Blue Zone

If you are 14 or older please go to the following site to sign up for the Blue Zone.
Blue Zone sign-up

Causes of the Revolution Game Board

Today you should finish "For Crown or Colony" as well as the hand-out from yesterday.  Make sure your drawing of the Boston Massacre shows that you either believe the event was the fault of the soldiers or the fault of the crowd.
When finished, you will begin making a board game.  You may work with a partner, or you may work alone.  On the back of the game board you should write all of the rules for your game.  Any game pieces or cards should be made of tag board.
All of the following events/laws should be in chronological order and must include dates. The game should be colorful and should reflect your knowledge of causes of the American Revolution.

Battle of Lexington
Declaratory Act

Stamp Act                 
Boston Tea Party
Townsend Act
Sugar Act
Proclamation of 1763
Quartering
Intolerable Acts
Boston Massacre
Tea Act
Declaration of Independence

Ideas for blank spaces:
tarred and feathered
importation
Sons of Liberty
propaganda
indentured servant
committees of correspondence
smuggling
hanged in effigy
liberty tea
boycott
Daughters of Liberty
minuteman
apprentice
master craftsman
redcoat
Parliament
loyalist
patriot

For Crown or Colony: Part 4- Boston Massacre

1.  Finish Part 4

Click here to log in 
2.  Complete the hand-out
      a.  Read each of the four accounts of the Boston Massacre
      b.  Describe what you saw as Nat Wheeler
      c.  Answer all of the questions
      d.  Complete the engraving of the Boston Massacre
3.  Finish Part 5 of   "For Crown or Colony?"
4.  Finish the Epilogue
5. Go to last week's blog entries to find vocabulary games to play

                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                         

MAP Testing Today

Today and tomorrow, our district will be testing all students in eighth grade.  Rather than Social Studies, students will take a computer generated test called MAP.

MAP (Measure of Academic Performance) is used to measure a student's progress or growth in school.  They are important to teachers because they let teachers know where a student's strengths are and if help is needed in any specific areas.  Teachers use this information to help them guide instruction in the classroom.

If you have ever used a growth chart in your home to show how much your child has grown from one year to the next, this will help you understand the scale MAP uses to measure your child's academic progress.  Called the RIT scale (Rasch unIT), it is an equal-interval scale much like feet and inches on a yardstick.  It is used to chart your child's academic growth from year to year.  RIT scores typically start at the 140 to 190 level in 3rd grade and progress to the 240 to 300 level by high school.

Part 3 Writing Prompts

Writing Prompts: 
1)  Pick one of the writing prompts below then share your answers with me on the Google Document you shared with me yesterday. 
2)  When you are finished, go to Tween Tribune on the right side of this blog.  Find three stories that interest you.  For each story, write a one paragraph summary- include your personal thoughts on the story.  Make sure you include the title, author and date of each story you choose to write about.  These three paragraph/reflections should be written on the same Google Document as the writing prompts from today and yesterday.
3)  Go to State Challenge  -start on Beginner and make your way to Master Geographer.
 DESTROYING A MESSAGE: If you see a message posted in public and you don’t like it, is it
okay to destroy it? Would your answer change depending on the content of the message? What
would you do in the following situations? (Explain your reasoning.)
a. You see a sign saying that a sports team that you really don’t like is the best team ever.
b. You see a message or symbol (such as a swastika or a racial or ethnic slur) that is offensive to you or others.
c. You see a poster for a political candidate whose views you oppose.
d. You see a sign posted in a public space that has mean things written specifically about you.

DELIVERING A MESSAGE:  Nat is asked to deliver a message to Paul Revere, but is stopped
by a redcoat who wants the message. What would you do if someone wanted to take a message
away from you? What would you do in the following situations?:
a. Your mom has given you a note asking your teacher for permission for you to miss school
tomorrow so that you can go to an amusement park to celebrate your birthday. Another
student stops you and asks you to give her your note. What do you do? Explain why.
b. A student passes you a note and the teacher comes over and asks for you to give him the
note. What do you do? Explain your reasoning
c. You have written a love letter to another student. On the way to give the note to the student,
a bully stops you in the hall and asks for the note. What do you do? Explain why.

For Crown or Colony: Part 3

Complete this writing prompt activity on a Google doc and share with me.

A CHILD DIES. Think about what you already know about the death of Christopher Seider.

Now imagine this similar, contemporary situation: a group of adults go to protest a dealership
that sells imported cars in your neighborhood. The protesters feel that when imports are made

available, fewer American cars will be sold, and so fewer American workers will have jobs.                 A group of boys you know from school passes by. It looks like fun, so they join the protest. An
angry man appears on the scene and yells at everyone to go home. The protesters hoot and boo
and ignore him, but some of the boys laugh and throw rocks at the man. His wife, who is with
him, gets hit. This angers him. He goes into a building. The boys throw rocks at the windows
and break them. Suddenly, the man appears at one of the windows, points a shotgun at the
crowd and fires. One of your schoolmates is shot, and he later dies.

A.   Think about this for a few minutes: Whose fault is it? The owner of the dealership? The
protesters? The group of boys? The angry man? The man’s wife? The boy who got
shot? Explain your reasoning. If you feel more than one person is at fault, explain your
thinking about that.

B.   Do you feel that a crime has been committed, or that this was just a terrible accident?
Explain why.

C.   If the person who died had been an adult, would this seem as sad? If it was a girl? If it
was a man in his nineties? Explain your reasoning.

