Conferences Next Thursday and Friday!

Hi everyone! Guess what!? I am currently in the process of transferring all of my communications from this blog and my class Twitter account into my new class website! You can see the work-in-progress by going to the "Classroom Pages" section of the Paideia website. Our school-wide goal is for this process to be completed by the start of Q2. Here's a quick update: 7th: 7th graders have a map quiz coming up this Friday over countries in Central America; they made up their own Geography Choreography this time and did a GREAT job! I recommend this website as a great study tool: www.ilike2learn.com We finished our novel, The Surrender Tree! We have wrapped up our study of the Spanish Empire and Cuban Independence Movement and have now moved on to studying the Spanish-American War. So far this week we have worked with graphic organizers and the PBS website "Crucible of Empire"; Thursday and Friday we'll watching the documentary that complements this website. By the end of next week we'll be studying the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal. 8th: 8th graders continue to learn about U.S. government; we've been looking pretty closely at the documents that have helped our government evolve over hundreds and thousands of years. We've studied the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, Common Sense, Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Constitution. This week we are looking at Articles 1-3 of the U.S. Constitution, which describe the three branches of government. Soon we'll start reading our first novel of the school year, entitled Year of Impossible Goodbyes, by Sook Nyul Choi. This is a work of historic fiction based on the author's real life experiences; the novel begins in Korea during the Japanese occupation during WW2 and ends with the division of Korea into North and South-- the Soviets in the North, the U.S. in the South and thus the start of the Cold War. Our next unit will be on systems of economics as we prepare to learn about different iterations of the Cold War for the remainder of the school year. DDI tests are already coming up in a few weeks!! Be on the look-out for a Study Guide at least one week in advance of the exam. Please remember that I continue to update my class Twitter account (@MsHoodsHoodlums @twitter.com) with homework and quiz due dates. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, concerns, or constructive feedback! Thanks and take care, Leah Hood

End of Q1, Week 3!

Hello, all! We are off and running! It feels really good to be past the first few days' work of establishing rules and routines and clarifying expectations; last week and this week we have really been delving into content and learning. Feels good :) Here's the summary: 7th Grade: 7th graders had a hugely successful map quiz over countries in the Caribbean; we did Geography Choreography each day to study and the students really enjoyed it. We watched the PBS documentary, When Worlds Collide (2010), and completed a detailed pre, during, and post-viewing film guide. The documentary taught us about the history of the Spanish Empire in Latin America, with particular focus on the exchange of cultures and the Spanish caste system; this gave us really great, solid background knowledge to put into the context the novel that we started reading this week-- The Surrender Tree, by Margarita Engle. The Surrender Tree is a work of historic fiction written in free verse poem form, which reinforces Mrs. Kempf's unit on Poetry in Language Arts! We have already used multiple formats for reading the novel: Monday we read aloud as a whole class and discussed the 5 Elements of Fiction, Tuesday we used the audiobook as we followed along in our reading, and at the end of the week we did Listen-and-Draw activities as well as independent reading. Students have a homework reading packet with related written response questions due next Friday, August 31st; this is meant to deepen students' contextual understanding of the Cuban Independence Movement and Spanish-American War, which the plot of The Surrender Tree traces. Next week we will finish the novel and learn more specifically about the Spanish-American War and the U.S. empire/expansionistic phase. 8th Grade: 8th graders are learning about different types of government! Last week we worked to solidify terms such as "autocracy", "dictatorship", "democracy", "direct democracy", "representative democracy", and "totalitarianism", just to name a few. The students have been very patient in their note-taking :) This week we have been learning more about the early development and influences of U.S. government. We watched some School House Rock clips (which the kids LOVED) and used most of this week to learn about primary source documents such as the Magna Carta, Mayflower Compact, Common Sense, and the Articles of Confederation. Next week we will learn about the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the three branches of government. These topics will probably take us the next two weeks of class time, after which we'll move on to the law-making process and the election process. Students have been learning the state capitals and have their second map quiz of the year next Friday, August 31st; they also have a homework assignment due the 31st, which covers democracy in Ancient Athens as well as the contributions of Enlightenment thinkers to the development of modern democracies. It has been a great start to the year-- the kids are so much fun to be with and they impress me each and every day! Please remember to check my class Twitter account for homework and quiz due dates: @MsHoodsHoodlums @ twitter.com Please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or constructive feedback! Take care, Ms. Hood

Welcome to a new school year!

