Welcome back!
We are back in the swing of things in 2025, hitting the ground running.
Let’s start with what’s new in the curriculum:
In Science, we have completed our Chemistry course and begun on Earth History. Currently, we are looking at the Grand Canyon and the formation of landforms. We will be focusing on HOW we know what we know about those landforms and making some discoveries of our own.
World War I is occupying our time with the convoluted story of why it began, who was involved, and why the U.S. stayed out of it for so long. The student-made flow charts, timelines, and comic books are exciting.
In Literature, we have begun reading Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. It is a dystopian sci-fi novel that illustrates the importance of cultural products (movies, music, television, books, etc) in the greater global society. Primarily, it discusses the culture of the 1980s and 1990s. The first movie in our After School Wednesday Film Study Series, or ASWFSS, was WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. The next few weeks will expose the adolescents to the wonderful nonsense their teachers and parents grew up with. Ask about the full list, if you dare. The students are also engaged in an “easter egg” hunt, solving clues to find hidden tasks throughout the building. It’s a tough one.
The winter sessions for MapGrowth testing are underway, so we’re all a little bit stressed out. Please bear with us as we process our feelings in a variety of ways.