Salmon Creek Community School

Block Rotation 2011-2012

Public Speaking. September 5th - 22nd
Beginning of the year. Students are beginning to be expected to present things to an audience. Assignments include: 2 min about me speech. Speaking games and exercises. 5 minute informative speech. 8 min speech on topic of choice. This will differ depending on grade level. Final speech will be delivered to audience of invited community members. The main reason for this block is to get some basic presentation skills. We have been doing, and will continue to do current events, but I am looking to get students able to present on a slightly higher level.

Math/ Building. September 26th- October 20th
Will need to come up with a proposal for project, and board. Possibilities at the moment include a new bulletin board, a merry go round, woodshed or individual projects. I am leaning towards the woodshed, but will need to see what the board has to say about it. We may need constrain ourselves to a smaller project. Whatever we do I anticipate following a similar program as last year. Draw, then build. I lean towards a group project, since it gets the students to work together to some degree.

Restoration/Hydrology. October 24th- November 17th
Do some work on the willow fort area to make it more arboreal. I hope to have Kyle come in and help out with this block. During this block we will ideally look at some successful restoration projects as well as streams that have been undisturbed. I have heard some mumblings from Jack Monschke about wanting to come in and present some of the work he did to the kids, hopefully he would take us on a hike to one of his projects. As far as the actual work we would do in the willow fort I anticipate having discussion between the class and experts such as Kyle to determine what would make up the most sustainable design of the willow fort as a play space and a natural area.

Short Story. November 28th- December 14th
During this block we will read a selection of short stories, by authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, O Henry, Shirley Jackson and others. I would like to experiment with this block, and look at the stories carefully, seeing what the author chose to add, and what they chose to leave out. I find that short stories provide more opportunity for self examination and analysis of the human condition they deal with than a traditional novel. The block will culminate with students writing their own short story.

Mapmaking. January 2nd- February 2nd
Learn aspects of map making, and construct a map of area of choice, within salmon creek. This block should contain aspects of both art, math, and spacial awareness. The great thing about maps, to my highly biased mind, is that there are so many ways to represent things. Maps can consist of so many components and perspectives. It is my hope that the students will come up with many different types and designs of thematic maps.

Science Fair. February 6th- March 13th
Prep for science fair. Projects should already be well under way, but this provides chance to type results, compile data, get pictures together, assemble presentation etc. I hope that preparation for the science fair will be a big part of this year. I am going to try to get students started on this very early on so that they have an opportunity to put together a project that is meaningful to them, as research that they actually did. This should be much more than the average county fair entry, and will hopefully be much larger in scope.

 

Photography. March 12th- April 12th
We will look at the work of different photographers and think about what makes a good photograph. I  enjoy photography, since it gives us another way of looking at the world. Often, when kayaking and rolling up to a large rapid, I get scared. Sometimes I get out my camera, and place it between myself and the real world, and it gives me a different perspective on the world, slowing down the action and framing the thing that scares me. Then I go run the rapid, and sometimes I make it without getting beat down. With the students I hope to go in to technical aspect a little bit, but focus on the creative side, since that seems to be so much harder than understanding your camera. We will take and critique photographs. This block straddles spring break, which should provide ample opportunity to take some pictures for final portfolio presentation. I might switch this block with the short story block, but probably not. The last couple sessions of this block will be dedicated to the presentation of our portfolios. Here's a question- how are we set for cameras? I have one school one and may be willing to get another. What kids/ families have cameras that they would let their students use for this block. Digital would be good, but we can work with film.

Theater. April 9th- May 18th
Do a play in preparation for the Spring Fling. I have not chosen a play yet, we will do something funny.  I am making this block significantly longer, than last year to lessen the degree of stress placed on everyone. I think that Jonell is interested in being involved again, which I am ecstatic about, as she was great this past year. There is some overlap at the beginning of this block, because I think that we will be easing in to the script etc, and it will be nice to break up the time with our final photography presentations.

School Trip. Internships. May 21st- May 31st
I think that it would be worth taking a school trip at the end of the year again. I would like to make it longer, as the last trip to Yosemite, while awesome, was a little rushed. I also want to have a week when students go out and spend the week with a business, agency or non profit. I did this is 7th and 8th grade and found it very informative to spend time in a work environment. This is going to be a mandatory week for the 8th grade and will take place on a reduced scale with the 4-6th.

Last Week of School. June 4th- June 8th