Welcome to my class blog, 7th & 8th grade students and families! First, I want to apologize for the lack of indentation and spacing in this post; there seems to be a glitch in the system because in my draft the spaces appear, but when I publish the post they go away! I am trying to get help to rectify this annoyance! I am hoping to upgrade to a class website as soon as possible, but until that is finalized, I will continue with this blog. I had a great summer, but it went fast because it was so full! I spent a week at the MAGE Summer Institute at Macalester College in St. Paul (which happens to be where I did my undergrad), played a show with my band, and spent the rest of break traveling with friends and family. I traveled to Boston, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, St. Bart's, Detroit Lakes, and Vancouver! So definitely a whirlwind, but very, very fun. I hope you all had an enjoyable summer, too. I really believe that Social Studies as a discipline empowers individuals to be engaged, conscientious citizens in our democracy and aware, informed, empathetic members of the global community. To me, Social Studies is fundamentally about people and their stories; Social Studies is a place where we take time to analyze how human institutions act upon and are shaped by people; it is a place where we weigh our options and develop our worldview. We have such an archive of stories and examples to help guide us in making the world a more equitable, peaceful, happy place for everyone! Here's an overview of Social Studies this year: 7th Grade: Throughout the school year we will study the time period roughly between the 1890s to the end of WW2 in 1945; a large percentage of that time is spent covering U.S. history, but we do a fair amount of world history, as well. We rely heavily on Upfront magazine to keep us up to speed on current events, and the kids just love this publication every year (so do I!); we will regularly work in geography skills and content (map quizzes are a regular feature), and briefly touch upon some basics of government and economics as needed to contextualize the history content. I love to use literature in my Social Studies classes (I used to teach a course that combined Language Arts and Social Studies skills into a two hour block), so memoirs and novels will be a big part of our class; I really believe that literature brings the content to life and helps students to connect and empathize with the characters as representations of historic perspectives. I still remember characters and stories from elementary, middle school, and high school! Reading is powerful. We will begin the year briefly reviewing the Gilded Age and European colonialism to give context to our focus unit, "American Imperialism/Expansionism"; under the umbrella of this unit are sub-units such as Cuban Independence and the Spanish-American War. To support this unit we will read the novel The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle, a work of historic fiction written entirely in free verse poetry from the perspectives of six different but related/tangentially related characters; this will support Mrs. Kempf's opening unit in Language Arts about poetry. Later this quarter we will study WW1; as the year progresses we will begin work on a long-term research project; there will also be some opportunities for extra credit reading projects both during the quarter and over breaks. 8th Grade: 8th grade Social Studies continues, more or less, from the point where 7th grade Social Studies leaves off-- with the end of WW2 in 1945. We will spend the first part of this quarter learning about systems of government and economics so that students can meaningfully understand what we will study for almost the remainder of the year-- the Cold War. By the end of the school year we will have learned about the latter half of the 20th century, some units focusing on U.S. history, others on world history. Geography skills will be worked in as often as possible, with an attempt to align the geography content with the history content whenever possible; students will take map quizzes, but not as regularly as in 7th grade. As in my 7th grade Social Studies classes we will read lots of great literature in 8th grade Social Studies! Extra credit reading opportunities will be available again, although this year I've decided to allow students to complete extra credit reading and related projects throughout the quarter, as well as during breaks. We won't start reading our first novel in Social Studies until about midterm, but students will read the book Code Talker with Mrs. Kempf in Language Arts; I'm really excited about this because Code Talker is about the Navajo "code talkers" in WW2, which is the unit this year's 8th graders ended on just a few weeks ago at the end of 7th grade Social Studies; we placed the novel here deliberately to maintain the flow of content. After Mrs. Kempf's classes finish reading Code Talker, then we'll begin reading the novel Year of Impossible Goodbyes, by Sook Nyul Choi; this will again flow seamlessly from where Code Talker leaves off! Year of Impossible Goodbyes is a work of historic fiction from a Korean perspective during WW2; the novel begins in Korea under Japanese occupation nearing the end of WW2 and ends with the beginning of the Cold War as it manifested itself in the newly divided Korea-- Soviets in the north, Americans in the South. Later in the quarter we will study the decline of the European colonial system and learn about Indian Independence (i.e. Gandhi), as well as the end of the Apartheid system in South Africa (i.e. Nelson Mandela). Later in the year we'll begin work on a new long-term research project. Mock Congress Elective: Some 7th and 8th graders are scheduled to take Mock Congress with me this year! This is a new course offering at Paideia and will meet once per week, all year. We'll start the year by learning about the legislative process. Once we have a handle on that we'll simulate the Minnesota State Congress, debating and "voting" on bills that are on the floor of the MN House and Senate; then we'll repeat the exercise as though we are the U.S. Congress. Later in the year we'll create our own bills-- all of which are aimed at community service projects-- and pass some into law. (Hopefully we won't have too much gridlock! ;) ). Depending on how much time we have left at the end of the year, we may or may not enter into some comparative politics, where we would look at other legislative systems throughout the world and compare them to our own. I will continue this year to post announcements, reminders, homework due dates, and upcoming quiz dates on my class Twitter account: @MsHoodsHoodlums@twitter.com This is merely one quick, easy tool of communication; it is by no means required of students or their parents/guardians and is not the only (or even the primary) method of communicating. It's just easy and lots of people are already on Twitter, so it's an option. Data Driven Instruction (DDI) quizzes will continue this year; DDI quizzes happen near the end of each quarter and are graded for middle school students. I'm excited to start the year with returning students and families, as well as to meet and get to know new students and families! Please never hesitate to contact me with questions, concerns, and constructive feedback, and thank you in advance for your support! Sincerely, Ms. Leah Hood

