This week is final projects week for the units. The kids put together a presentation pretending they were paleontologists needing funding for an expedition. They did a great job explaining fossils, what can be learned from them, and discussing how to test rocks and minerals to discover what kind they are. We had one minor mishap with the computer and a lost file, but they persevered, redid the presentation, and were able to move past the upset.
They both finished Holes last week, and we watched the movie last night. It was fun discussing the differences between the book and the movie. We felt like overall, they did a good job with the movie. Their final project for this is to design a camp that might actually help boys in trouble. It was very interesting to see their extremely different approaches! Aiden decided that if he made things so terrible, the boys would never want to come back, and would stop doing bad things. Zoë felt like most of the boys just needed to have some fun and a structured routine.
The neatest thing about the Holes final project to me was being able to discuss what motivates people to do good. I was able to ask lots of questions about why people choose to make good decisions, and how there are always more than one perspective on stories. I enjoyed watching and listening to Aiden work through his thoughts about the camp he was designing. In the end he decided that he needed a mixture of reward and punishment included in his camp. It was an excellent opportunity to discuss how best to motivate people to make good choices while trying to understand the grayness of perspective. And they thought they were just reading a good book...
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