The-Almost-End-of-Q1!

Hi all!

Here's a slew of info about the end of this quarter:

1) All 6th-8th grade students will be going to the MN State Capitol on the last day of the quarter! This fits in well with the 8th graders' study of how our government works, and is a great pre-learning activity for the 6th and 7th graders, who will be studying this when they reach 8th grade. We had a phenomenal number of parent/guardian volunteers to be chaperones; unfortunately, I could only take two from each grade level! But a parent made a good suggestion that, in the future, I choose volunteer chaperones by a random lottery drawing, rather than on a first-come, first-serve basis; so I will do that in the future. Thanks so much for all your interest and support!

Please get those permission slips in ASAP! Thank you!


2) Conferences are this Thursday and Friday. I am unable to hold conferences on Thursday evening, but I will be available all day on Friday; if Friday does not work for you, please contact me at school and we will arrange an alternative time to meet. Sorry for any inconvenience!


3) All late/missing/make-up/re-take work is due this Thursday, September 30th. (Teachers have grades due midway through next week, and conferences all day Friday, so it's really difficult to meaningfully grade huge amounts of student work those first few days of the last week.)


4) There is a map quiz in Social Studies on Thursday, September 30th. 7th graders are being tested over Western European countries, to go along with our beginning study of WW1 (which was the major stage of the war); 8th graders are being tested over the map of the world as it appeared during the era of European Colonialism, which goes hand-in-hand with our beginning study of that era in world history.


5) I am starting a "MN Historical Society Club"; once or twice per quarter, I'll choose an historic site in MN, book a tour date and time, and let you all know about it. If you are able to and interested in coming, great! If not, not big deal. You will have to figure out transporation and payment, though, and please make sure all students are accompanied by an adult other than myself. The first of these visits is this Sunday, October 3rd, at the James J. Hill House in St. Paul, at 2:30 PM. There are already about 15 people signed up, and there's plenty more room! Please let me know by Friday, October 1st, if you plan to attend, and how many people will be in your party. Hope to see you there!


Thanks so much for a great quarter!

Enjoy your Fall Break!

Take care,
Leah Hood

The Legislative Draft

We held our Legislative Draft in class today! It went well. Different students volunteered to play the roles of Emcee, Time Keeper, Recorder, and Map Master; students were allowed to dress up for the occasion, and some even took me up on my suggestion to go home last night and (with parent permission) look on youtube for video clips of the NBA Draft for inspiration ;) They seemed to enjoy the opportunity to be out of uniform!

So what this means is that now each student has three U.S. states (or Washington D.C.) to pay attention to for the remainder of this school year; students should be looking specifically to the state legislatures and state media for proposed and passed legislation, and current events stories about environmental issues.

When it comes to the legislative piece, however, we can't really begin until after the upcoming midterm elections and the start of the new legislation sessions! So we will be doing some research about the candidates, and then contacting representatives to solicit their help in keeping us current on proposed legislation about the environment.

If students are eager to get started, at this point they can find articles from their states' media sources that relate to the environment.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. And don't forget to find homework assignments and due dates on Twitter! (MsHoodsHoodlums)

Thanks and take care,
Leah Hood

Midterm Report!

Hello, Paideia families and students!

Here's a little post about where we've been during this first half of the quarter, and where we'll go from now until Fall Break:

7th grade: We are wrapping up our study of "America Becomes a World Power/U.S. Empire/U.S. Imperialism/U.S. Expansionism/The Spanish-American War" (take your pick of labels!). We have a few final lessons and activities before we completely move on to WW1; students should be familiar with the terms, "imperialism", "anti-imperialism", "yellow journalism", "U.S.S. Maine", "reconcentration camps", "Rough Riders", "Anti-Imperialist League", "Platt Amendment", and "Treaty of Paris"; they should also be familiar with President William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Randolph Hearst, General Valeriano Weyler, Jose Marti, Maximo Gomez, and Emilio Aguinaldo. In the next few days we will work to solidify these terms and their relationship to one another.

Once we finish reading, The Surrender Tree, we will begin reading The Kitchen Boy, which is a work of historic fiction set in Russia during the Russian Revolution (which was in the midst of WW1).

Once we move into our study of WW1, we will discuss the origins of and differences between capitalism, communism, and socialism, and how these economic systems have interacted with the governmental systems of democracy and totalitarianism. We will end the quarter studying WW1; students have been prepared for this unit in Language Arts, where they have been reading WW1 related novels for the past few weeks!


8th grade: We have been learning about different systems of rule throughout human history; students have been introduced to concepts and vocabulary such as "popular sovereignty", "autocracy", "democracy", "checks and balances", "separation of powers", "legislative branch", "executive branch", and "judicial branch", among others. I have been using the Frayer Model for vocabulary; we will spend a lot more time developing vocabulary as it relates to U.S. government. (Eventually, there will be a vocab quiz. More information forthcoming...) We will continue our study of U.S. government throughout Q1 and Q2, because I'd like to pair it with the upcoming midterm elections...

