Sept 28, 2012 Question of the Week

This weeks question was....What is your favorite app/video game?  This one got tons of answers!  And now I know what my next game will be....

Sept 28, 2012 Current Events

Since today was a 1/2 day we had shortened class periods so we were just able to get through the student current events presentations which were awesome!

If you would like to check out CNN student news the link is over to the right.

We will spend time finishing up our Glogster ads on Monday but they will be due by the end of the class period on Monday.  So if you have a lot to do on your glog you might want to work on it this weekend....

Have a great weekend!

Sept 27, 2012 More Glogster...

Two big Happy Birthday's go out today....first to Mr. Fullerton!

Nicely done 2nd hour :)

Our next birthday shoutout goes to Google!  Google is 14 today!  Where would we be without you...

Strange news today came from Emily.  It was about an artist who bakes bread, hollows out the inside, and creates electronic devices that can later be eaten!  The creations include alarm clocks, computer mice, radios...imagine waking up, shutting off your alarm clock, and then eating it!  Sign me up for that...

Today in class we continued to work on our prehistoric animal ads.  They are looking amazing!  I am so impressed with every one's creativeness and focus while working on this!  Below is an example of an ad created by Cade.

If you have any questions on the project or have any Glogster issues shoot me a comment or an e-mail!  We will continue to work on this in class, but all final projects are due by the end of class on Monday!  Remember tomorrow is a half day, have a great night!

Sept 26, 2012 Glogster

Today we went over how to use Glogster and the requirements for the prehistoric animal project.  The project instructions can be found here.  On those instructions there is a link to Glogster and a link to instructions on how to use Glogster.

We had some major technical difficulties with the computers so we did not get as far as I hoped we would!  We will continue working on these tomorrow!  Don't forget to bring your animal notes sheet with you to class tomorrow!  Have a good night!

Sept 25, 2012 Project Introduction

Today's strange news was.....the Packer game!!  Really refs!  We also had some legite strange news...it was a video of some dolphins playing volleyball with jellyfish!  Ouch.

We finished taking notes on our prehistoric animals and then we discussed our upcoming project.  Students will need to create an ad for their assigned animal trying to get someone to adopt their prehistoric animal as a pet.  They will be similar to a Humane Society ad!  Certain information will need to be included which can be found on the project instruction sheet.  This sheet was also e-mailed to you, so you can find it in your "Shared with Me" folder on Drive as well.  You will be using Glogster to complete this project and we will model how to use this in class tomorrow.  Here is an instructional sheet as well for Glogster.  The idea behind this project is to get creative!  Think outside of the box!  While still learning real information.

Tomorrow in class we will begin working on this project and will model how to use Glogster.  No homework!  Have a great night!

Sept 24, 2012 Prehistoric Animals!

Homework: Complete animal notes sheet on your assigned prehistoric animal using this Prehistoric Animal Website

Strange news today came from Kori.  It was an inspiring video of a one-legged soccer player scoring a goal.  It was awesome!  Thanks Kori!

Today in class we started discussing prehistoric animals!  We opened by checking out this collection of pictures called Beasts in the Streets!  Just for fun :)  Each student was assigned a prehistoric animal that they will use for an upcoming project which will be discussed in more detail tomorrow.  We went through each animals basic statistics using this prehistoric animal website.  Students were to take down the information presented on the website, on this notes sheet for their animal.

Tomorrow we will discuss the upcoming project in more detail and go over the requirements.

Sept 21, 2012 Question of the Week

This week's question was....If you wrote a song about yourself, what would it be called?

Sept 21, 2012 Current Events

Let me say I was SO impressed with this weeks current events!  The stories were so interesting!  Below is an example of part of Quinn's presentation he created for an article he read about bringing back the Woolly Mammoth!  Scientists in Russia discovered a complete Woolly Mammoth preserved in ice.  They believe the remains may still have have a living DNA cell, so they are hoping to recreate the species.  So Amazing!



