Romeo & Juliet

ROMEO & JULIET

For reading class Levi, Katie, Jordan, and I completed an intense study of  the play Romeo and Juliet. We started reading and acting out the play every day in class. This meant that everyone needed a role, but since there were only 4-6 participants, depending on absences, most of us had multiple roles. I don’t exactly recall who was what specifically, but I know for certain that I was Romeo. And, unfortunately, Katie was absent through most of the beginning of the play, and Mrs. Tiff was busy, so Mr. Tony had to be my Juliet. This never bothered me because I knew Mr. Tony would be mature about it.

Over the course of several weeks we got to stand up and participate in re-enacting sword fights, quarrels, speeches, and conversations from the play. We even got to watch the

Students use Google Classroom to graph early American Slavery

The addition of Google Classroom and access to Chromebooks helps students master math and computer skills while concurrently studying early American history. Today students and staff utilized the document sharing ability of Google Classroom while discussing slavery in early America. Each student could share his ongoing progress with the teacher, Mr. Eck, in real time from their computer. When Mr. Eck recognized something noteworthy or important in a students work, he could send the images to the projector and allow everyone to see the information.

"The ability to give immediate feedback to students is so important", Mr. Eck explained. "If you can catch a mistake or thinking error right away, you can stop it or correct the thinking error before it becomes ingrained in the students head. The students also get a kick out of having their accomplishments shared with their peers; this technology helps build confidence."

Student Levi A. posted to this blog today, explaining what he learned today in class. He, along with the other students, experienced a multi-discipline lesson, incorporating reading and writing skills, social studies, mathematics, and technology. The inclusion of these new resources - Google Classroom and the Chromebooks - has improved the educational experience for students at the Milton AEP.

Slaves in Colonial America

In Mr. Eck's class we are learning about slaves in early America in the 1700’s.

We have learned that their were about 8 to 10 million enslaved Africans taken to colonies in the Americas. There were about half a million of slaves in British colonies in North America. About four million Slaves were in the British, French, and Dutch colonies of the Caribbean. In the Portuguese colony of Brazil, there were nearly three and a half million enslaved Africans. Other Spanish colonies accounted for 1.5 million additional slaves.

Part of our assignment included creating a bar graph to visually describe the distribution of slaves in the early colonies. (see the graph below)

-- by Levi A.

M&Ms Research

On August 31st two students and the all-subject teacher, Mr. Eck, of Milton’s PA Treatment & Healing Alternative Ed. School  attempted to test a hypothesis on the distribution of M&Ms. Their hypothesis was that within packages of M&Ms, blue and orange colored candies will always be superior in number. To make this experiment as effective as possible they bought 5 bags of them. The first, and most obvious step, they had to perform was to separate the colors of the M&Ms. Next they counted the colors separately and added them to a total sum. By looking at the quantities of each group and comparing the orange and blue candies to the rest, the group could tell that their original assumption of the blue and orange candies being superior in quantity to the rest was correct.

To visually represent the data, it was decided to represent the values as percentages. After deciding to calculate the percentages on their chrome-books, small laptops they use for schooling, they powered them up and let the power of google do the work  for them. They then reassembled the percentages into a pie graph, so the percentages could be compared not only from one’s view point of percentages, out of 100%, but also by wholes and fractions. After assembling all of the information, it was clear that orange and blue candies are the most frequently found in a bag of M&Ms. The team at Milton’s Path of Healing and Treatment Alternative School has now successfully developed their theory on the superiority of colors in the candies of M&Ms.

-- Alex S.

NYT - What is a Hero?

Students read about three Americans who helped foil an attack on a speeding train in Europe in the New York Times. (NYT Article)

Among the questions they were asked was "What does it mean to be a hero?"

What do you think it means to be a hero? Please comment.

First Day of 2015

The first day of school.

Rules, rules, and more rules.

Well ... not really that bad. The Milton AEP program is underway for another school year and we had a calm and (in my mind) productive day. It is somewhat of a drag to do all the required "first day" stuff. The students and staff handled it well. Paperwork is done. Student Handbook is reviewed (often takes two days, but not with this group of attentive students). California Achievement tests are done and scored. We even had time to do Mr. Matt's "Stupid and Silly Questionnaire" and hang a new projection screen.

Tomorrow we will do a math placement assessment and go over some of the program procedures - townhouse, rating system, and such. We will also introduce Google Classroom. Yep ... we are catching up in the technology arena. The plan is to introduce web based learning into some of our classes. As the students and staff become more familiar with the new service, we will integrate more on-line resources into our learning.

We will continue to use JupiterGrades for communicating grades with parents and school districts. If you need access to JupiterGrades, contact Mr. Eck - kurteeck@pathtochange.org.

2015 Rocket Derby

School Supplies via Amazon for 2015/16

http://amzn.com/sl/1WNCRD2235SMU