Head Master Berman

On Thursday, Benjamin was our Head Master for the day!  He declared a Lower School dress down day, and planned a donut snack for the entire Eighth Age.  Our class even had pizza for lunch!  It was an exciting day for all.

 

Presentation Pros

The boys are putting the finishing touches on their PowerPoint presentations.  They had a blast adding animation effects to their words and pictures.

 

 

 

You've Heard of Birthdays and Half-Birthdays, But...

Last week we celebrated Brooks' 8 and 4/5 birthday! 

Every boy received 4 donut holes to celebrate.

 

 

Spring!

The beautiful view from the windows of 8-2.  How lucky we are to spend our days here at Calvert!

Eighth Age Plays

The Eighth Age boys and girls have been working hard for many weeks memorizing their lines and honing their acting skills in preparation for their performances in the Eighth Age Plays.  This Tuesday and Wednesday they had their moment to shine! 

 

Assembly Introduction

 The girls present "The Truth About Mother Goose"

The boys present "Robin Hood Tricks the Sheriff"

Our songs, with original lyrics written by Mrs. Elliott:
Robin Hood's Men Are We! from Justine Forrester on Vimeo. Hail, Hail, We're Outlaws Free! from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.   A final joint singing performance with the girls: Whisper from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.
  Here we are post-play celebrating the "Robin Hood trickster" in all of us!

 

 

 

Opening Day!

We celebrated Opening Day by coming to school in our Os gear!  Students were also invited to wear clothing of any other favorite MLB team.

 

And the requisite silly one! --

 

Vintage Oaks Horse Farm

On Wednesday we were lucky enough to have a special guest visitor join us - Benjamin's mother!  Mrs. Kenny-Berman joined us in the afternoon to share a presentation about her family's horse farm in Pennsylvania.  The boys and I were fascinated to learn more about horses, owning and riding horses, and maintaining a farm.  A highlight was passing around the real bridle, horsehoe, and bits.  The boys asked many good questions to find out more!  We certainly appreciate Mrs. Kenny-Berman taking time out of her busy day to come all this way to share with us.  What a treat!

 

Happy Birthday!

On Tuesday we returned from Spring Break just in time to celebrate Jeshua turning 8 years old.  Happy birthday, Jeshua!  We enjoyed celebrating Jeshua's big day with cupcakes in the classroom.

 

 

Springing into Spring!

We are ready for spring...and Spring Break! 

 

 

I*DID*A*READ

It's that wonderful time of the year...March Reading Madness!!

This year, our March Reading Madness challenge takes an exciting theme --

the Iditarod Alaskan dogsled race! 

Students are reading their way across the Iditarod trail (northern route), by reading a minute for every actual mile.  All students must make it through each checkpoint to reach the finish (and there are 25 checkpoints - one for each day of the month with an average of 30 minutes of reading every day except Sunday).  

What a fun way to push ourselves with our reading, and learn some geography at the same time!



 
This challenge requires 100% class participation and completion! If all classes in the entire Lower School complete the challenge, we will earn a popcorn and movie day!
Here is how we are doing so far in 8-2:

 

 

Pi Day! (3.14)

Calvert has a tradition of celebrating Pi Day at school and honoring this "magical" number with various pi/pie related activities.  Because the official Pi Day (3/14) is only a half-day of school for us, we held the festivities a day early this year. 

 

In Eighth Age, we presented pi to 62 digits, with every student holding up a digit they personally decorated.  Here are the boys of 8-2 sharing our section of this mysterious and awesome number:

Here we are as an entire grade, sharing pi with you.

 

 8s on Pi Day from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

 

 Next, we all gathered in the gym to recognize the Ninth and Tenth Age students who memorized the digits of pi as far as they could. 

You will be astounded by the winning results!!

 

9s

1^st Isabelle 142 digits

2^nd Lauren  106 digits

3^rd Reese     94 digits

10s

1^st Caroline 132 digits

2^nd Coco      100 digits

3^rd Ellen       81 digits

 Any Ninth or Tenth Age student who memorized at least 20 digits of pi (which was 95% of Ninth Agers and 99% of Tenth Agers) was then entered into a raffle to be picked to toss a lemon merengue pie into Head Master Holmgren's face!