But during the latter half of this quarter (starting next week), we will get more into our study of the decline of the European colonial system; this will include studies of the "Scramble for Africa", Apartheid, Partition, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, the Opium War, the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, and the U.S. Empire. Students have been prepared for this unit in Language Arts, where they have been reading, The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck (a Core Knowledge book).


On the long-term-project front, we have used the COW in class a few times now to do some preliminary research for our "Legislative Top 10" lists; the lists will be formally due by next Monday; we will hold the draft on Wednesday, September 22nd! (Students will be allowed an out-of-uniform day, provided they come dressed up, like people do for the NBA Draft :) )


Please note that students have a map quiz tomorrow!

And please follow my tweets (on Twitter) for homework assignments and due dates: MsHoodsHoodlums. Please note: You must have or set up a Twitter account to view my tweets. (www.twitter.com)

Thanks!

Leah Hood

Q1 Resources

Hello to all you adults out there who take care of my students when they are at home!

In case you are interested in some of the books we are working with in class, here are some titles for you to check out:

7th grade: Resistance in Paradise: Rethinking 100 Years of U.S. Involvement in the Caribbean and the Pacific

Simple Verses (by Jose Marti)

Keys to American History: Understanding Our Most Important Historic Documents

8th grade: DK Who's In Charge? How People and Ideas Make the World Go Round

Shh! We're Writing the Constitution

Understanding the Bill of Rights

Keys to American History: Understanding Our Most Important Historic Documents


You can follow assignments and due dates on my class Twitter account at MsHoodsHoodlums; don't forget to study for the Map Quiz on Thursday, September 16th; continue researching U.S. states' legislative records on and agendas for environmental issues for the Legislative Draft; remember that we have a field trip to the Minnesota State Capitol on the last day of Q1!

Thanks for reading!

Leah Hood

Map Quiz #2!

Please note that our second map quiz will be next Thursday, September 16th.

7th graders will be tested over North America and the Caribbean.

8th graders will be tested over the Indian Subcontinent Region.

These map quizzes coincide with our units of historical study; in 7th grade, we are nearing the end of our study of The Spanish-American War/America Becomes a World Power/The American Empire; in 8th grade, we will begin learning about The Decline of the European Colonial System (8th graders have already started reading the Core Knowledge novel, The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, in Language Arts.)

Here are some recommended study tools:

http://www.ilike2learn.com/

http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/


Also, this is new:

I now have a class Twitter account, which is "MsHoodsHoodlums". You can check it for assignments and due dates!

Thanks for reading!
Leah Hood

Legislative Draft Project Update-- "Research & Top 10"

Welcome back, after the Labor Day holiday!
I hope everyone had a nice long weekend-- I had a wonderful time visiting Montana!

Last week, I announced the results of the 7th and 8th grade election (for the Legislative Draft project): Environmental Issues won, and by a pretty large margin!

If you look at the "Overview" that I sent out the second week of school, we are still working under the "Before the Draft" section (on the back of the front page). Today in class, we used the laptop cart to do some preliminary research on U.S. states' involvement in environmental issues. We will have one more day of in-class work time to do research; any further research will have to be done on students' own time, outside of school. Remember, the more you research, the better your Top 10 list will be; the better your Top 10 list is, the better chance you have of drafting a successful Legislative Team; the better your Legislative team, the more likely you will be to win the grand prize at the end of the school year!

Here are some examples of really useful websites for doing your research:

http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/

(Notice the "State Legislature" link near the bottom left... ;) )

You can find this same website for almost every U.S. state!

If you can't find this website for the states you want to research, I recommend exploring the state government portal. For example:

http://ncgov.com/

My goal is for us to have completed The Draft by the end of this quarter; that way we can be ready to go when the 2010/2011 legislative sessions begin!

As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me at Paideia.

Thanks and take care,
Leah Hood

Q1, Week 4

Wow! The time is going fast!

My classes were a bit displaced this week, due to MAP testing in my classroom, but we adjusted and made do; next week should be more back to normal, in that respect.

Today, students took their first graded map quiz; at the start of next week (after Labor Day!), we'll start right in on the pre-test for the second quiz! We're just going to keep rolling, and try to get as much in as possible this year.

I have a fabulous website recommendation for my students and their families alike explore:

http://go-passport.grolier.com/

I will be using this resource in class-- particularly the Pro/Con debates, essay questions, and encyclopedia components. Check it out!


In both 7th and 8th grades, we're about halfway through our first historic fiction novels! I hope for us to finish up with these by mid-term, so that we can move on to a second novel for the latter half of this quarter. I will be doing some formal checks for comprehension next week, and we'll be discussing some of the literary elements found in these books.


Also, a Social Studies related announcement:

All 6th-8th grade students at Paideia will be taking a field trip to the capitol building in St. Paul on the last day of Q1 (Friday, October 8th). We have taken Paideia students on this trip before, and it was great! This fits in well with 8th grade's study of U.S. Government this quarter. More information on this and other field trips forthcoming.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at my school email account: lhood@paideiaacademy.org

I think we have been pretty darn productive so far this quarter!

Thanks,
Leah Hood