Vice Chairperson Jade

Jade's school has a little micro-colony for the 4th grade, with each class a city. Students have jobs, get checks, go to the bank, have markets, etc. Each "city" is run by the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson, with the help of a treasurer, banker, secretary, and then the rest of the jobs like garbage man, paper-distributor, etc. Jade ran for Vice-Chairperson, made this poster and handouts the night before, (she was sick the day that the rest of the class worked on elections, so she had to hustle). She said everyone liked her drawings, and she won. :)

The 4th-graders also have something called "The University of Learning". They actually earn degrees from Technical all the way to Doctorate. And have a big-to-do graduation ceremony at the end of the school year. They have to put in certain number of hours, do research, and each degree demands more "credit" hours and research. She has to do a thesis and dissertation for her graduate degrees. All students are required to get up to a Bachelors, but Jade wants to go for a Doctorate. She has to write out her plan and get it approved, but from what we are told, those degrees usually take most of the school year. Her doctorate needs to be based on a service project. I told her it would really help me if she read to Joshua throughout the school year. The first night, they had so much fun, they spent 50 mins reading the youth version of Moby Dick. Jade would stop every few sentences and explain what was happening, they both loved it. I doubt once the novelty wears off that they will read for that long, but I told her to shoot for 10-15 mins at a time.

For her Masters, she is going to keep track of how far she swims during swim team this year and trace her distance over Western Europe, learning as much as she can about each place she stops at. My favorite part about this one is that I will get to try all sorts of new recipes from those locations, it will be fun!