Masterclass

As many of you may know, Greenhills School has also been putting together a production of As You Like It, which was performed (by 12th graders) about two weeks ago. On Friday, our class was fortunate to be visited by the Greenhills director, Ben Cohen, and two of his star actors, Amy and James. They came to school around 9am on Friday, and stayed with us for an hour, working on character and line interpretations. I believe they were quite impressed with our actors! This was a great opportunity for the kids; Ben is a very experienced director, and Amy and James are both terrific actors, and all three of them gave a lot of energy and enthusiasm to working with the Summers-Knoll crew. I was very proud of my students, who absolutely held their own in the presence of these visiting stars.

Word roots

Last week, I presented the kids with the following challenge: Imagine that a new element has been discovered. It was found on a fragment of meteorite; it is solid at room temperature; it is slightly radioactive; and it has a greenish hue. Invent a scientific name for this element.

We completed the challenge as a class, brainstorming words we knew in French that related to the characteristics of this imaginary element, and consulting a Latin-English dictionary to find helpful word roots. We also looked at the Periodic Table to see what element names usually sound like. The goal was to come up with a name that gave hints to at least a few of the characteristics of this imaginary element. Here are some of the root words we discussed (the ones we wound up using):

xeno—alien

terrestrial—earthly

ver (vert, verde, verdant)—green

saxum—Latin word for rock

And here are the element names we finally settled on, with endings taken from the Periodic Table:

Xenoversaxon (or Xenoveraxium or Xenoversaxum)

Xenoterrestrion

Read-in!

On Friday, December 18—a half-day at Summers-Knoll, and the last day before our winter break—our class will be having a read-in! Please send the kids to school with pillows, pyjamas, sleeping bags or blankets, and a BIG STACK OF BOOKS. With one break for snack and recess, we'll be spending the whole morning curled up, snug and excited, with our favorite books. I'll provide hot chocolate, too!

Note: This is still school reading, so I'm going have a rule that the books the kids bring in cannot be comics or picture books. This is a chance for everyone to really sink into some good books. Of course, the school's books will still be available, too.

It should be a nice, relaxing morning; I'm sure we'll all have some resting to do after our play performance next week. Read-ins are a very fond memory from my own school days!