Test Wednesday

Short answer/essay questions for Wednesday's test.

What advantages and disadvantages did the British have?

How did the Americans win the war?

What were the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783)?

A "revolution" is defined as a change in the way things are or are run. In what ways was the War for Independence a "revolution" and in what ways was it not?

Week of 25 September

Quiz Results Promising

Wednesday's quiz grades are in the book and are generally good across the board.

Unit Test

We will have a unit test this Wednesday covering the Protestant Reformation and Mercantilism. Most of the readings from this unit have been handed out in class. We will have a massive review session on Tuesday where any missed information will be available.

The New App

The class dojo app debuted this week and we've already seen some dividends. You can learn more about it at https://

www.classdojo.com/

Last unit test of the first 9 weeks!

On Wednesday, We will take our last unit test of the first 9 weeks. This will give us three test grades so far this year. After Wednesday, we will begin reviewing for the 9 weeks exam. I will send out details for that exam next week. Our unit test this Wednesday will cover the Protestant Reformation and Mercantilism. To prepare, students should be able to tell what the Protestant Reformation was, and be able to identify the four main individuals involved

(Martin Luther, Pope Leo X, King Henry VIII of England, and John Calvin) along with their roles in the Reformation.

Students should also be able to identify and discuss mercantilism.

Week of 19 September

Test Last Wednesday Shows Improvement

As grades are coming in, early results show marked improvement over last unit's grades!

Students Take Over New Unit.

This Thursday, we began our new unit on the Protestant Reformation
and Mercantilism. The students have taken the lead in researching and
gathering information on the topics under review. So far we are showing
much progress towards understanding what these topics were all about.
We examined the journal of Fr. Jacques Marquette as he traveled to the
Mississippi River. We also began clustering our information to make it
simpler for our minds to access.

""Un-asked" Questions.

We also discovered that our textbook leaves out some important
information, which give us the opportunity to investigate further. For
example, the textbook tells us that Martin Luther wanted to reform the
Catholic Church, but not why. We learned that John Calvin was an
influential theologian, but nothing of his theology. These questions we
will examine further in the coming days.

Quiz Wednesday

We will have our usual quiz Wednesday to assess how we are doing so far.

New app for next week

I will be using a new app to keep track of classroom management this week called Class Dojo. It is a remarkable app that will allow me to keep up with positive (and negative) class behaviors. You can learn more about it at https://www.classdojo.com/

Class website:
odomnhms.weebly.com

Friday Email: 12 September, 2014

This week we quizzed on Wednesday.  I am still in the process of grading them and should have them completed by close of business on Monday.  Weekly journals have been graded and will be entered into Active Parent on Monday morning.

We are planning on a unit test for Wednesday of this week.  It will cover the same material that was on the quiz (The Crusades, The Renaissance, Columbus and Da Gama's Voyages) in addition to Cortes and Pizarro's conquest of the Aztec and Inca Empires.  

This Thursday and Friday we watched part of the documentary "Guns, Germs and Steel" about the conquest of the Incas. The kids completed a viewing guide in class and we will be going over it briefly on Monday. 

This Monday and Tuesday, we will be covering Spain's North American expeditions and colonies.  I am planning on the kids ranking Spanish expeditions from least to most important as a way to review for the test.  The book readings we are covering include Chapter 1 Section 4 and Chapter 2, sections 1-2.  

Thursday and Friday we will begin a new unit involving the competition between Spain, France, England and the Netherlands for trading rights and territory in North America. 

As always, if you wish to view your child's Canvas Account, you can either sign up for the class as an observer, I can send you their access information, or I can send either an individual grade, or an individual assignment itself.  Please be advised that the average displayed in Canvas is NOT the child's class average.  Their class average is kept in Active Parent and it  is updated weekly.

To get an Active parent account, follow this link:

https://ms4400.activeparent.net/RequestAccountWizard.aspx

Hope you all have a great weekend and I hope your teams all win....unless your team is playing one of my teams. 

In that case, I hope your teams put up a good fight and are noble in defeat! :-)

Week of 8 September

Hello Everyone,

Another week is in the books and we had a good one.


Weekly journals were turned in today, there was no quiz. Grades for the journals will be in Active Parent by Monday afternoon.

We are currently working on a timeline for our unit that will aid us going forward.  We are planning on a quiz for Wednesday.  The quiz will focus on key individuals (Christopher Columbus, Prince Henry the Navigator, Vasco Da Gama) and important things and events (The Silk Road, the Crusades, the Renaissance, the invention of the printing press), as we have been doing a lot of work this week on those items.

Progress Reports will be coming home Thursday, Sept. 11. 

As of now I am planning a video exercise for Thursday and Friday.  The video in question is episode 2 of the National Geographic documentary "Guns Germs and Steel," based on Professor Jared Diamond's book of the same name. The documentary has an excellent explanation and dramatization of Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire.

Moving forward, I am anticipating the second unit test for Wednesday, Sept. 17, so go ahead and mark that (in pencil) on your calendars.

Week of 2 September.

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Unit 1 tests have been graded and input into Active Parent/Student.  Overall, I feel that it went well.  There were some items that we need improvement on and we will get right on those next unit.

If you would like a copy of your child's test, there are several options available.

1. I can send you your child's access information for Canvas and you can log on and view. (You can also sign up for the class yourself as an observer, this will enable you to receive notifications via email or social media).  Sign up is free.

The Canvas site is http://canvas.instructure.com

 

2. I can send you a PDF copy of your child's test via email. 

3. I can print out a hard copy and send it home with your child tomorrow.

If you would, just email me back and let me know which one of these you would like to do, and I will take it from there!

Next week, we are shifting gears to look at Asia, Africa and Europe. The textbook readings will include Sections 3 & 4 from Chapter 1 AND Sections 1 & 2 from Chapter 2. 

We are going to try working in reverse on this unit...starting at the end and working back to the beginning.  I have done this in the past with success and I am really looking forward to integrating new strategies into this unit.

We will have a short quiz on friday, 5 September that will cover vocabulary and basic facts about the unit.  

Have a great day, week, month and year!

TEST Day!

Test site:

https://canvas.instructure.com/

User name/password will be provided in class.

When you get done, visit:

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm

Or

http://www.brainpop.com/search/search.weml?keyword=Social%20Studies%20Games&sections=games

That's it.

Quiz day

Quiz site:

https://canvas.instructure.com/

User name/password will be provided in class.

When you get done, visit:

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm

Or

http://www.brainpop.com/search/search.weml?keyword=Social%20Studies%20Games&sections=games

That's it.

Week of 15 August

What a Week!

-We discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the various theories regarding the origin of the first Americans.

-We read and collectively summarized a Scientific American article about a recent discovery that is bringing more of this subject to light.  Check it out!: http://goo.gl/M9EblA

-We discussed Mayan, Aztec and Inca civilizations and looked for the textbook's descriptions and examples of their cities, science and industries.

-We also discussed Native American imagery and portrayals in popular culture, using this political cartoon as a starting point for discussion:

Next week:  We will be looking at Native American culture groups within what is now the United States.  This will have the students working in pairs to compare and contrast the various groups.

There will also be a quiz this Wednesday. Right now the plan is to give the quiz online via Canvas.  The students will be given a Canvas account and will take the quiz using that platform.  Once the accounts are set up, I will notify everyone and will send out log in information by request and on an individual basis so that parents can see the grades and the quiz itself instantaneously! Technology is a beautiful thing! 

Should there be a situation where setting up Canvas (or a similar software like Coursesites) is not possible (hey, things happen!), a pen and paper version of the quiz will be given that day instead. 

Let's get things started! Unit one is underway!

Great tutorial for geography. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm

We will begin our first unit Monday with a world geography refresher and we will examine theories about when and from where the First Americans came. along with the evidence for these claims.

On tuesday, we will conduct a reading exercise using recent news stories about 

archeological discoveries that shed new light on the early Americas.

 

Wednesday will find us looking at North American geography and the major civilizations that developed.

Thursday will bring us another reading exercise. This time it will involve primary source documents.

Friday will bring us the first of many team assignments. Students will be paired and assigned Native American culture groups to study.

Hold on to your hats! It's gonna be a busy week!

Pre-A.P. Strand: INQUIRY: "Curious" vs. "Nosy"

Inquiry is the skill of asking questions.  Not just any questions, but important, meaningful and relevant questions.  The purpose of teaching this skill is to inspire and nurture curiosity.

Too many adolescents confuse healthy curiosity with being nosy.  Unfortunately, so do many of their parents.

So I thought I might try to differentiate between the two so we we can separate the good from the bad.  The difference lies in the purpose behind each.

Curiosity is a fundamental necessity for learning.  Without it, questions go unasked, problems go unsolved, progress comes to a grinding halt.  The basic purpose of curiosity is foster learning.  Questions lead to other questions with the end result being greater understanding of one's self, one's neighbors, or of a problem or issue.  Curious people tend to become problem-solvers.  Curious people tend to try to help others. Curious people tend to have something of value to offer society.

"Nosiness" is best described as a sort of voyeurism.  You want to know things for cheap thrills or temporary entertainment purposes.  You nose around in someone's business as a means of finding out some salacious details that you can gossip about.  Or you nose around so you can get some sort of sick thrill out of embarrassing or humiliating someone.  It can also be a means of learning as a way to manipulate or control another person.  You nose around in someone's business so that you can use that against them at some later time.  Either way, a nosy person is usually up to no good.

I hope this at least partially clears up the difference between "curious" and "nosy."

History: What it is and why it matters.

Ordinarily, I am supposed to say something like: "History is the study of the human experience," or "history is the story of a journey that began...blah, blah, blah."
But I don't like those definitions.  So came up with my own.

History is a series of conversations that each generation needs to have.

These conversations begin as questions.

How can we know about our past?

What does our past teach us about the present?

How can our past experiences prepare us for the future? 

Most importantly, who gets to decide these things?

When we narrow the focus (as we do in this class) to American history, the questions narrow as well.

What does it mean to be an "American?"

What do "freedom" and "equality" and "justice" really mean, and what happens and how should we proceed if our reality doesn't reflect these definitions?

How do we balance the needs and wants of the many with the rights of the few?

And again: Who gets to decide these things?

The late Howard Zinn once said: "History is important.  If you don't know history, it's like you were born yesterday.  If you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything and you have no way to check up on them."

In short: history is knowledge.

Knowledge is power.

The more power you possess, the less power someone else can have over you, and the more power you have to effect your world in a positive way.

George Orwell said it best: "Who controls the past controls the present. Who controls the present controls the future."

When you win an argument and your opponent won't shut up:

New Website!

 

 

tonyodom.weebly.com

One-stop shopping for all your class material needs