 

Here are the two lucky winners enjoying their moment.  What a good sport Mr. Holmgren was!

 

Mr. Holmgren Gets "Pi-ed"! from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday!

On Thursday this week we celebrated Justin's upcoming 8th birthday with a special doughnut snack!  Happy birthday, Justin!

 

 

Extreme Travel

On Tuesday this week we enjoyed a special assembly from Ms. Krebs, the Lower School girls' P.E. teacher.  Last summer, Ms. Krebs received a Calvert School funded grant to travel to New Zealand and explore the ways in which outdoor education is implemented in their schools.  Along the way, Ms. Krebs tried out some pretty extreme activities herself!  We were amazed by the various extremely high places from which she jumped.  We are glad to have her back safe and sound, and so appreciative of her sharing her experience abroad with us.

 You can see more photos from Ms. Krebs' trip here: http://calvertgirlspe.blogspot.com/2013_08_01_archive.html

"Power"ful Leaders

During Black History Month, students researched a variety of African American civil rights leaders: past and present, men and women, old and young, living and deceased.  After taking notes and writing a report, they then joined forces with the classmate who also researched the same leader, and worked to create a PowerPoint presentation.  The students demonstrated excellent teamwork as they took turns typing up their bulleted notes to complete a six-slide presentation.  Later in the week they used Clip Art and Google Images (safe search on) to add pictures to their PowerPoint slides.  When we return from spring break we will put on the finishing touches.  The students are proud of their work and I am so impressed with their abilities to pick up these new skills and to be creative with them.

 

 

 

Eye on the Winter Olympics

The students have been invited to bring in any Winter Olympics articles or facts they have found interesting and would like to share with the class.  Here is our collection so far!  The boys have had a great time sharing and discussing.  What excitement!

 

 

Birthday Fun!

This week, due to our snow day we were unable to celebrate Valentine's Day as planned, but we did celebrate two birthdays instead!  

First we celebrated Benjamin turning 8.

 The next day we celebrated Michael turning 8 and a half.

!

International Week: Spanish Day (Chile)

Hola!

Our week concluded with Spanish Day, during which we focused on Chile.  We attended a presentation in the auditorium given by Victor Sanchez, a friend of Mrs. Holt and former member of the Chilean fútbol (soccer) team.  

Spanish Day (Chile) from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.
Also in honor of Spanish Day, 8-2 was specially treated to florecitas, a delicious Puerto Rican cookie, homemade by Justin's mother, Mrs. Peel.  Justin enjoyed sharing a sweet bit of his culture with the class!  Mrs. Peel even made Puerto Rican flags with fun facts about the country printed on the back - just like the ones we have received for each of the other countries this week!

International Week: Korean Day

안녕하세요 

ann yeong haseyo!

Thursday was Korean Day.  We worked to the calming sounds of Korean music and learned about this country's culture and history.  Trying to write in Korean was an eye-opening experience for most of us. The boys enjoyed hearing from Calvert parent Mrs. Chung as she shared with them about her native country.  We especially enjoyed the fantastic Korean lunch that was provided at school!

Korean Day from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

International Week: Portuguese Day (Brazil)

Olá!

Wednesday was Portuguese Day, during which we focused on learning about Brazil.  We enjoyed a presenation in the auditorium led by two Calvert parents who are also Brazilian.  Once again we were treated to tantalizing tastes of Brazil in the cafeteria, melodious music, and amazing artifacts.  We worked on an activity packet as well.

 

Portuguese Day (Brazil) from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

International Week: Dutch Day (Holland)

Hallo!

Tuesday was Dutch Day!  In addition to the excitement of hearing Dutch music, enjoying Dutch meals, and viewing Dutch items in person, the boys of 8-2 had the special privilege of welcoming Meintje Westerbeek, a Dutch native (as well as a former teacher and friend of Mrs. Forrester), into our classroom.  We learned how to read, write, speak, and even sing in Dutch!  Mevrouw Westerbeek was an excellent teacher, and we had so much fun with her!  She brought many items from home to share with us, including hagelslag, sugary sprinkles usually enjoyed on toast for breakfast.  Yum!