Sara also showed us an awesome new invention called the Popinator!  You say "Pop" and it sends a piece of popcorn flying towards your mouth.  Definitely want one of those!

 

We took our vocab quiz today which seemed to go very well for everyone!  A lot of you used the study tools in yesterday's post which was awesome!

We finished up class with CNN Student News.

Monday is Packer apparel day so wear your favorite Packer gear!  Have a good weekend!

Sept 21, 2012 Study and Review!

Homework: Study for vocab quiz tomorrow! 

Ok.  There is a lot I want to include in this post!  We opened our class with news....I don't know that I would call it strange, more informative.  It was about the science of procrastination.  Below is the video:



Here is the link to the article

Definitely a good read/watch for anyone but especially those that are feeling overwhelmed about middle school!

We also did what I would call a very strange!  But totally awesome activity/social experiment today.  We "laugh bombed" some classrooms!  To laugh bomb is to silently walk into another classroom and then to suddenly burst out laughing!  Hysterically laughing!  For as long as you can!  Laughing is so good for us and we need to do it more!  We just wanted to take a couple minutes to do a really positive thing and get everyone feeling amazing!  Try it at home!  Here is a video on the thought behind "Laugh Clubs"




Now we can FINALLY get to Social Studies!  Today in class we reviewed for our vocab quiz tomorrow! The words to know are: History, Prehistory, Archaeologist, Geography, Oral Traditions, Fossil, and Artifact.

We used Quizlet to help us review which is an online tool to create flashcards that you can study off of.  Once created you can play games with the flashcards or complete practice tests to help you study!  Here is a link to our set of vocab words.  Or see them below:


5th hour did not see this set since my smartboard was being tempermental!  But as they reminded me....yes they had to remind me....there are bigger problems in the world than my smartboard being down :) So we improvised and they played a review game where they had to describe the vocab word in their hand without using the actual word to find the other kids in the class that had the same word on their paper.  It ended up being an amazing way to review for a test!  Something that we will definitely use in the future!

Tomorrow we will take our vocab quiz, watch student presentations of current events, and CNN student news!

Now I finally am done writing at you!  For now...

Sept 19, 2012 More Archaeology

We opened up class with strange news sent by Brenden, and it was a tearjerker!  A dog has sat vigil over his owner's grave for six years!  He leaves the site occasionally but is there everyday, for the majority of the day.  The strangest part was that no one knew how the dog found the grave since he had never been to the cemetery.  He just showed up there one day...spooky!  But really does it get any sweeter than that!  Thanks Brenden!

We then checked our vocab sheets to make sure all of the words were completed and added two more to complete our list.  Today we added artifact and fossil.  The difference between these two is that an artifact is man made and a fossil is the remains or imprint of a living thing.  We expanded our knowledge of this with a Bill Nye the Science Guy video.

There will be a vocab quiz on Friday, but we will review tomorrow!  There is no homework so have a great night!

Sept 18, 2012 Archeology & Geography

Homework: Finish vocab sheet

Thanks for all of the wonderful questions about Otzi!  If you have not yet commented with a question, make sure you do so as soon as possible.

Today in class we opened with strange news sent by Madisen.  It was about a man that called 911 because he wanted his tacos!  The drive-through would not serve him since he was walking through on foot, and so he decided that lack of tacos was emergency enough to call 911!  I mean I love a taco as much as the next guy but come on....definitely strange!

We spent time discussing the questions students posted with partners and small groups and then shared the different pictures people drew to help remember the vocabulary words from yesterday.  It was really helpful to hear others ideas for pictures, you guys are so creative!

We finished up reading section 1 today which discussed some of the ways archaeologists discover information about ancient civilizations and how geography helps them with this.  The vocabulary words we learned today were archaeologist, oral traditions, and geography.  So to complete the homework tonight you should have all five vocab words on your sheet, their definitions, and a picture to go along with each.

Here are some examples of completed vocab sheets....

