Spring has Sprung

At last spring is here and the Falcon's Nest students continue to produce new ideas and creations. We have had recent presentations on Benjamin Franklin and the History of the Soccer Ball. Some of the kids have been exploring online tools that may help them organize and present future projects. They have discovered Remember the Milk an organizational tool, Prezi for interactive presentations and Timetoast to create time lines. We also have been looking at some of the amazing tools Google makes available for creating websites, research and sharing information. It is so much fun to explore technology with the Nesters because they are so adept at navigating the web and so open to trying new things.

Theo Jansen Creation

Inventions and Presentations

This past week the Nesters watched a short video about artist/engineer Theo Jansen who makes kinetic sculptures of creatures out of lemonade bottles and plastic tubing. Mr. Jansen's work bridges art, science, and engineering. We then spent some time designing inventions of our own. Some kids made functional objects designed to send messages and ease laundry chores while others created beautiful sculptures to please the eye. The Nesters regularly combine areas of study in creating their projects. We have had some presentations this past week that combined sculpting and academics. One student studied the history and architecture of the Tower of Pisa and another Nester presented a full scale model of a person made out of recycled materials. It is always so much fun to see the kids translate their academic studies into a creative product. And the creativity is bubbling over at the moment in the Nest. Zach is writing and performing a song based upon a sports figure he has been studying, another student is choreographing a dance, Laura is making a video highlighting the many talents of the HES student body, and Stephanie is designed and building a model of a house. The Nest is an exciting place to be!

Snow

The last few weeks have been trying to even the most avid snow lover. In between snow days the Nesters have continued to work on their projects. We have had a few more projects shared and once again the range of topics is amazing. In the past few weeks Nesters have completed projects on The 39 Clues book series, chem trails, and mummies! I hope this will be a full week of school with plenty of opportunity for the Nesters to make progress on their terrific projects and do some creative group activities. We will see if the weather cooperates! Also, keep an eye out for FN progress reports that will be coming in the kids report cards.

2011

Happy New Year. We are welcoming a few new students to the Nest this month. I love to see our group expand and absorb new people and ideas. The Nesters are remarkably open and supporative of each other. We will continue to do group activities on Wednesdays and individual projects the other schedule periods. The Falcon's Nest kicked off the new year by watching a terrific video of eleven year old Birke Baehr presenting his research on our food system. This video is part of the TED speakers series http://www.ted.com/. If you get a chance to check it out I think you will be impressed with Birke and the many other speakers. I wanted the Nesters to see the video and discuss Birke's remarkable presentation skills. He demonstrated a mastery of both his subject matter and presentation. As I told the Nesters I have great confidence in each of their abilities to research, organize and present their work just as effectively as Birke did. The possibilites for 2011 are endless!