Thanks to our fantastic music teacher, Mrs. Vaughn, our fifth graders had the opportunity to see the documentary Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings yesterday. This was a special schools-only screening through the Riverrun Film Festival, after which, we got a special Q & A session with director Tadashi Nakamura.

This was a perfect supplement to our curriculum, which lead to great discussions once we returned to school!

As we discussed, a great documentary can make any topic exciting, as when you watch a great documentary, the film makers' passion for the subject really shines through. We discussed how a documentary is a research project, and how the steps that Mr. Nakamura described in gathering and then whittling down footage for the film directly mirror the students' steps in developing their Teaching Academy presentations.

This film was especially appropriate because the kids have been playing ukulele with Mrs. Vaughn in music class, so they are aware of the instrument's limitations. We were all AMAZED at what Mr. Shimabukuro can do with this seemingly simple instrument! If you are not familiar with his work (I know I wasn't before the film screening), check out his website to learn more: http://jakeshimabukuro.com/home/

Mrs. Gottschalk and I are hoping to check him out in concert on June 8 in Durham. I thought I might pass that information along (the upcoming tour dates are listed on the website).

Again, this was a FANTASTIC experience. I am so grateful to Mrs. Vaughn and Mrs. McKim with the Riverrun festival for offering us this FREE film screening. I am also very proud of our kids - they were such a mature and mannerly audience. It was a pleasure to attend this film with them!

Kids, what was your favorite part of the documentary?

Our Spring Break Visit to Baton Rouge!

Hey guys!

I hope you've been having a great Spring Break! Or, for those of you not reading until after the break, I hope you HAD a great Spring Break!

As I am writing, it is a chilly, gloomy day here in Winston - we even saw some SNOW! That's very different from the weather we saw in Baton Rouge. The reasons for this relate directly to our Mystery Class studies.
This week's posting is going to be a guess - the - place sort of post. I'm going to give you details - half these facts are about Winston-Salem, NC, and the other half relate to Baton Rouge. You will determine which are our hometown of Winston-Salem and which are Baton Rouge. Some you may already know or be able to figure out from process of elimination. Only a few will require any research.

Lastly, for a bonus: Which photos found throughout this blog post are images from Baton Rouge? Which are images of our hometown? How can you tell?


1. Latitude and longitude: 30° 27' 2" N / 91° 9' 15" W

2. Latitude and longitude: 36° 5' 59" N / 80° 14' 39" W

3. Climate: subtropical

4. Climate: temperate


5. Biome: deciduous forest

6. Biome: wetlands

7. This city is known for Quakers and Moravians.

8. . This city is known for Acadians, commonly known as Cajuns.

9. This city is found on out nation's second largest river.

10. This city is located in the foothills of an isolated mountain range with unusual rock formations.








A few distance estimations and calculations before we are done:

1. Raja travelled to New York City over Spring Break. Allie travelled to Orlando, Florida. Who was further from Winston-Salem, Raja, Allie or me?

2. Who was closer to me, Raja or Allie? Which girl was farther from my location?

3. Our return flights from New Orleans to Charlotte were just slightly shorter than our trips down (flying from Charlotte to New Orleans). Mr. Taylor and I had a great discussion about what the possible reasons for this might be. Use the weather maps and links below to see if you can develop some ideas about why this happened:




http://hint.fm/wind/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/wind-map-video_n_1390149.html

The answers for this blog post are due Friday, April 19. You will write your answers on the sheet given to you in class BUT I would also like for you  to post one REALLY COOL thing you did or experienced over Spring Break.