Update-- long overdue!! I have been delinquent in updating my blog this month! I'm so sorry. I feel like I've been so busy, focusing each moment on what needs to get done in the next hour... The end of the year is always a bit of a crunch! Here's what we've been up to: 7th: We are learning about WW2 right now in 7th grade Social Studies. We finished up learning about FDR's presidency (e.g. Fireside Chats, the New Deal programs) and transitioned naturally into learning about WW2 (the transition being natural since FDR was president at the start of WW2). So far students have learned about the Axis Powers v. the Allies, and about the worldwide economic depression which contributed to the destitution of the German people leading up to Hitler's climb to power. We have gone over an overview of the war via PowerPoint and a video on United Streaming; students were able to choose in which format they received their intro/overview. We have discussed various world leaders during WW2 and done some work with maps of Axis v. Allied territories during the war. This week we will be learning more about why so many Germans were attracted to Hitler as a political leader, as well as more about the Holocaust. Next week we will be discussing the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the subsequent "internment" of Japanese Americans, U.S. involvement in the war, and the end of the war. (On a somewhat separate note, students have now completed map quizzes over all regions of Africa.) 8th: We have finished our study of the the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and have been focusing on the 1960s and 70s, namely the Vietnam War and the Counterculture Revolution. Students are in the midst of learning about how the Vietnam War began as a part of the "containment" policies with relation to the spread of communism, and the fear that the "Domino Theory" would prove true. To me, this is an exciting unit because of how dynamic and turbulent the 60s were! Students will be reading/listening to excerpts of The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, and watching the documentary 1968. You would all be so impressed if you could hear some of the 8th grade discussions about A Raisin In The Sun!! Very high level. I nearly cried a few times, out of pride :) All 7th and 8th graders have their Independent Country Research Projects due next Thursday, June 7th; there is a 5 Paragraph Essay due, as well as an oral and visual in-class presentation. Additionally, all 7th and 8th graders have their DDI Social Studies quiz this Friday, June 1st! Study Guides have been distributed and there are many, many study activities in Quia. Thanks so much for a great year! I can't believe it's almost over!! -Leah Hood

