This was a very inspiring week at Plato Academy. The highlight was definitely today, watching the school come together to support the fight against children’s cancer. We spent time cleaning and decorating the gym, planning activities, and even working in the gym as people are getting their heads shaved. This has been a big project for us to organize and I’m excited to see it today.

The other highlight of the week was our math post-it activity. The class worked together to find the solution to percent problems on post-it notes and then compare the values. This was wonderful because, not only was it real world examples, it was working with non-benchmark fractions. The class even referred back to the percent strips they made last week; for example, to find 23% of $30, they had to add 10%+10%+1%+1%+1% from the fraction strip for $30. It was really cool seeing them apply and extend their learning from last week in more challenging problems.

Another shining memory of the week was the class working on their narratives. The class was a little intimidated to try to sum up another 3 months of learning, but they brainstormed different work they’ve done and have struggled. I was really inspired to hear them being reflective about the ways they’ve grown and thinking about their goals. I can’t wait to see their conferences next week.

We also had shorter activities throughout the week. The class did research about the coronavirus, which was interesting to compare real information and some of the stories going around. They looked at my primary ballot and used the website ballotready.org to compare the candidates and think about who they would vote for. They continued working on their art installation ceiling tiles, which I hope to have hung by the time you are here for conferences.

As you might have heard, there are some rather nasty bugs going around, so please make sure to stress to your child the importance of rest, hygiene, and proper diet. Have a great weekend everyone.