Week in review:
As we all look ahead to our upcoming shift in school format, I'd first like to review what we covered last week. It was the first week of our Mineralogy/Geology earth science block. We learned about the rock cycle and the different types of rocks found on earth. We covered some concepts regarding mountain and continental formation as well as weathering and erosion. We learned about a few types of rocks like granite and limestone and the minerals and compounds that compose them. We also talked about how quartz becomes sand and how the silica mineral is used by humans in the production of glass and electronic technology. We then tied our knowledge of rock, mining, concrete, and glass making back to the Middle Ages as we discussed the building of the great Gothic cathedrals. I love how the curriculum allows the students to see these connections across subjects so clearly.
One of the tenets of Waldorf science education is to present the curriculum through observation and phenomenology whenever possible. We had several rock samples in the classroom and we explored the composition of the river rocks from the creek and other rocks around campus. Our field trip to Kennesaw Mountain allowed us to experience some great examples of the metamorphic rocks gneiss, amphibolite, and schist. This trip and our discussions about our local geology also meet our teaching goals of making connections with the students in ways that are meaningful to their own experiences. The students have a homework assignment to prepare a trip report about our excursion, and I look forward to reading about their observations and experiences through their own words.
In math, we continued working with business math concepts and percents. I will continue to assign homework in their percents workbooks and cover new concepts via the online classroom. We will also continue to work through the BizTown curriculum that we are required to complete prior to our field trip in late April.
Online class:
I will be presenting our main lesson topic live each morning via an online meeting platform. I will post assignments and supporting documents to Google Classroom. I will send more specific information with links to online classrooms and times as we finalize this process. I hope to be able to interact real-time with the students throughout our lessons, but I also acknowledge the limitations that online meetings can present, and some of our content may end up being pre-recorded depending on how the process unfolds. We may also run into situations where students are unable to attend the real-time presentation, and the recorded versions of the materials will be available to them in Google Classroom. Our leadership team has been working tirelessly to come up with solutions that will make this process as seamless as possible. This is a new approach to learning for all of us, and I expect some hiccups along the way and ask for your grace as we work through them and modify our approach as needed.
Students will be responsible for attending the online class sessions and completing their assigned work. I sent students home with supplies on Thursday and instructed them to pack their workbooks and class work necessary for an extended closure. Hopefully, they listened and made it home with what they need to do their work. We will have opportunities for parents to pick up additional supplies at school on Wednesday along with the supplies needed for their subject classes. I will be putting together additional reading materials and paperwork as needed. If you have technology limitations that will prevent your student from being able to connect to the online tools, please let me know. We can work on individual solutions to make information accessible to everyone. Also, please let me know if our strategy for presenting material is in conflict with your home media rules, and I will provide you with the materials to present the lessons yourself directly with the student. Please note that I assigned enough homework last week that students should have plenty of work to keep them busy through at least Monday and likely into Tuesday. If questions or boredom arises before we initiate our online platform, please let me know and I can happily fill in the gaps.
My plan is to wrap up our Mineralogy block in a more student-led approach over the next few weeks while we are schooling remotely, but I hope once we reconvene in person to continue to go on field excursions and bring the experiential aspect of mineralogy back to life with them. Since we are shifting to remote online learning, I will be introducing Cyber Civics as our main lecture topic. This is a digital literacy curriculum used by Waldorf and other schools to build a strong foundation for being a member of the cyber world in a healthy way. I will also be assigning lessons for students to begin learning keyboarding skills.
I will continue assigning short, research-based writing assignments over the next few weeks. I generally provide the source materials for this type of work in class. In this case, I will provide guidelines for internet research with each assignment since students will not have access to classroom materials or public libraries. If this is not an acceptable use of screen time for your family, I can work with you to arrange a safe way to borrow some of the reference books I have on hand.
The greatest value of our class time is often driven by the interactions we have with each other and student input and questions, so I hope we are still able to retain some degree of interaction remotely through these new platforms. I will be sending a letter tomorrow detailing the specifics of our online tools and schedules and instructions for participation.
Ki Molly
