End of the 9 weeks

I have to have all grades in by this Thursday. Last week we took a benchmark test, and the grades have gone back to the students. The average score was a B. If a student is interested in pulling up their grade there are some things they can do. I'm available before and after school for students to get help, and several students have taken advantage of that. I can also pull students out of their Connections classes to work on improving their grades.

For the second 9 weeks, we're beginning with some history. For the next 2 weeks we'll be working on 20th century Europe. This week we're studying how World War I helped cause the Russian Revolution and the rise of Nazism in Germany. Next week we'll be begin with the effects of World War II, and from there we'll go on to the creation of the European Union.

Lots to do next week

Why is most of this world map covered up? Your child should be able to tell you. The history I'll be teaching isn't about memorizing names and dates-instead, its about understanding causes and consequences. One of the challenges for students is that the material they are expected to learn isn't organized in a textbook.

The old vocabulary words important for understanding these causes are Africa, Europe, Asia, Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Iberian Peninsula. The new vocabulary words are impact, exploration, regions, Spain, Portugal, Prince Henry the Navigator, navigation, boats/ships, colonization, land, wealth, natural resources, market, goods, gold/silver, spices, slavery, trade, trade routes, religion, missionaries, Christianity, competition and honor. That's a lot of vocab., especially when the goal is not to memorize definitions, but to understand relationships between vocabulary words.

We started this unit by looking at why and how Europeans explored. Your child should be able to tell you why boats/ships (instead of other methods) were used by Europeans for exploration, which requires them to understand where the continents are, the basic shape of Europe, how much technology has changed in the past 600 years, and the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of transportation. Today we
1. drew a map, or wrote sentences describing, what Europeans knew about the world in 1400,
2. talked about how people make money by buying and selling things,
3. looked at different trade routes from Europe to Asia,
4. began looking at how Prince Henry wanted to find a route to Asia from the
Iberian Peninsula.
On Monday we'll
1. Review Europeans' knowledge of the world in 1400,
2. Review the reason boats/ships were used by Europeans,
3. Review how people can make money buying and selling things, introducing the words
goods and market,
4. Introduce the goods Europeans wanted to get and sell, such as spices,
5. See if the students can figure out why a country would want to colonize another
region,
6. Continue looking at Prince Henry's specific contributions, working on the concept
of navigation and and what exactly
Europeans hoped to get from Asia.
7. Begin predicting the impact of exploration on relationships between European
countries.

There's a lot to learn, and I'm looking forward to it.

Quiz tomorrow + next assignment

We have a quiz tomorrow on European physical features. We took a pre-test today so the students would know exactly how prepared they were and what they needed to study.
If your child says she already knows all of the required physical features and why they are important, please ask her how she did today on the practice quiz. Some of the games at http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/European_Geography.htm do a good job of letting students practice for the water features they need to know, plus additional features for those of you who'd like your child to learn information beyond the standards.

After the quiz tomorrow we'll begin learning about European history. Georgia has decided that our focus is on modern Europe, so we won't be teaching much about Europe before the 1400s. We'll begin with how Europe in 1450 was somewhat isolated geographically, where Europeans wanted to go, why they wanted to go there, and how they planned to get there. As we learn the history we'll also begin learning the countries of Europe.

2nd assignment and grade report

Our second assignment is a bit more challenging than the first. The first assignment required students to learn the locations of continents, including Europe. The second requires them to learn the locations of 11 European physical features: the Rhine river, Danube river, English Channel, Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Alps mountains, Pyrenees mountains, Ural mountains, European Plain, Iberian Peninsula, and Scandinavian Peninsula. In this second assignment students are also expected to begin understanding why these physical features are important-rivers are used for trade, the European Plain is used for farming, the English Channel somewhat isolates the British islands, the Ural mountains are one dividing line between Europe and Asia, etc... We'll have a grade on this in the middle of this week.

If your child has not shown you her graded continents assignment, please ask about it. I've graded all of them, and returned all those except a few without names and one or two others.

The average grade on this first assignment was very high-almost 100-because the students worked very hard. Don't forget that your child can re-do most assignments, including this one, if he makes a low grade.

Rhine map image from

http://www.rollintl.com/roll/rhine.gif

First Graded assignment

We had our first graded assignment today, on the continents.

I'll have it graded and back to the students tomorrow or Thursday, so please be looking for it.
Don't forget that if a student wants to re-do most assignments, they can. This is one of those that can be re-done.

first assignment

We'll be studying Europe, Latin America, Canada, and Australia this year. Its hard to study a place if you can't locate it on a map.

The first assignment is in three parts.

Part one is to learn the locations and general shapes and relative sizes of North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia, and Antarctica. This doesn't mean just labeling them on a map. Students need to recognize the shape when they see it, even if it's "upside down." They should be able to create an accurate map from the continent shapes, like a jigsaw puzzle.

Part two is to identify where Latin America is located, using continent names. This is more difficult for some students, because Latin America is made up of all of one continent and only part of another, and the reason for this is historical/cultural, not just geography.

Part three is to understand what North, East, South and West mean (North isn't always at the top of a map), to understand the location of the Northern and Southern hemispheres, and use the directions and hemispheres to describe the locations of the places we'll be studying.

This assignment should take 3-4 days, as we'll also be dealing with lockers, learning names, class procedures, slow lunches, bus delays, and all the other stuff involved when school begins.

This online game is helpful

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

What are we studying this year?

Clicking on this post's title takes you to the Georgia Department of Education's curriculum for 6th grade. This is what we'll study this year. However, we won't study it in that order. Generally, we'll follow the order suggested by the Georgia Council for the Social Studies, found at
http://www.gcss.net/SixthGrade.doc (opens as a Microsoft Word document)