Rubber Plant

This is a picture of a rubber plant. The ancient Maya created the first rubber ball out of its milky white sap.They created the ball to play an ancient Maya ball game modeled after an Olmec ball game.

In the classroom

Photos of Mayan artifacts

This is a variety of Mayan objects

The Ancient Maya

     The 5/6 team has been doing an interesting unit on the ancient Maya.
     We have been learning about everything, from the rainforest, to Mayan math, to the ancient Mayan ball game. It has been an exciting and fun-filled unit.
     On Thursday, October 27, the 5/6 team is taking a field trip to Harvard University, which is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We will be visiting the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology. We will also be visiting the Museum of Natural History. We are going to study their extensive collections of Mayan artifacts.
     Around October 30th, the team will be creating our own museum on the Maya. Everybody will choose a topic, and we will research that topic. Then, when everyone is finished studying, we will make an exhibit for everyone to see.

Reading the Odyssey

We began reading about the journey of Odysseus in two groups and versions. Ms. Klein's group read a version by Bernard Evslin while Bernadette's group read a version written in multiple parts by Mary Pope Osborne. We read this exciting tale of the brave and talented Odysseus and then wrote a five paragraph essay. The essay was about our favorite character or why we thought the story of The Odyssey has lasted so long. This we did in school. While out of school we worked on making a project conveying something from The Odyssey.

Below are a couple of different projects.

Malcolm's Map

Alex's Diorama of Scylla and Charybdis

Mount Olympus Day!

Mount Olympus Day was the day that the class dressed as the god or goddess that they picked and studied. We spent the afternoon eating Greek foods and playing games. We ate Greek olives, figs, pomegranate, Persephone's Dream cookies, and almond cookies. At assembly each student shared a brief introduction about themselves.
Here is the list of gods and goddesses we chose to become:

                    

Aphrodite- Piper

Apollo- Henry

Ares- Jayden

Artemis- Sage

Athena- Sadie

Chiron- Sebastian

Demeter- Simone

Dionysus- Alex

Hades- Aidan

Hekatonkheires- Dylan

Heracles- Austin

Hermes- Malcolm

Hestia- Isola

Pan- Shannon

Persephone- Evelyn

Poseidon- Arun

Promethius- Chase

Zeus- Hunter

Chariot Racing in Gym

In gym our class has been working on the ancient Greek Olympics. We've done foot racing, arm and leg wrestling, standing long jump, discus, and chariot racing. For the chariot racing we used rugs and harnesses  that Mrs. Taylor got for an Iditarod reenactment and we had one rider and four or five "horses". We were in four city-state teams, Sparta, Athens, Corinth, and Argos.

 The winning team from the first race was the
Corinthians.