 

September 17, 2012 The Ancient World

Homework: 

• Post a comment to this post with a question that you have about Otzi the frozen iceman.  Just anything you might want to know about or are curious about in regards to him. 
• Finish the pictures on your vocab sheet for the key terms History and Prehistory

Today we finally dove into our textbook!  We did a book tour with students and talked about where they could find everything in their book (index, glossary, gazetteer, etc).  We also talked about how previewing chapters and doing the pre-reading exercises (reading the key terms, looking at pictures, making predictions, etc) would help them understand the material better and practice good reading strategies!

In our book we began reading section 1 of chapter 1, The beginnings of Human Society.  The chapter opened by discussing a frozen iceman that was found in the Alps.  It talked about how scientists used clues to make inferences about his life.  For example, his clothes were finely stitched so they assume his community included people that were skilled in sewing.  It also talked about the weapons that were found with his body.

This section had two key terms that we covered today.  History: The written and other recorded events of people and Prehistory: The time before history (period of time before writing was invented)

Our strange news today came from Kylee, who sent me a link to an article from the Time for Kids website about how scientists believe Jupiter has been saving Earth from asteroids headed toward us!  Since Jupiter's magnetic pull is so strong, asteroids on a path towards Earth end up getting sucked in to the giant planet and hitting there instead.  Thanks Jupiter!

Don't forget to post your comment!

Question of The Week

Every week I put up a new question on one of the whiteboards in my room.  Throughout the week students jot down their thoughts and by Friday the board is packed!  I think it will be a great way to get to know everyone and spark up conversations between students.  This weeks question was

What's your favorite activity to do for fun?

Some answers we got were: Wiffle Ball Party's (love this idea!), Travel (Fancy!), Cross country, football (a lot of these!), Soccer, Chill, hang with friends...the list goes on!  Thanks everyone for filling it out!

  

Sept 14, 2012 Current Events!

First things first....QUIZ!  We took our first quiz today.  Everyone's behavior during the quiz was FANTASTIC!  So thanks everyone for being so awesome!   If you were absent yesterday, I sent you home with the study guide for the weekend and you will take the quiz on Monday.

Once the quiz was done we jumped right into our current events presentation.  They were great!  Everyone was super creative with the presentation styles, we had a prezi, a glogster, a powerpoint with a video (See images below)...it was great!  Just remember, eye contact and volume!  You want to make sure that you are talking to your audience, not the smartboard, and that we can hear you in the back of the room.  Way to go to those brave souls who went first though!  

We finished up with CNN Student News.  Some highlights....sugary drinks larger than 16 oz. were banned in New York City....that stirred up some debate!  A new species of monkey was found and updates in the upcoming election was covered among other things.  The link to today's video can be found under Helpful Links to the right. 

There is no homework, have a great weekend!

Current Events presentations....

   

Sept 13, 2012 Review Time!

We started off class with some strange news sent to me by Jacob.  In honor of the Olympics held in London this summer an artist/engineer built a double decker bus with two enormous red arms coming out the sides.  The arms are wired to do push ups, so the whole bus raises up and down and groans like a person!  It was awesome!  Thanks Jacob!

Today in class we spent time reviewing for tomorrow's quiz!  The quiz will cover labeling the 7 continents and 4 oceans, the equator and prime meridian, and the four hemispheres.  Study your study guides!

We played an awesome review game in class, unfortunately it is a smart board document so I haven't yet figured out a way to get it up on the blog, but feel free to peruse games from yesterdays post to help you review.

We did come up with a few mnemonic devices to help remember the names of the continents....

Never Sew Eating Apple Acorns At Aeropostale
Never Ever Say Anything About Auntie Andrea
Nearly Every Adult Should Add Additional Allowances
Never Stare Eagerly At An Anxious Adder
Never Sing Eating Antique Apples And Artichokes

Here is a link  to the presentation in class that has the continents and oceans labeled, as well as the continent and ocean rap!

Happy Studying!

Sept 12, 2012 Continents, Hemispheres, Oceans, Oh My!

