Language Museum

Summer Vacation is just advanced enough for boredom to have set in firmly. That doesn't take long. School ended up in such a busy last two weeks that having nothing to do is weird. The hard part is that school is out but life goes on and the garbage still has to go out every Tuesday night.


At the year end open house, his classroom had a Language Museum that they had been working on all year, from about the 3rd week of school. Some students worked in pairs, some individually.

They researched a language from it's ancient origins to it's current use. Some of the languages are only "used" academically, like Olmec or Ancient Egyptian. Some are old but have changed and moved over their history, influenceing others, like Chinese. Some, like Latin, are in between.
Then here are new languages like Unicode, Morse Code, and Klingon. Developed intentionally for very specifc reasons. So what is a language, really.

At the end of the year, they put together a museum in the classroom. Each language was presented as a museum display, with pictures and artifacts. Here is Joseph with his display on Klingon.

The students made t-shirts with Adinkra designs to sell during the open house as a fundraiser for Great America and Auction prizes.


After that, it was clean up and fun stuff. There was an auction for prizes using the "Bucks" they had earned for things like homework and volunteering to help. Joseph had a lot of bucks and held out until the end when this bike came up. He won it.
Award Ceremonies and 5th grade D.A.R.E. graduation. (Drug and Alcohol Resistnce Education) were followed by a field trip to Great America amusement park. And playing, lots of recess!