Dutch Day (Holland) from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

Here we are singing the song about the "molen" or "windmill," a traditional fixture of the Dutch countryside.  As you can see from the accompanying motions of the song, the molen (mill) turns slowly, while the wieken (blades) spin fast!

De Molen song from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

Naturally, we were eager to thank mevrouw Westerbeek and show her our great appreciation for the time she spent with us and the fun lesson she planned.  With the help of Google Translate, we composed thank you letters -- in Dutch!  (Here's hoping the Internet did not fail us, and that the letter really does state our intended message of gratitude. :) )

The boys worked so hard on these and really put forth their best effort.

Here is what we intended to write:

                                                                         February 6, 2014

Dear Ms. Meintje,

          Hello!  My name is _________.  Thank you for your visit. I am very grateful for the information about the Netherlands. Our class had a fun time! We enjoyed singing the song about the mill.

                                                                         Best regards,

                                                                         __________
p.s. - You are a good teacher!

Here is what it looks like in Dutch (we believe):

  

International Week: French Day (Haiti)

Bonjour!

On Monday we celebrated French Day.  This year our French Day focused on Haiti, and students enjoyed learning about this country's history and culture, attending an assembly led by Haitian presenter Franz Cadet (creator of a non-profit organization called H.O.P.E. that raises money for orphans in Haiti), tasting delicious Haitian food at snack and lunch, enjoying traditional Haitian music, and seeing Haitian items and artifacts up close in our cultural display.

You can experience French Day with us though the video below!

French Day (Haiti) from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

The Clean Desk Club!

The boys spent some time today cleaning out and organizing their desks. 

They were feeling proud enough to show them off!

Black History Month Research Project

Recently the boys of 8-2 composed a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. in acknowledgement of his birthday and our national holiday. 

 

As we head into February, Black History Month, each student will research and report on a famous African-American hero who worked for civil rights in our country.  Earlier this week, students chose their subject and glued their photo into their biography research booklet. 

Next, we used the laptops to visit online database Pebble Go, where each student was able to search for their subject and then read about him/her while taking notes on important details about his/her life.

Next week we will use our completed research booklets to compose a biography of our civil rights heroes.  Stay tuned!

Hang Mouse Spelling Game

We had a blast in spelling class on Monday when we practiced our spelling words with a fun game of Hang Mouse.  It's a great way to focus on the spelling of each of our words, and whenever we spell one correctly we get to celebrate with a dance! (see below)  Of course, if we don't spell the word correctly in time - watch out!  Poor little mouse.  Thanks to our special spellers, the mouse was saved almost every time!

 

 

 

Hang Mouse from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

Calvert School's MLK Day of Service

On Monday, January 20, students, parents, and faculty of the Calvert community used the day off from school/work to gather for a morning of service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 

Those who arrived early spent some time designing and writing cards to our troops.

We were lucky to have storyteller Ssuuna as our guest this morning. In his interactive program, Ssuuna opened a window to African culture through dance, music, and storytelling.  We all really enjoyed the performance!

 Next, volunteers headed off to their various activities.  Mr. Gruber (9-2) and I ran the BINGO activity.  We welcomed guests from Gallagher Services, a residential facility for adults with developmental disabilities, and we had a full house.  Students and parents sat side by side with our guests and assisted them in several rousing games of BINGO, with prizes for all!

We look forward to doing it again next year. We hope you can join us!

 

MLK Day Assembly

Today the entire school gathered in the Middle School gym to celebrate and honor the legacy of Dr. King. We heard a personal speech from eighth grade speaker Camilla Schreiber, followed by a talk from Calvert parent and keynote speaker Dr. Kay Whitehead. Fifth age teacher Mrs. Zook surprised us all with her hidden talent - she has a beautiful singing voice and performed "Lift Every Voice" - and we all sang songs of peace, such as "This Land is My Land" by Woody Guthrie and "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers. It was a special and memorable occasion.
 

 

This Land is My Land from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.

Lean On Me from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.