st. The three contestants were Lev Mamuya, Annelle Gregory, and Sterling Elliott. Lev Mamuya got 1st, Sterling Elliot got second, and Annelle Gregory got 3rd. They each got a prize of money; 1st: $5000, 2nd: $3500, and 3rd: $2000.

In Latin, we have been doing what we always have, and for people who don’t know what that is, I’ll fill in the blanks. We translate Latin sentences into English, and take single Latin words and find their English derivatives.

In Science, we are doing things on Digication. Digication is a online portfolio. We are using it to record our calorimetry projects. Here’s the link: http://www.digication.com. We are making a record of what we are doing and a “how to” on the experiment.  

Science Class.

Signing off, 
Matthew  

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Thank you, Matthew! 

As Matthew mentioned, we were able to take a school trip (including everyone in grades 3 through 8!) to the beautiful Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit on Friday to attend one of the competitions. It was a marvelous opportunity, and we're grateful to Mr. Riccinto for arranging the trip. (Speaking of Mr. Riccinto, have you subscribed to his new music blog yet? If not, check it out!) 

Inside the Max M. Fisher Music Center

While waiting to hear who won, we were treated to a question and answer session. Students were invited to walk up to the stage and ask the conductor questions about Sphinx, the symphony, or anything else that was on their minds. Our own Noah was the first person to rush down to the mic to ask a question, which opened the floodgates of students. I was particularly impressed to see how many Summers-Knoll kids went up to the microphone to take advantage of this unique opportunity. It was a genuine pleasure to be in the company of so many bright, polite, and questioning kids! I was very proud of them on Friday! (Of course, I'm usually pretty proud of them.) 

I hope everyone has a wonderful break!