letters to my class

December 14, 2012

December 14th, 2012

Dear Achievers,

I enjoyed watching the orchestra concert. You get a nice sound out of your instruments, and you played together nicely. What I’m really excited about is watching the next concert in May because I want to see how much you’ve improved. I know that it will be even better.

This world is starved for greatness. It doesn’t matter the area–it could be violin or guitar or trumpet or athletics or engineering or computer programming or construction or teaching or housecleaning–the world needs more greatness in all of them. Greatness doesn’t just solve the problems of the world (of which we have many). It also allows humans the see the previously unimaginable.

Greatness requires creativity, talent, and hard work. We don’t have much control over the first two, but the last one we do. Greatness comes from the hard work that is lit by the flames of passion. No motivations–not money, fame, or adulation–can match passion for its inspiration power. But passion can only take as as far as the hard work it inspires.

Be great,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 13, 2012

December 13th, 2012

Dear Stewards,

Stewards are people who take care of others by taking care of things. At our school, all of us are stewards. That means we pick up after ourselves, take care of things, and take pride in how our school and classroom looks. Most importantly, stewardship means we use things so they last for other people. Our responsibility is not only to the people in our community right now. We also have a responsibility to those who who will some day be in our school. We need to take care of our school so it’s even better for those people, whomever they may be.

Today, we’ll talk about how we can show stewardship of our classroom and our school, and we’ll talk about how the ethic of stewardship can be carried to other parts of our lives and our world.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 12, 2012

December 12th, 2012

Dear Time Dwellers,

Today the calendar will be full of twelves. At 12:12, both clock and calendar will show only twelves–the twelfth minute of the twelfth hour of the twelfth day of the twelfth month of the twelfth year of the second millenium. That’s a lot of twelves, and it naturally gets us wondering: when was the last time the clock and calendar were full of twelves? When was the last time they were full of any number? When will it happen again?

The answers to these questions don’t really matter (unless you’re a doomsday-er), but by going through the process of figuring them out (and then coming up with more questions), we might just learn something fundamental about the clock, the calendar, and maybe even about time itself.

Also, the number twelve is awesome. Check out twelfths on your fraction-stick chart and revel in all of its equivalent fractions!

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 11, 2012

December 11th, 2012

Dear Number Crunchers,

Today we’ll continue to convert between fractions and decimals. One of the most important things you will learn in math is that there are many meaningful ways to express a number. Depending on what we want to do with that number determines how we express it. Do we want it as a fraction, a decimal, a percent, a sum of prime numbers, prime factorization, etc? Our number system is an amazing thing, and we’re lucky that we get to spend the entire school year learning how it works.

When we play around with numbers and express them in different ways, we start to notice some wild and crazy patterns. In the world of math, those patterns never stop and often reveal even more intricate patterns. We learn about math by playing around with those patterns, trying to find new ones, and thinking about how we can apply those patterns to other parts of life.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 10, 2012

December 9th, 2012

Dear Historians,

Through its exploration and conquest of the Americas following Columbus’s journey, Spain became the most powerful country in the world. Soon, other European countries competed with Spain for power and wealth. This was a time of great change and great opportunity. European settlements began to sprout in the Americas, and the British became a world power. All of these events would shape forever shape American history.

Today, we’ll read about the defeat of the Spanish Armada, one of the most important events in World history. What made it important and how do we still feel its effects today? What important events in our lifetime will students be talking about 300 years from now?

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 6, 2012

December 5th, 2012

Dear Exchangers,

Movement is the way of the world. Currents, prevailing winds, train tracks, roads, flight routes–these are the things that define our world. When things move around our world, they forever change it. We’ve been reading about how radically the world changed following Columbus’s trip to the New World. Both the New World and the Old World changed in ways that we’re still feeling today.

The story of humankind is the story of unknown people meeting, trading goods and ideas (sometimes by force), and then adapting their lives to the new world that their encounters created. That was the story Columbus and the Tainos lived, the story Cortes and Montezuma lived, and it’s the story we’re still living today.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 5, 2012

December 4th, 2012

Dear Performers,

I love playing guitar and singing for people. I like doing it way more than people like listening to it, but I’ve been lucky enough in my life that people put up with it. Even though I’ve spent a lot of time playing my guitar in front of people, I’ve spent way more time practicing it by myself. Performances are just the icing on the cake. The cake is actually baked through practice, practice, practice.

I had a lot of fun watching the choir concert last week. I could tell the choir members worked hard to learn their songs and perform them to the best of their ability. I know the band and orchestra concerts coming up will be just as good. But remember, all you can do on the night of the performance is put the frosting on the cake. If there isn’t much cake, then no amount of frosting can make it satisfying.

Today, we’ll take our Unit 4 test. If you’ve been working hard in class, doing your homework, and taking responsibility for your learning, you just have to put on the frosting today.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 4, 2012

December 3rd, 2012

Dear Historians,

How did we get where we are today? That’s the big question that historians try to answer. As historians we’re not too interested in the why questions. Those questions are too complex and elusive. Many times, we don’t really know why things happened, but with research, insight, and hard work, we can piece together how things happened, even things that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago.

History is never a simple story. The story of Cortes and the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire isn’t the simple story of Spanish power overwhelming the Aztecs. As we read yesterday, some Aztecs joined the Spanish because they were unhappy with Aztec rule. Similarly, not all Spaniards approved of Spain’s conquest of the Americas. Today we’ll read about Bartolome de las Casas, a Spaniard who spoke out against the enslavement and mistreatment of native peoples.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
December 3, 2012

December 3rd, 2012

Dear Reckoners,
Based on what we know, we figure out new things. That’s kind of the foundation of math. First humans started counting things. Perhaps it was how many stone tools they had. In that case, they only had to count up to five or six. Then, they started living in larger groups, and to count people, they needed larger numbers. Then, they started planting wheat, harvesting it, and giving it out to people in their group. This mean that had to take numbers and break them up into parts. Eventually, they decided that just counting numbers didn’t represent everything they needed to represent, so they came up with in-between numbers. We call those fractions, decimals, and percents.

Numbers are powerful things. They run our world. If you want to have a voice in how the world runs, you need to learn how to do things with numbers. It’s really that simple.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck
November 27, 2012

November 26th, 2012

Dear Explorers,
Imagine you’re on a ship that’s sailing into unknown waters. Sailors who have gone this way before have never returned, and there’s a good chance that you won’t either. If you do, however, great riches and fame await. You expect to see things that people from your culture have never seen before. You expect to be amazed (or to die).

What kind of courage does it require to do something that’s never been done before? What kind of person chooses to leave the comfort of their home to explore the dangers on the blank parts of the map? What would tempt a person to risk so much? We’ll read about these explorers’ thirst for riches and fame, but we’ll also learn about the uniquely human urge to do things that were previously thought impossible and to reveal truths about the world that were never imagined.

Happy Exploring,

Mr. Heimbuck