Today, students wrapped up their mini-unit on Reading Like a Historian with a documentary on the Curse of King Tut's Tomb. Tonight, students should be working on the corroboration essay, The Curse of King Tut's Tomb: Myth or Reality. This essay will be due on Wednesday, October 2.
Today, students took a field trip to the Spurlock Museum to examine three of the ancient cultures we will study this year: Egypt, China, and Greece. The museum's educator, Ms. Sheahan, provided a very informative and engaging program, were students were introduced to Greek play, the Terra Cotta Army of ancient China, and the mummification process of ancient Egypt. Take a moment to ask your students about the trip and what they learned.
This week, our students have been looking at the process of Reading Like a Historian. Within this process, students have learned sourcing, close reading, contextualization, and corroboration. Once students had become familiar with this process, we then challenged them to use this new skill to examine various primary and secondary sources to answer the question, "Was the curse of King Tut's tomb myth or reality?". During this investigation, students worked with various sources of information: written documents, sound recordings, motion pictures, artifacts, maps, and photos. The final product of this mini-unit is an essay in which the students use corroboration to back up their answer to the question of King Tut's Curse, Myth or Reality. The final essay is due on Wednesday, Oct. 2.
Today, we had our first visit from Kim Sheahan, the outreach educator from the Spurlock Musuem. During her first visit, students began developing a working knowledge of the concept of artifacts, and how artifacts can "speak" to us and tell us about the cultures that created them. Students then engaged in an activity that introduced them to different artifacts from the various cultures we will be studying this year.
Today was Constitution Day. We took a break from our regular curriculum to discuss the importance of the Constitution, and how it relates to each of our students' daily lives. Specifically, we analyzed each of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, and explained what they meant in terms of individual rights, and how these rights were important to citizens within our country. Students then ranked these rights in order of most important to least important, and explained why they ranked these rights the way that they did.
Today, students began their look at the process of historical thinking. We talked about how historians go about collecting, analyzing, corroberating, and synthesizing primary sources. We will continue to discuss the topic of historical thinking/reading throughout the course of the year, and we will begin practicing this vital skill as we begin our examinination of the various ancient civilizations of the past.
Today, our students participated in a world geography group challenge, using cultural clues to locate specific countries throughout the world. Overall, the students did very well, and it was quite interesting to see how much they knew about the world. This afternoon, our second group of students attended the Red Tail traveling exhibit at the Chanute Air Museum, and did an outstanding job. No homework was assigned this week
Today, students continued their work with identifying the differences between primary and secondary sources. We did some small group competitions, and all of the students did a great job of recognizing the differences between these sources. Students also began a mapping project that examined the 6 ancient civilizations we will examine this year. There was no homw
Today, my morning classes discussed the significance of September 11, 2001, and spent each class period analyzing various primary sources. In the afternoon, our first group of students attended the Red Tail Tour at the Chanute Air Museum. The overall pressentation was very well done, and our students were fully engaged and extremely interested in the various airplanes at the museum. There was no homework for
Today, students looked at the achievements and legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen. After a series of video clips from the Military Channel's documentary Air Aces: Red Tails, we then discussed our up coming field trip to the Chanute Air Museum. Tomorrow and Friday, students will have the opportunity to see the travel Red Tail exhibit, and see a renovated P-51 Mustang fighter plane that was used by the Tuskegee Airmen. Students were also asked to go home tonight and ask what their parents (or anyone old enough to remember) what they remember about what they were doing when they first heard about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Please share with your students what you remember about that day so that we can discuss those events tomorrow in class.
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Mr. Cain6th Grade Social Studies Teacher - Team Adventurers Archives
October 2013
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