Who Cares?

I am constantly trying to put my finger on what makes Calvert such a special place. We are blessed in Baltimore to have so many great schools, but in my opinion Calvert has something that is rarely seen elsewhere. I read a few blogs on a regular basis and one is written by a guy named Seth Godin. His target audience is the business community, but there is definitely overlap in what he says to the school community. His most recent post speaks to one of the reasons that Calvert is special. From the top down, the people who are associated with Calvert express a lot of care. This includes the employees, the parents, and the students. Calvert is a great place to be!!

Billy Has a Great Day

The Chinese Acrobats

Here is a five minute highlight reel of the performance today.

Words of Wisdom After a Tough Loss

No one in the Ravens locker room pointed the finger at Cundiff after the game, including Lewis.
"No one play won or lost this game," the Hall of Fame-bound linebacker said. "Could it have put us in a position to keep playing? Absolutely. But one play didn’t win or lose it. There is no one man who has ever lost a game. We win as a team and we lose as a team. There is no ’Billy is at fault, Billy missed the kick.’ It happens. Move on. Move on as a man because life doesn’t stop."



The boys were feeling the Ravens loss today, but it gave us a great chance to talk about how we conduct ourselves when things don't go the way we want. One point that I bring up frequently in class is that we cannot always control what happens, bur we can always choose how we respond to it...we can always choose our attitude. Making the right choice is difficult, and not something we will be able to do 100% of the time. I love what Ray Lewis said and how he is handling the situation. He certainly did not get the outcome he wanted, but he is making wise choices and dealing with it well.

Martin Luther King Jr. Research

In composition class we have started a discussion about Martin Luther King Jr. which will culminate in a composition. We are doing the research in a new way. Miss Gentry was kind enough to share a list of excellent links about MLK that she compiled for her class to study using a program called Pearl Trees. The links may be seen here. We will be looking at these links in school, and the boys have the option of studying them further at home, but no work at home is required. In class today, we did the "K" and the "W" of a K-W-L chart. Now that we have listed what we "Know" and what we "Wonder," we will "Learn" some new facts which will be incorporated into our composition.

A Calvert Cartographer

In history class today the boys worked on a map that traces the routes that the Persians took in the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC and the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. The maps all turned out very well, but the one below was particularly well done. The finished map is shown as well as the sheet as it appeared when he started. Well done!!!

Making Connections in Reading Class

In reading class today we discussed our last reading selection which was a chapter from Skylark. The chapter dealt with a family who lived on the prairie in the time before it was settled. The family experienced a severe drought and a fire which destroyed their barn. In spite of their loss there was a lot of hope and other positive elements in the story. I asked the boys and girls to list themes and elements from the story. They came up with the following: water, loss, change, compassion, problems, hope, joy, and love.

After we made the list I had them think of other stories from our reading book that had similar themes. We listed four stories (Heat Wave, Happy Birthday Dr. King, Pourquoi Tales, and Tomas and the Library Lady). We talked about the common elements between those stories and Skylark and then moved on.

For the next part of the activity, I had the students think of global events that had connections with the themes from Skylark. The students chose the recent conflict in Egypt, the Twin Towers in New York, the conflict in Afghanistan, the recent sinking of the Costa Concordia, the earthquake in Haiti, and the earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan. We talked about the elements that these events had in common and then moved on to the last part of the activity.

I asked the students to think of events from their own lives that related to the themes in the story from Skylark. The students talked about a broken arms, a dog that died, books they enjoyed, and the joys of having a dog. We talked again about the connections with our story from class, and then wrapped up the discussion.

The picture below shows the connections. It was a fantastic way for the students to see how the issues in our stories are universal, relating to everything from their own lives to issues on the global scale. I will be having a similar discussion with my homeroom in history class in the near future.

Billy Joins the Ravens