Lost Boys of Sudan

Today we watched a bit of the movie "God Grew Tired of Us" which is about the lost Boys of Sudan.  It is a very powerful movie, and the kids were spellbound, for the most part.  We were watching for examples of culture, culture traits, acculturation, and how one's culture changes when one's life is so incredibly altered. They saw that what we take for granted, like running water and electricity, are new and mysterious to people from a different culture.

A few kids will be coming home with an assignment that needs to be "fixed". We did an open-book, fill-in-the-blank assignment over Chapter 3, Section 1 this week.  It was assigned on Tuesday and corrected on Thursday.  If your child did not get a passing grade +12/20, they received a new copy to do over the weekend.  If you would like your child to re-do the assignment, I have extra copies, they just need to ask.

Have a groovy weekend,
Cathy

The Rise of Agriculture

We continued to discuss the impact of development of agriculture on the development of culture.  We watched a power point about the rise of humans, from lives of hunter-gatherers to living in an advance culture; making and using tools, art, and abstract symbols.

The assignment, which is due Wednesday, November 28, is the Quiz on page 5 in the "The World's People" booklet.  Students were instructed to include a page number with each answer.  This is open-book, and I want to make sure books are used.  This will be a graded assignment.

Time was given to work on this assignment in class, however, you may want to ask you student if they have completed the assignment.

Thanks,
Cathy

HOMEWORK!!

Well, Thanksgiving is done, and we are on the downhill slide to Christmas!  Where has the time gone?

 I explained to the kids today that with the start of a new trimester, everyone has an "A" and it will be their responsibility to maintain that wonderful grade.  I have faith in them; I know everyone could have an "A" if they worked hard and turned everything in on time. 

We do have homework today, pages 3 and 4 in our "The World's People" booklet.  This is open book, and I did not ask for page numbers.  In some classes, we completed the flowchart on page 4 together, so if your child "doesn't get it", we will go over it again tomorrow.  A few kids have told me they lost their booklet, and I have no extras.  However, the booklet can now be found on my web page under the title "2012 The World's People". It was posted today, so you can check the date to make sure you are getting the most current edition.

Here is a link to the document; you will need to download and print the booklet:

http://www.lowellschools.com/education/components/docmgr/default.php?sectiondetailid=14736&catfilter=1922#showDoc

Illustrated Vocabulary

The past two days the students have been working to illustrate 13 vocabulary words from Chapter 3, Section 1 in our textbook. The vocabulary words are difficult to illustrate, so the kids really have to think about what each word means.  This is more important than simply memorizing a list of words for a test that will be forgotten after the test is taken. 

I was out of the room on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'm not sure of the progress that has been made. Tomorrow we will be back on track.  I LOVE Chapter 3; it addresses culture and economy.  We will be taking a test over this chapter,but don't worry yet!  We just started the chapter so I have NO time frame. As we get close to taking the test, I will let you know.  We will actually have a project to wrap up the culture and economy concepts, too.

There is no homework, so enjoy the evening.

Cathy