Wednesday, October 18, 2017

We are beginning to incorporate more of our planned elements to our days. Today, the students began the day with a short walk along a path to the school with our school mascot pup, Castiel. When they arrived for the morning meeting, they were all smiles, refreshed and ready to get started!

In language arts, the students chose a TED talk to watch from a list of talks they developed based on their interests. The big goal for this project is to develop their own TED style talk. Today, they focused on developing a list of points from their chosen talk in preparation for writing a summary. The range of subjects the students chose was fascinating. From fish to a woman who developed a game about fighting cancer, and losing.

The main focus for today was science. More specifically, the science of agriculture in Virginia’s coastal plain region, where our school and farm are located. Students had been doing independent research on the agricultural products, natural resources, and soils for this region. Today, they were provided with some printed materials that helped focus and guide further discussion of these topics. As a matter of fact, the information presented not only generated lively discussions about the resources for agriculture, but also for field trips and fun, off-farm adventures. I see a trip to the Great Dismal Swamp in our future…

After lunch, the work on compost bins continued and the students moved inside to finish the day with independent study focusing on geometry. As we develop our garden beds and food forests, we will need to be able to determine the size and area of the beds as well as volumes for compost, fertilizers, mulch, etc. Tying math to real life problems is one of the best ways to help students learn and retain it.

We are all looking forward to tomorrow’s adventures! An architectural firm in Richmond has donated some great furniture. We’ll be picking up a rental truck and having a bit of an off-site adventure as we disassemble and move this wonderful gift!