Week Two: Friday, September 6, 2024

Welcome: 

I simply cannot believe how quickly these past two weeks have gone! We are nine days into school and the students are doing great. They have been learning the new morning routines and bell schedules and it's starting to feel like we never left for summer break. 

This week I showed a quick little video about happiness by Jay Shetty. If you follow anything in the personal growth space you may know that Shetty has come under fire recently as claims that he may have embellished his background have surfaced. I feel that we can all believe whatever we like about him, but the message of this video still stands--it's all about how to be truly happy in life. 

This Past Week: 

• Tuesday: The students came back from their long weekend today and were given time to finish the Week 1 Gameboard before we used MagicSchoolAI to practice using AI to research so we can formulate and defend opinions. The big question for today was "Should we study history or is it a waste of time?" 
• Wednesday: Today was a blend of content and team building as the students played a Blooket to introduce the content we'll be discussing in the coming weeks, completed a team-building activity using notecards and building towers, and finally finished with a quick small-group discussion as to whether or not we should spend time studying history in school. 
• Thursday: We did our first "Content Burst" of the school year today and discussed how the North American continent came to be colonized and the cause and effects of the French & Indian War. We try to keep our direct lecture teaching to quick, 5-6 minute bursts and only to the essential information the students need to know to make sense of the work they will be doing to uncover the history on their own. The students completed a notes sheet called "Somebody Wanted, But, So" in order to make sure they got the key points of the discussion. After playing a quick Blooket, the students were then given the directions for the first graded assignment of the year (✅#10-Unit One Timeline) and time to work on it. 
• Friday: We did another content burst today about the first taxes placed upon the American Colonists by the British. The students then did a Thin Slide activity to help better understand why the American Colonists were upset at paying the taxes--check out this slide deck to see what the students did. Finally, the students had time to continue working on ✅ #10-Unit One Timeline. 

This Upcoming Week: 

• Content Bursts: We'll continue our discussion of the causes of the American Revolution this week as we do some content bursts about the Committees Correspondence, the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, the Boston Massacre, and the colonial methods of protest against British rule. 
• Wizer: The students will complete an assignment on wizer.me to help them understand the difference between primary and secondary sources. We'll constantly be discussing sources and the importance of how we know what we know throughout the year. 
• Boston Massacre: The students will investigate a series of primary and secondary source documents in order to answer the question "who is to blame for the violence on the night of March 5, 1770?" This will be done in class and over a few class periods. 
• Masery Check #1 Coming: We'll also have our first mastery check of the year later next week. The students will answer 10 questions from the content bursts. There are Quizlet flashcards available to the students on the Google Classroom to help them prepare for the check.