Look out, Leonidas.... we've conquered ancient Greece!

Wheewww. Finally a moment to breathe and reflect on the awesome job our students did conquering ancient Greece. From the moment we divided the kids into teams and told them their topics, they embarked on a conquest that led to their showing off their work on Tuesday, December 20th, in the cafeteria at the ancient Greece EXPO. Each of our houses set up exhibits filled with everything from baklava to shot puts to parthenons and proceeded to tell all comers everything they knew about their topic. (And sometimes the topics of others in their house!) I was a little surprised, but very pleased by the number of people who came in support of the students' academics. Even some people from Grafton who were there for the basketball game came in and looked around. When Mr. Shaffer introduced himself, they asked him if the kids were AP students doing this exhibit! Wow! The kids really exceeded anything we could've imagined when we first envisioned "It's All Greek to Me."

Are You a 21st Century Teacher?

This was a blog post by Lisa from SimpleK12.  In it she details 21 activities a 21st Century teacher might do with her students.  Here are the first five:

1. You require your students to use a variety of sources for their research projects...and they cite blogs, podcasts, and interviews they've conducted via Skype.
2. Your students work on collaborative projects...with students in Australia.
3. You give weekly class updates to parents...via your blog.
4. Your students participate in class...by tweeting their questions and comments.
5. You ask your students to study and create reports on a controversial topic...and you grade their video submissions.

Check out the article to see the other 16!

World Religions

Kristin and I have been teaching a World Religions PBL. Yesterday we had our students do exit visas where they wrote a question about Christianity on a Post-it and they had to stick it on the door before they could leave.

We had a guest speaker, Reverend White, in our classroom today. The students learned about myths and other aspects of the Christian relgion.

The Mylan Collaboration Room

Students using the Mylan Collaboration Room for group projects: