Skip to main content

Week 11: Friday, November 11, 2022

 Welcome: 

The first week of the second quarter has come and gone and this year is cruising along! I'm looking forward to getting to talk to many of you during conferences in a few weeks. This week we watched a great video on not judging others on superficial things like appearances & the importance of standing with the people that often get ignored in life. I hope you take the time to watch the video--it's a great one. 



This Past Week: 

This past week was another week where both the Honor's American History & American History classes did most of the same types of learning activities so the updates are combined here. 
  • Monday: Today was all about introducing our next unit of study--"Manifest Destiny: Surviving & Thriving in the American West." We started by doing a Pear Deck flashcard factory to help introduce some key terms to the unit and then the students watched part of America the Story of Us: Westward.  
  • Tuesday: No School for Students 
  • Wednesday: The students watched two more video segments from America the Story of Us: Westward (Pioneers on the Oregon Trail & the Donner Party) and then started working on ✅ #001-America Expands to the West (the first graded assignment of this quarter). 
  • Thursday: We started today with a "Caption This" type activity. I gave the students an image of the Oregon Trail and asked them to fill out some thought/speech bubbles and to be creative. Finally, we finished America the Story of Us and the students continued to work on  ✅ #001-America Expands to the West (the first graded assignment of this quarter). 
  • Friday: We started class today by playing a Quizizz game on the information we'll discuss next week just to get a baseline for growth. The students then played a Blooket version of the same game before watching our Friday video and taking time to (hopefully) finish  ✅ #001-America Expands to the West 

Next Week:

We'll be diving into the physical growth of our nation in the 19th century this week. The focus for the first part of this quarter will be what people were willing to endure to survive and thrive in the American west. Here are a few of the things we'll be doing next week: 
  • We'll continue to play the Blooket and Quizizz throughout the week to chart growth and mastery of the content. 
  • We'll do some small content bursts about the following topics this week: 
    • The Louisiana Purchase & Lewis & Clark 
    • The Oregon Territory & the Oregon Trail 
    • The Gold Rush 
    • The Construction of the Transcontinental Railroad 
  • The students will do research on the human experience of the following groups through a variety of activities: 
    • Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery 
    • The Settlers on the Oregon Trail 
    • Prospectors on the Gold Rush 
    • Chinese laborers building the Transcontinental Railroad 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 16: Decemberr 9, 2024

Welcome:  This week we welcome the students back from Thanksgiving break and to the month of December! It was a busy week in homeroom as we had a second-step lesson on Wednesday and clubs on Thursday. We've also been busy collecting items for Operation Giving Tree--donations will be accepted through December 11, so please think about helping if you can.  Social Studies (Periods 2, 6, 7 and 8):  This Past Week: #22-Trails West Google Doc: Most of the week was centered on this Google Doc. The students completed four parts to help them gain a better understanding of the lengths to which Americans went in order to survive and thrive in the West in the 19th century.  Part One:  This was a simple chart about the trails that went west that the students completed using content burst videos recorded by Miss Boyd (the Orange Team social studies teacher).  Part Two:  The students then answered a series of questions to help serve as guided research about life on ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week Seven: Friday Ocbtober 13, 2023

Welcome:  And just like that we are finished with the seventh week of school and halfway through October! This past week was a fun one as we celebrated homecoming with a Spirit Week that culminated with some fun in the gym at the end of the day on Friday. Don't forget that we have team spirit wear available and information about the Make a Difference Day food collection on our middle school website.   This week brought another Friday and another opportunity for an inspirational video. This week we watched a video of one of the most inspiring people I've ever seen--Inky Johnson. Inky talks all about belief and overcoming obstacles in this video.  Social Studies (Pd. 1, 5 and 6):  This Past Week:  Monday:  On Monday we finished the episode of America the Story of Us  that we were watching about the American Revolution. The students also picked topics for the Common Craft video portion of the American Revolution Menu and got into groups.  Tuesday: To...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week Six: September 30-October 4

Welcome:  Just like that, we are into the last week of September. I was talking to one of the students in my third-period class about how quickly this year is flying by—we are already one-eighth of the way through it. The students participated in some Spirit Week competitions to help celebrate Homecoming this week and it was great to see so many kids decked out in jerseys, team colors, and, school colors.  I decided to show a quick clip from the movie The Pursuit of Happyness  since we were discussing the Declaration of Independence. The movie is a great movie based on the real-life story of Chris Gardner. We watched a 2-minute clip about the importance of dreams and never letting anyone squash your dreams.  This Past Week:  The Fight Begins: The students used this slide deck to guide them through most of the work they needed to complete this week. I was out on Monday and Tuesday for training from the district so this helped them.  Boston Massacre Writing A...
Post a Comment
Read more