Plain black or Eppes blue sweatshirts are for sale for $20 in the morning at school.  This is a great time to buy something for those colder days.

Scholastic Book orders are due on November 10.  You can also order them online using a credit card.  See the link below at Favorite Links.  Each purchase you make brings more books into your child's classroom.

SGA members are preparing shoe boxes for the Homeless Shelter again this year. The items needed are toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, pencils, pens, small notebooks, small trinkets or toys (items that can fit into a shoe box). Their goal is to prepare at least 50 shoe boxes. All classrooms are encouraged to participate. Also, they will accept any empty shoe boxes. The classroom with the most items donated will receive a pizza party. Please help the Homeless Shelter out by donating any items that you can. SGA members will be collecting items until December 11.

Week of November 2, 2009

Blocks One and Two are back in Social Studies for the next two weeks.

Later this week I will explain about projects that the classes will be doing next week.  A few students will be working on National History Day projects.  The rest of the students will be assigned to a group and each group will read and complete a Powerpoint presentation next week on one chapter in the book (Chapters 6-10).  More information will be ready by next Monday, but students will be told which chapter their group will be assigned because they will need to read it over the next weekend and complete a study guide.

Report Cards will go home today.  There are many students that need to reflect on their work habits both in class and at home. I had many folders that were excellent.  All of the work was neatly labeled, answers were in complete and meaningful sentences, and the work was neatly organized in their folder.  Other students turned in their folders late, had incomplete or messy work, did not write in complete sentences, and their work was torn, wadded up, and otherwise not acceptable.  I urge all students to take pride in your work.  Take a few minutes each night and review what we have done in class and complete any unfinished work, rewrite sentences that are grammatically incorrect, rewrite papers that are illegible, etc.  How you present yourself to the public (or a teacher) is important in how you will be valued or evaluated.

Warmups this week will be words from the Swahili language of East Africa.

Monday:

Folders will be returned.  Students should review how their previous work was assessed and think of ways to improve for this new marking period

Lesson today is Chapter 5, Lesson 1.  Students will complete their guided questions and turn them in to the teacher.  They will be returned tomorrow and placed in their SS folder.

There will be a short self-assessment.  Students will record their answers in their folder.  The student will correct their own work as the answers are called out.  These should be reviewed as they are the basis of a quiz on Friday.

Tuesday:

Lesson is Chapter 5, lesson 2.  Again students will have guided questions.  Whatever they do not complete in class will become work to be completed at home.  There is also a short worksheet on the reverse side of their question sheet.  This should be completed.  Both the answers to the guided questions (on lined paper in complete and meaningful sentences) and the worksheet are to be turned in on Wednesday.

Wednesday:

Students should turn in their class work from yesterday and last night’s homework. They will be returned tomorrow and placed in their SS folder.

There will be a short self-assessment.  Students will record their answers in their folder.  The student will correct their own work as the answers are called out.  These should be reviewed as they are the basis of a quiz on Friday.

Students will work in cooperative groups competing in a Game of Mercantalism that should reinforce yesterday’s lesson.

Thursday: 

Class will cover Chapter 5, lesson 3 and students will complete the guided questions on lined paper.  Work will be due at the end of the lesson.

There will be a short self-assessment.  Students will record their answers in their folder.  The student will correct their own work as the answers are called out.  These should be reviewed as they are the basis of a quiz on Friday.

Friday:

There will be a quiz covering the information in Chapter Five. Each night this week I will try to update the new flashcards for the lesson covered that day

I will take time to give an overview of next week’s projects.  I will assign each student a chapter to read over the weekend.  They will be given time in class to start completing a reading guide for their assigned chapter.

On Monday they can decide in their group which lesson or feature in the lesson that they want to focus on for their part of the PowerPoint presentation to the class.

 

Africa Folder:

Warmups: African Proverbs

Chapter 2, lessons 1-3 

Three maps of Africa: Climate, Vegetation, and Population Distribution 

Chapter 3, lessons 1-3

Graphic Organizer of Chapter 3 (lined paper showing East Africa city-states & Zimbabwe and a 2-sided worksheet for NE Africa's ancient civilizations and West African kingdoms) Note: not all of the civilizations were entirely completed, but students should have most of the worksheet at least partially filled out

Africa History Timeline 

Chapter 4, lesson 1, 2, and 3

Notes on films

Chapter 5, lessons 1,2,& 3

 Notes to Parents: 

Students can access the textbook by going to NCJourneys.com.  The user ID is and the password is . NOt being able to access the online textbook, however, is NOT an excuse for not completing an assignment.

I took the liberty of adding the e-mail addresses of those parents for whom I have an e-mail address.  If do not want to receive this e-mail each week, you can select to remove your name from the mailing list.If you would like to get an e-mail letting you know that I have updated this page, please add your e-mail address at the "Notify Me" button on this page. 

Please note that I will plan for 5 lessons each week but often the class will only finish the first 4