As I told you in class, don't panic....there is a quiz on Friday.  DON'T PANIC!

The quiz on Friday will be on the continents, oceans, and hemispheres.  We went over all of this information in class today, we will review it again tomorrow, and you will complete a study guide, so everyone will do great!  Below are the links from our smartboard lesson today to some geography sites that you can use to review, practice, or just play games on!

Geography Links (World Online)
Web Geography for Kids
Equator and Prime Meridian
Geography Games

A couple of you were still having trouble or forgot to sign up for a Current Event date so make sure you do that tonight if you have not yet!  (Instructions in posts below)

Natalie sent me our strange news today.  It was about a house in Bulgaria that was shaped like a giant rainbow snail!  Because of its shape it is apparently extremely environmentally friendly....go figure!

Everyone was really into the 9/11 memorial video so my cousin also sent me a picture of the tribute lights that they put on every year on September 11th.  Pretty sweet!

We talked in class about coming up with a mnemonic device to help remember all of the different continents using the letters NSEAAA (for North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, and Africa)  2nd hour came up with Never Sing Eating Antique Apples And Artichokes.  Can you think of any good ones??  Comment if you come up with any!

Sept 11, 2012 Latitude Longitude

Homework: 

• Check e-mail, make sure you received the "Shared Current Event Template" and the shared calendar.  Sign up for a current event date on the calendar
• Latitude and Longitude Worksheet

Figuring out where we are in the world continued today with more study into latitude and longitude...

We reviewed the concept of latitude and longitude on the smartboard and watched a video from Brainpop about it.

I modeled to the students how they would go about getting onto their calendars and signing up for a date but if you need a review, the instructions are in the post below!  Helpful hint: It will probably be a good idea to set yourself a reminder in your calendar for the Monday before your Current Events is due.  Example: If your current event is due on Sept. 21st, click on the 17th and create an event that says "Current Event due Friday".  Click Edit Event and set the reminder to e-mail you.  DEFINITELY write it in your agenda as well the date it is due

Our strange news came from Madisen today who e-mailed me a link to an awesome article about a grandmother who was being sued for painting her granddaughters playhouse pink....the homeowners association did not approve of the shade of pink so they are suing!  Definitely strange news...thanks Madisen!

Finally....since today is September 11th, we discussed that a little bit in class.  Here is a short, but still cool, video of the new memorial from my cousin Mike that works in New York City...

  

Sept. 10, 2012 Themes of Geography Continued

Homework: Check your e-mail and make sure you received the shared Current Events Template and Calendar.  Using the calendar sign up for a date for your Current Events Project.

Happy Monday!  Today in class we finished up discussing the Five Themes of Geography.  We talked about Place, Region, Movement, and Human-Environment Interaction and what the difference is between those.  We also talked about the different tools that geographers use and why they are important.

Have you ever been on Google Earth and looked up your address?  Try checking it out!  One of the students in 5th hour said that she had been on Google Earth earlier that week and had "climbed Mount Everest".  Not for real!  But by using the satellite and camera images they provide you can see what it looks like to climb Mount Everest!

Now, the homework tonight was to sign up for a date for your current events project.  There was some confusion on how to do that.  Here's some help....

What you need to do is open up the calendar I shared with you.  It will be called Ms. Blaney Social Studies (the hour you have it).  When the calendar is open look at any Friday.  It should say Current Events.  Click on that event and hit "Edit Event".  Once in the edit screen, add your name to the title of the event.

So when you are done the event should now read "Current Events: Your name".  If someone else has already signed up for that date put a comma after their name and add your name after theirs.  There can only be three people per Friday.  If three people are already signed up for your date you must pick a different date.  We need three people to sign up for this Friday and then every Friday until Nov. 30th.  Nov 30th is the last week you can sign up.  

If you are having problems with this, leave a comment!

Sept 7, 2012 What's up world?

Today's class was all about current events.  We started class by watching today's CNN Student News.  A link to this can always be found on the right hand side of the blog under helpful links.  This is an awesome quick rundown of current events happening around the world that is super kid friendly and engaging.

