This week, the students presented their studies from the first trimester to the CMS community. Topics ranged from sigma notation in mathematics to weathering and erosion on the Land campus, video editing, and photo-realism. The students also wrote and performed their own play on the transition of mankind from hunter-gatherer to agricultural cultures. Congrats, class. You should be proud of your work. You are AWESOME!

Here is how Trimester 2 kicked off…

Mathematics: Visual thinking and reasoning exercises in Geometry, selecting and planning trimester 2 math units, math seminar, point-slope, slope-intercept, and equations, given a slope and a point.

Occupations/Science: If No One Owns the Moon seminar, SI Units of measure and their significance to the Scientific Method, Newton’s 1st Law of Motion/Coin Drop Experiment

Language: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry Act I discussion, What if memories were currency… writing workshop, research paper evaluations

Expression: Introduction to the history of American Music, Introduction to technology and engineering: Design Process (marshmallow and spaghetti structure  project), Music to Me art project

Community & micro-economy: Spring trip planning, movie night prep, Introduction to Marketing & Advertising

Mathematics: What’s going on in this graph( labor participation force & American Public vs. Nutritionists views on healthy food), solving and graphing linear equations, graphing micro-economy projects, continuous exponential functions, modeling phenomena (the cold virus in a population), The Fascinating Story of Logarithms

Langauge:  Types of writing, specifically, technical writing and science writing, Carl Sagon’s Pale Blue Dot, Peer-editing session for research paper, Charles Darwin writing prompt, Blind date writing workshop, Fragments, Hiroshima discussion

Humanities & Occupations: Presentation day practice and preparation

Expressions: Community lunch, Introduction to the world of irises and the American Iris Society (Thank you, Erin and Jean!)

Micro-Economy: TURKEY TROT!, accounting, Grandparent’s Day preparations

This year’s Turkey Trot had a good turnout. We even got 25 people signed up as turkeys! Our first place winners were Maddie and Zach. They finished in 7 minutes! Everyone did a great job and, even better, everyone had lots of fun! In my opinion (and probably a lot of other people’s, too), the best part is always the hot chocolate at the finish. There were SO many people getting hot chocolate and SO many people getting seconds that I congratulate myself and Carson for doing a great job making it. Anyway, thank you, everyone, for coming!

    – Anna

It has been an exciting week with Student-led conferences and the final stages of the humanities and occupations projects in full swing. Jenna and I have gained such insight from listening to the students explain to their parents their perspective, understanding, and enjoyment of the program. We are grateful for the dedication our class shows in their education.

Mathematics: Absolute value equations, forming linear equations from word problems, graphing linear equations, Here’s looking at Euclid by Alex Bellos seminar discussion on the number Pi, Investigating the number e, Interest rates and exponential growth, Cubic functions, Quadratics review

Language: Idioms, writing effective introductions and conclusions, essay writing tips, run-on sentences, comma splices, and fragments, Hiroshima book discussion

Humanities and Occupations: Group work and individual work periods

Expressions: International Film Festival [Booming Grounds (highlighted the vanishing prairie habitat through the story of the Greater Prarie Chicken)& Jane (the story of Jane Goodall with original National Geographic footage)], student-conferences

Community/ Micro-economy: Pumpkin Hunt review, Turkey trot preparation, and SignUp Genius

Mathematics: Deriving the quadratic formula, imaginary numbers, quadratics review, powers of 2, negative exponents, defining exponential functions through investigations, linear equations lesson, direct and indirect variation, Math Seminar, proportion warm-ups, math projects presentations

Language: Types of irony, zombie poetry, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tall Tale Heart & The Cask of Amontillado, The Haunting of Hill House short stories and floor plan presentations, John Hersey’s Hiroshima book discussion

Humanities & Occupations: Group project and individual research work periods

Expressions: Hamlet, Positive and negative space bicycle art session, cycling, student-conference prep, movie w/ introduction from the director (International Film Festival)

Micro-economy: Accounting and Turkey Trot  prep