The highlight of the week was certainly the launch of Eureka, Plato Academy’s Invention Convention. The classes are all working to create their own inventions. I am actually spearheading this and could not be more thrilled, as this is more than just a science fair. The students will be learning about design, searching through patents, and coming up with a pitch to present to investors. We will be presenting all our inventions at a school level competition, and then our representatives will be moving on to Chicago and (maybe, fingers crossed) Nationals! We are lucky enough to be working with Ms. Neethu and I can’t wait to see what we can create.

Our other projects were also incredibly exciting. We worked on our history fair presentation this week, but in a different way. We are starting to transition from collecting information to organizing and filling in the gaps. To help us do that, we created a triple fold organizer tracking how our research falls before, during, and after the breaking of the barrier we’re researching. This helped some of the class see gaps in the story they were telling and we are working on doing more research to flesh out this narrative.

We had a number of smaller projects this week that helped the class become more confident and well-rounded thinkers. We developed our artistic thinking by creating an emoji of ourselves, crafted persuasive essays, and used a youcubed activity to think more deeply about percentages and what they mean. We also started planning the itinerary of our DC trip, which has the class pretty excited. Once we have the itinerary planned out, we will send it out to you. Don’t forget about the bake sale this Friday, February 14th.