Today, if you have finished Nat's second letter home and you have finished part 2, you may go on to part 3 Login .  When you are finished, you have a Jumbled word puzzle to complete.  When the Jumbled Word Puzzle is complete, play 2 of the Java Games (there are four games, do not play flash cards).  When you have beaten Crown or Colony Battleship on medium or hard, you may go back to For Crown or Colony and play parts 1,2, or 3 (if you make different decisions, you can change the story!) but do not play part 4.
Jumbled Word Puzzle
Java Games
Crown or Colony Battleship

For Crown or Colony?: Part 2

Today we will complete part 2 of Mission US: For Crown or Colony?
Log into the site just as you did yesterday.  When finished, you should complete Nat's second letter home- it is a pop-up letter so you will find it is much easier!  

Nat's second letter home

When you finish the letter, you may play Battleship
Battleship

For Crown or Colony: Part One

Yesterday students began playing Mission US: For Crown or Colony?  Each student became a printer's apprentice and negotiated an indenture contract to sign.  Today, we will experience 18th century Boston as a newspaper apprentice.
Click here to play part one:  Login page

When you have finished part one today, click on the following link to write Nat's letter home to his Mother and Father. 
Nat's Letter
When you have finished, make sure I can see you were successful!
Click here to play vocabulary games:  Part 1 vocabulary games

Today's vocabulary words found in the game:
apprentice
master (this one is used twice in the letter)
patriot
contract
merchant
redcoat
artisan
journeyman
slave
freedman
slavery
printer
Seven years' War

For Crown or Colony?

Over the next two weeks we will be studying causes of the American Revolution. To study the Revolution, we will use a revolutionary tool called  "For Crown or Glory".

"For Crown or Glory" is a multimedia project created by Mission US.  It features free interactive adventure games set in Pre-Revolutionary Boston. The online adventure puts the player in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a 14-year-old printer's apprentice in 1770 Boston. As Nat navigates the city and completes tasks, he encounters a spectrum of people living and working there when tensions mount before the Boston Massacre. Ultimately, as the player, you will determine Nat's fate by deciding where his loyalties lie.

Click here to register for the game:  For Crown or Glory

The Last of the Mohicans

Today we will begin watching the film "The Last of the Mohicans". based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper.  The story is set in 18th century North America in the third year of the French and Indian War.  The story has many themes, we will concentrate on the recurring theme of Hawkeye's (the hero) struggle to belong in an Indian world as a white man- or perhaps as an Indian in a white man's world.  Similarly, colonists of the time found themselves something other English, and not yet uniquely American.

No assignment, just discussion

The Thirteen Colonies

Students who need to finish the Pilgrim Economics assignment should do so.  Everyone else will begin a Thirteen Colonies map. The map can be found at the following link:  Thirteen Colonies Map
Other than today, we will not spend time in class completing the map.  It should be turned in sometime between now and Friday.
The map can be printed from the above link.  You should label the following colonies, rivers and lakes:

New York
Connecticut
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Virginia
Massachusetts
Delaware
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Georgia
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Lake Superior
Lake Erie
Lake Michigan
Lake Ontario
Lake Huron
Ohio River
Delaware River
Hudson River
Mississippi River
Potomac River
St. Lawrence River

Pilgrims Continued

Finish the assignment given yesterday.  Click on the link below to watch a History Channel video about the Mayflower Pilgrims.
Deconstructing the Mayflower

Pilgrim Economics

One major aspect of Social Studies is the study of Economics.  Economic issues have played a major role throughout the course of history and are responsible for altering many historic events.  It is important to look at the role of economic issues to further understand the events of the past.  It is also important to understand the economic lessons of the past to avoid the same pitfalls in the future.  The following activity deals with the Pilgrims and gives us a valuable lesson in economics for both the present and the future.

If you are at home today, click on the following link, copy to a google doc, answer the questions and share with me.
Pilgrim Economics

Chapter 4 Vocabulary

Chapter 4 Vocabulary: sections 1-3

Due Friday, October 7 

As you read about each person, place, or item below, keep this question in mind:  Why did people choose to leave their homelands for the New World?

 

Section1: pg. 92-97

headright
indentured servants
planters
John Smith
Pocahontas
Powhatan Confederacy
John Rolfe
Nathaniel Bacon

Section 2:  98-102

sect
immigrants
Puritans
Separatists
Pilgrims
William Bradford
Mayflower Compact
Squanto

Section 3:  103-108

dissenters
covenant
Great Migration
John Winthrop
Thomas Hooker
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
Roger Williams
Anne Hutchinson
Salem Witch Trials

Early English Settlement Map

Today, we are filling out a map for early English colonization.  Map Link
Use the following map pages in your textbook to find the following items: pg. 11, 95, 106, 112, 117, A3

Jamestown
James River
Chesapeake Bay
Hudson River
Plymouth (1620)
Lake Ontario
Connecticut River
Lake Erie
Lake Huron
Cape Cod
Appalachian Mountains
Atlantic Ocean
Delaware River
Potomac River
Roanoke

Tribes: use the empty box at the bottom of the map to create a key for the five tribes
Wampanoag
Delaware
Powhatan
Iroquois
Narraganset

Answer the following questions:
1.  Based on your map, which tribes would the Plymouth colony be most likely to come into contact?
2.  The Jamestown settlement?
3.  Which tribes lived near the Appalachian Mountains?
4.  In which present-day states would you find Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth?

The Columbian Exchange

Today students will study the Columbian Exchange.  The assignment can be found in the textbook on pages 56-59.
Food Crops:  pg. 56-57  Answer Geography Skills questions #1-5
Livestock:  Pg 58-59   Answer Geography Skills questions #1-3 (pg. 58), and Geography Skills questions #1-2 (pg. 59)

These ten questions are due tomorrow at the beginning of the period.