Week 3, Q4

(Please note: I apologize for the formatting and aesthetics of this post; I have tried repeatedly to correct it but it will not recognize spaces between paragraphs! This has never happened before. Hopefully this issue will resolve itself before my next post. Thanks for your patience.) The Great Depression & The Civil Rights Movement Hello, Paideia families! This week in Social Studies we were pretty much back to normal after MCA testing last week; some students still had to be pulled from classes for make-up testing throughout the week, but other than that we were back to our normal routine. Here's the update: 7th grade: This week we read a few more chapters in our novel about the Great Depression. We are almost (finally!) finished reading The Truth About Sparrows; we hope to finish up with this by the end of next week, when we plan to wrap-up our study of the Great Depression and New Deal. Students watched the PBS documentary Landslide, about the presidency of Herbert Hoover, and completed a film guide aimed at building and assessing comprehension and analysis about the topic. Students used a PBS online timeline and packet of graphic organizers to define and describe terms relating to the Great Depression and New Deal. Students also tested over countries in northwest Africa, such as the Ivory Coast and Senegal. Next week students will pretest over countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and make posters about the Great Depression and New Deal for display in the hallway. Lastly, students received detailed grading rubrics and expectations for their 5-paragraph essays and oral/visual presentations of their independent research, both due June 7th. All weekly research assignments are due Monday, May 7th; these have been assigned weekly since the start of Q3; students have had time in Computers class each week to work on these assignments. 8th grade: We made lots of progress in our learning about the U.S. Civil Rights Movement this week! Students used a PBS online timeline and The History Channel website to define and describe key terms (people and events) of the movement and record their notes in a packet of graphic organizers. Students also worked in pairs to make mini-posters about key people and events in the Civil Rights Movement and we used these posters to create a timeline in the hallway; students then read each others' posters and summarized each term in a packet. We ended the week breaking into two small groups to do some direct instruction about different philosophies within the Civil Rights Movement. Next week we will read the class play, A Raisin in the Sun, readers' theater-style in class, and study music of the Civil Rights Movement. Lastly, students received detailed grading rubrics and expectations for their 5-paragraph essays and oral/visual presentations of their independent research, both due June 7th. All weekly research assignments are due Monday, May 7th; these have been assigned weekly since the start of Q3; students have had time in Computers class each week to work on these assignments. If you have any questions or concerns about your child in Social Studies, please feel free to contact me. We're already approaching midterm! Have a nice weekend, Ms. Hood

MCAs!

Hello, Paideia families!

This week is MCA testing, school-wide, so I only see each group of students two times this week instead of five. During those two class periods, though, we are moving forward in our studies! Here's what we're up to:

7th Grade:
We are now almost finished with the novel, The Truth About Sparrows; some of the predominant themes at this point in the plot are hard work, change, loneliness, friendship, and sacrifice. Woven throughout the novel are interesting little tidbits of information about daily life for Americans impacted by the Great Depression, such as making mattresses using chicken feathers and listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio. Today we read Ch. 18 in class; I read aloud while the students did a "Listen and Draw" activity to create a pictoral summary of events in the chapter.

Also in the past week, we watched a PBS documentary entitled, "Surviving The Dust Bowl", and made a "musical timeline" of Woody Guthrie song lyrics to chronicle the era.

Next week 7th graders will be tested over countries in Northwest Africa, such as Senegal and the Ivory Coast. We will also analyze cartoons from the 1930s as primary sources, recording evidence of, for example, standards of beauty and strength, as well as stereotypes of men and women from the period. We'll continue to study different aspects of the 1930s and 40s until about midterm this quarter, at which point we'll move on to WW2.


8th Grade:
Last week in Social Studies I was sincerely impressed with the students' analysis and discussion of primary sources from the Harlem Renaissance; we looked at paintings, photographs, music, and poetry to examine themes of the movement. I worked directly with the "Paintings" station, and with some prompting cues, students were noticing some very high-level similarities between all the paintings at the station and discussing the literal and figurative meanings of the images!