This was also a great segue into discussing our current events project for class!   Throughout the year students will need to present current event articles for class.  Right now I will have a sign up sheet for the first trimester and will then have them re-sign up when trimester 2 begins.  The template for the current events article write-up can be found here as well as under Helpful Links to the right.  Essentially, you will need to find a current events article present a one paragraph summary of the article and a one paragraph personal reaction.  The presentation method is TOTALLY UP TO YOU!  Be creative and have fun with it!  Think about what you would like to see if you were watching a presentation!

Since I have no shame.....attached are the example videos I created for you of a BAD presentation, and a better presentation.  While the better presentation gives a good summary of the article and is more professional, DEFINITELY feel free to jazz yours up and make it more exciting!

So there is no homework this weekend except to keep your ears to the pavement for interesting news stories!

EXAMPLES OF CURRENT EVENTS PRESENTATIONS

Bad presentation.....


Better presentation.....

Sept 6, 2012 Geography!

Where in the world are we??

Today's class focused on the 5 Themes of Geography, which are Location, Region, Place, Movement, and Human-Environment Interaction.  But before I delve into that good stuff, we opened up with of course an odd news story.  Today's search  came up with an article from USA Today about a man whose teeth had rotted out of his mouth because his orthodontist had left his braces on for 11 YEARS! Longer than some of you guys have been alive!  There was some gagging, but overall it sparked some interesting discussions!

Back to geography.  While this year in social studies we will be covering ancient civilizations we wanted to start out the year with some review of important background knowledge students would need throughout this class.  Today we got through the first theme of geography which is location, or where is it?  Location deals specifically with:

• Cardinal Directions (N, S, E, W)
• Intermediate Directions (NW, NE, SW, SE)
• Latitude: Distance N or S of the equator, measured in degrees.  Think of climbing a ladder, you can only go up or down
•  
• Longitude: Distance E or W of the prime meridian, measured in degrees.
• 

And finally....

• Hemispheres: The equator divides the Earth into the Northern hemisphere and the Southern hemisphere, while the prime meridian divides the Earth into the Western and Eastern hemispheres

We practiced figuring out which hemisphere different countries and oceans were in, and as we found out you can be in more than one hemisphere at a time!

Tomorrow in class we will discuss current events and when you will be presenting them!

Sept 5, 2012 One more intro....

Hear anything strange in the news today?

I opened class today with a couple of strange news stories, which I will likely start doing most days from here on out since it was a hit.  As we discussed in class today, students will be presenting current events articles throughout the year so I decided to present some "current events" articles to begin class...The first article involved a missing woman that joined the search party for herself.  The second story was about a woman that was arrested four times in a 26 hour period for playing her music too loud.  Not a good day for the ladies!  These amusing stories sparked a great discussion about recent news stories students had seen or read about.  

Students then completed a notecard about themselves that I will use throughout the year to call on students, make groups, pick "volunteers", etc.  Finally, since we only had time for a very short icebreaker yesterday we played the game 2 truths and a lie, where students write 3 things about themselves (one being false) and the other kids have to guess which one is the lie.  It was a great way to get to know everyone and the kids practiced working in small groups.

Tomorrow we will begin discussing and learning about the 5 Themes of Geography.

First Day of School!

If you are reading this....it means you have survived the first day of school!  Congratulations!  Today in class we went over what supplies you would need to bring to class everyday and did some fun icebreakers.

What you need to bring to Social Studies class everyday:

• Agenda
• Social Studies Notebook
• Social Studies Folder
• Writing utensil

Some interesting facts I learned about students....

• Two of my students have Russian tortoises' 
• One of my students has a black belt in karate...watch out 5th hour!
• A lot of you went on much cooler vacations than I did this summer!

By the time we went over the supplies and got to know everyone a little it was time to head out.  Hopefully the rest of the year goes as well as the first day went today!  Thanks everyone for being so polite and friendly!