Winton Train Guest Speaker - Elly Evans

Thomans Graumann with
Christina Classen and her 2 children,
Jordan and Issac.

Yesterday morning we had the joy of being able to listen to Thomas Graumann about his survival of the Holocaust. Thomas was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He grew up with his mom, dad, younger brother and later his step dad. His family was jewish but they didn’t practice, they only lit the candles at Honoka. When Hitler started his wrath against the Jewish people, Jews were forcibly converted, expelled from more than 
80 cities, and killed.

Hitler’s Plan

• Identify the Jews 
• Isolate them 
• Emigrate them 
• Finally Exterminate the Jews

Jews were killed by shooting, hanging, CO, CO2, and Zyklon B.On November 10th, 1938 when Thomas and his mother were going to a play they saw horrible things happening in the streets. Buildings were being burned, businesses were looted and people were killed. People know this night as “Kristallnacht.” Thomas then spoke about the day that his mother put him on the Winton train that would take him to Scotland. His brother was ill and was going to wait for the train that would come next month. 

When that day came for the next train they found out that there wouldn’t be a train because the borders were sealed. Thomas was safely in Scotland, learning English by then with a good christian family. He started to become a follower of Jesus Christ and taught people to read and write. Thomas was 3rd to last on the final train. His number was 652. He is thankful every day that he could be on that train. 

Thomas has been happily married for 52 years, with his two adopted children and his 10 grandchildren. “I was saved.” Thomas spoke these words as he spoke about how all the remaining family that stayed in Czechoslovakia had been killed in the concentration camps. “If you think a dead Jew is better than a living Jew placed in a Christian home. That’s your problem not mine.” One of Thomas’s favorite quotes is one by Winston Churchill, “Never, Never, Never give up!”

As the last projectile flew, the crowd grew silent. Could it set a new record, or would it be doomed to splat on the ground? It splatted on the ground. However, with 6 teams competing the team of: Matthew Bowden, Logan Linder, Noah Smith, Samuel Beggs, and their team name: "Vulgar and Inappropriate" won, with a stunning distance of 93 feet! All the teams had lots of fun that day, and got to see Mr. Buch bend a piece of solid rebar (Not on purpose). In the future we hope to have more competitions that pit one team's engineering skills against another's. Thank you to all teams and parents who helped with building and getting supplies.

An Upper Classmen's Perspective - John Paul Kreft

I support Mosaic 100%. Having spent time in Mosaic for nearly 4 months I can say what I've seen has impressed me. Granted, in the beginning many students took their opportunity for granted but as time went on, things got better and better. I think what the teachers have done for these students is amazing. 

Allowing a student to apply their knowledge to the real world is invaluable and quite frankly, something I wish I had when I was a freshman. There are a few sophomores in Mosaic who have already completed the majority of their school year and we're only 4 months in, That's pretty impressive. Many people outside Mosaic are under the impression that they kids here do not do anything, but I've seen first hand the exact opposite.

JP Kreft is a senior in the LGC academy whose plans are to attend CU Bolder and study business and marketing.

Introducing the Badges Program - Amanda Kerr

A popular saying among the Mosaic staff is "Work, don't be a jerk". We want students to be using their time in Mosaic to change the world, create something useful or to pursue their interests or passions. Sometimes in order for this to happen, we need to spend some time discovering just what we are interested in or in cultivating skills.

To that end we have introduced the idea of "Purposeful Play" with the creation of the Maker Badges Program. Students were given a rough run down of what the program entails and its purpose and already several student have hopped on board to start adding to their portfolio and earning badges.

Ready, set...FIRE!

Catapult and trebuchet launch will be on Tuesday morning on the athletic field. We begin setting up at 8am and will launch 2 official goes for each of the 5 teams (one or two others might still represent) with 15min reset time in between rounds. Winners will announced in the distance category and recognition for design. Feel free to stop by, tho launches will be recorded so check back here for updates on Wednesday. Good luck to all of our hard learning teams.

Buch's Special Game - Elly Evans

Every Friday during 4th period we all are involved in some team building activity. It’s important for us to start the week on Monday as a Mosaic group and for us to end as a group at the end of Friday. 

Today we have a surprise from Mr. Buch. He has prepared a game where there are two groups and each person  in the circle is handed a picture. The pictures consist of random things or people like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, The President and Mario as well as things like hand cuffs, fire, lotion, the Hollywood sign, a tractor, and a building made out of a shipping crate. 

Each person keeps their picture to themselves. Then we go around and each person speaks for one minute and includes their picture into a group story.

For those of you who don’t know, there is a catapult competition going on right now. Teams must build a catapult to launch a projectile the farthest to win. There are two different categories in the competition, the kit build and the free build. The kit build teams must build a catapult using only materials from a kit provided my Mosaic. The free build teams may use any materials to build their catapult, but it must fit inside a 6’x6’x6’ area. The competition will take place on Tuesday November 25. Get your catapults ready Mosaic!

Lights and sound - Tyler Dice

Tyler Dice wires up a red board.