This week we have continued to look more closely at the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. during the 1950s and 60s. We just started watching excerpts from the PBS series, "Eyes On The Prize"; today's excerpt focused on the murder of Emmett Till. Future excerpts will cover the full spectrum of "classic" Civil Rights Movement people and events, including MLK Jr., Rosa Parks, Freedom Summer, and the Little Rock 9, among others.

Next week we will do a series of lessons looking at "Freedom Songs" from the Civil Rights era; students will analyze song lyrics, messages, and rhythm and draw comparisons to political and social events from the same time period.

Students have a homework assignment due next Friday, April 27th; it is a reading packet over Black history with some comprehension and response questions.

We will continue to study the 1960s and 70s until about midterm, at which point we will shift to finish out the school year studying the 1980s and 90s.


All 7th and 8th grade students have Quia study activities available as supplementary learning activities outside of class; detailed DDI Study Guides for our Q4 units will be distributed next Monday, following MCAs. Also, all 7th and 8th graders continue to make progress in their independent country research projects; this past week their research topic in Computers class was "Free Choice" research. Next week students will research Travel & Leisure in their countries by creating a one-week vacation inside their countries; this will include hotels and restaurants, sports, national parks, arts and entertainment, and historic sites within various countries in the world.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me with questions, concerns, or constructive feedback!

Thanks for reading!

-Ms. Hood

Welcome back to Fourth Quarter!

Welcome back from a beautiful Spring Break!

I hope you all had as restful and enjoyable a break as I did. I often fill my breaks with trainings and travels, but this time I took it easy. It felt really nice. I visited some friends and family in Iowa, but aside from that I just putzed around, really :)

Here's a summary of what we'll be studying during Q4 in Social Studies:

7th Grade:
This quarter in 7th grade Social Studies we'll be concentrating on the 1930s and 1940s. We spent most of last quarter studying U.S. history in the 1920s, covering topics such as Women's Suffrage, Prohibition, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929. We'll start of this new quarter looking at the Dust Bowl, Great Depression, and New Deal; all that will take us up until about midterm. Then the latter half of this last quarter we'll focus on WW2-- an epic topic. We'll look at WW2 from the angles of the European and Pacific theaters, "the homefront" in the U.S., and marginally from "the rest of the world", including places such as Africa and Central and South America (places less directly impacted by the war). We will, of course, learn about the Holocaust during this unit, and will also look at the Japanese internment camps in the U.S.; after we finish up reading The Truth About Sparrows, students will choose from one of four WW2-themed novels and participate in Literature Circles. Book choices include: The Diary of Anne Frank, On Hitler's Mountain, When My Name Was Keoko, and A Farewell to Manzanar.

8th Grade:
This quarter in 8th grade Social Studies we'll be concentrating on the 1960s-80s U.S. and world history. Last quarter we concentrated on the early Cold War in the U.S. and abroad; in Language Arts students read The Red Scarf Girl, which supported our Social Studies unit on Mao's China; in Social Studies we learned a lot about the Soviet Union and McCarthyism in the U.S., and finished off last quarter learning about the Korean War, Bay of Pigs Invasion, and Cuban Missile Crisis.
In this new quarter we'll learn more about the presidencies of JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan; we'll also learn about the Civil Rights Movement (and read A Raisin in the Sun), social activism in the U.S., the Vietnam War, and the Middle East and oil politics. We'll cover topics such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Singing Revolution in the Baltic states, Tiananmen Square, and the Iranian Revolution. We'll get as close to 2012 in history as time allows!

Throughout all of this, all 7th and 8th graders will continue working on their independent country research projects. The weekly research topics and assignments we've been working on since the end of Q2 will be put towards a 5 Paragraph Essay and an oral and visual presentation; both the essay and oral/visual presentation will be due at the very end of the quarter/school year.

Whew! That's a lot, but we'll do our best :)

Please don't forget that I post homework and due dates on my class Twitter account (@MsHoodsHoodlums).

Please always feel free to contact me with questions, concerns, and constructive feedback!

See you next week!

Thanks,
Ms. Hood