Engineering is in the air! As electronics kits were handed out today, many students will get the opportunity to work with wiring and coding for the first time. Students, many of which are working in teams, will get to build everything from a button activated light, to a game of "Simon Says". Some students have also been tasked with building their own circuits and programs, and making circuits that accomplish everyday needs. We all are very excited to see what these teams create!

Cultures of Dominance Project - Elly Evans

The 9th graders have started a project where we learn about the Holocaust, Genocides, and creating a campaign that brings attention to pressing matters around the world. We have watched videos, and filled out research tables to deepen our knowledge of what happened during the Holocaust. We also researched the eight stages of Genocide and we had to figure out if a genocide can happen without all eight stages present.

Unity Garden Update - Parker Muck

In mosaic I was given the opportunity to work with my peers on what we call the unity garden. In this project we were tasked with developing a design that best utilizes the space regarding a garden.The materials that were provided to us by Ms. Hill are six planter boxes and $400. Any additions that exceed what is provided is up to the group to provide funding.

In this project I was assigned the position of brokering a deal with the CVHS DECA chapter to receive additional funding for bring the project further. Henceforth, I successfully made a deal to receive a small amount of funding from coffee sales in the Saber Store. Many thanks Mrs. Tiddens and her DECA team for their support!

The next step in this process will be to finalize our design concept presentation and wait for the SSN group to approve our idea.

This project is important to me because school finally contributes to something greater than just a grade this is an opportunity to make a difference in my school community, which I find invaluable in school and even life.

The Space - Jeremy Dortch

Students paint the room with carefully chosen colors
over fall break. All total,  over 40 volunteer hours
went in to painting.

As a group, the space design team had designed the rooms to increase student learning and engagement. Furniture was ordered to match the style and uses of each particular room. The work orders were sent through over fall break, but many of our items were not actually ordered due to the district Risk Management divison. Risk Management did not like that we were ordering rugs, a microwave, barstools and lamps. Risk Management also did not like the vendors that we ordered from, so they did not put any work orders through many vendors such as Ikea. Which we used to maximize our budget.

Parker Muck and I are going to meet with Risk Management to try to convince them to let us order what we want, and to let us order from non-district approved vendors. As a backup plan if that meeting fails, we are meeting with Seth Elliot from Office Scapes to help us design the room and order furniture, as Office Scapes is a district approved vendor. We were not told about the district approved vendors until after we put in the work order, but we are working hard to come up with a compromise. The new deadline for the room design project is January 2015. 

Presentations to Mosaic Partner Chris Cooper

On Thursday, 11 of our students presented their work for our first Mosaic Partner, Chris Cooper, founder of Real Good Writing, a copywriting start-up LLC in Denver.

He asked Mosaic students to create a uniform and appropriate brand for Real Good Writing, including designing a logo and slogan, business cards, invoices, letter heads and website. During this project, Chris met with students several times in the last 6 weeks, starting with an introductory Google Hangout, status update after several weeks and the final presentation. During the presentation, Chris provided oral feedback and questioned each team's decisions and goals.

Each team provided a clear and professional presentation, and Chris was impressed with the quality of the work and with the personal growth in each student from beginning to end.

Each student has been assessed in several English/Language Arts and Art standards in Project Foundry. Some students are still missing one or more writing components, but since Mosaic practices being "time agnostic" and focuses more on skill acquisition and learning, they can still submit that work for feedback and assessment from Michael Schneider.

To complete the project, each student has been asked to complete a self-evaluation in Project Foundry. Once that is complete, each student will receive specific and detailed evaluation and feedback from both Chris and Michael.

Overall, this was a fantastic start to Mosaic's effort to get students to work with and for clients outside the walls of Mosaic and CVHS.

Busy Days in Mosaic, by Elly Evans

Yesterday we had six exchange students from Japan visit Mosaic. We talked to them about Mosaic and what we do, then we played some team building to get to know each other, then we went to #scichat and watched a science video, then we did a simpler “silent chat” with gestures and ASL, last but not least we created artist trading cards and traded them with each other.

Also on Thursday, we had 2 gentleman from CAPS, Center for Advanced Professional Studies, out of Kansas City fly and be in Mosaic for the day while they watched some presentation and seminars throughout the day. We also had business people from within the community come for a social lunch with the people from CAPS, the Mosaic teachers, CV’s principal and some of the Mosaic students. In a continued effort to create some business partnerships and authentic projects for all of us students.

Thursday morning 20 or so students went on a field trip to Clear Sky Elementary to listen to 1st graders present their research on possible jobs for the future. The jobs ranged from butcher, crafter and firefighter, to dog groomer, hair stylist, banker and florist. The presentations were in the forms of posters, songs and videos. The 1st graders enjoyed having the high schoolers there as much as the high schoolers enjoyed listening to the presentations.

Welcome!

The Mosaic is a blog by students for their families and the community. Here you will discover the projects, activities, and reflections that are taking place within the Mosaic space. This will all center around the student perspective. If you are curious to know about the day-to-day events and learning. Please subscribe to the blog and you will receive regular updates to your inbox.