Students used their Atlases in class today to begin exploration of Australia. We will continue answering these questions in class tomorrow as many did not have time to finish today. We will then go on to work with maps of this smallest of the seven continents for the remainder of the week.
HOMEWORK: Students have 2 questions to answer in full sentences tonight for homework. #1 – List the states and territories of Australia . #2 – What is the population of the capital city?
Even though many of our cookies looked somewhat like African blobs rather than the African continent, students good heartedly (pun intended) placed a candy heart on the geographic “Heart of Africa” on their cookies. Using blue gel icing, they then added the Nile river, beginning at Lake Victoria and drawing north towards the Mediterranean. Finally, we enjoyed eating these cookies as our culminating activity of our study of Africa. After the long weekend, we will travel across the Indian Ocean to Australia and begin our study of “The Land Down Under”.
No Homework
Students cut out cookies in class today in the shape of the continent of Africa. Tomorrow they will place a red candy heart in the geographic “Heart of Africa” before eating the cookies during a slide show of images from the heart of Africa.
HOMEWORK: Only those of you who having missing assignments have work to do tonight. Let’s get our “Missing Assignments” list down to ZERO!
Thanks to the many great reporters in class today, we enjoyed a news tour all across the continent of Africa. Those students who did not have a chance today to share their current event will be able to do so tomorrow. We will also begin our celebration of our African tour tomorrow with candy hearts placed in the “Heart of Africa”.
HOMEWORK: Find out how far we will have to travel in miles or in kilometers as we leave the East Coast of Africa and arrive at the West coast of Australia. Be sure to include the name of the ocean that we will cross in this journey to the 5th continent on our trip around the Earth.
Students shared appropriate sites such as NYtimes.com with one another for finding current news in Africa. These news articles were then paraphrased and will be shared in class tomorrow. Students will have the opportunity to practice leading their discussion by sharing the news article with a family member at home tonight.
HOMEWORK: Please share/discuss/ talk about the current news that you found in class today about Africa. Make sure that you can share this with the class tomorrow without reading your notes. Get a family member to sign the note that you wrote and put this signed note in our homework folder tomorrow. Eight of you still owe me notes from previous homework assignments, so be responsible about that as well if necessary.
Students learned from each other today as we broke apart the ‘jigsaw’ groups and shared our knowledge as ‘experts’ on one of four topics with new groups. Thank you for all of your hard work on your research of Africa and for your excellent teaching today.
HOMEWORK: No homework tonight unless you have a missing assignment. Twelve students did not bring a note stating that they had taught a family member about their topic of research. Let’s see if we can get the number of missing notes down to zero by tomorrow!
Students worked cooperatively to finish up jigsaw research. Thank you for working so well today even though I was unable to talk due to Laryngitis – you were so helpful. Some students had the opportunity to watch footage from ‘Out of Africa’; the rest of you will be able to do so tomorrow after the vocabulary quiz.
HOMEWORK: Study for your vocabulary quiz tomorrow. There will be 4 fill in the blank sentences. You will then be required to write 4 of your own complete sentences using these vocab words. Remember that the sentence MUST include the meaning of the word in order to receive full credit. Practice writing these out tonight! Vocab words for Africa are: drought, arid , arable, desertification.
Students continued working today with their partners researching topics on education, health care, food availability and availabilty of water for farming and drinking. These ‘experts’ will teach their classmates the information that they have found either Wed or Thursday of this week.
HOMEWORK: Students are to ‘teach’ a family member at home tonight about the topic on Africa from their research group. Student is requested to bring in a signed note stating that he/she has done so. Use this as a discussion time with your family to brainstorm ideas about the poor life expectancy for the majority of African residents.
Students enjoyed ‘The Great Plains’ section of Planet Earth in class today. We recorded the new vocabulary words of ‘the thermals’ and ‘artic tundra’ from the presentation. Who knew that the existance of a plant as simple as grass was life sustaining for millions upon millions of creatures? We will continue this section at the end of next week as a complement to our study of the science of geography.
HOMEWORK: Have a great weekend! Be thinking about next week’s vocab quiz that will be either Wed or Thurs. on our new words: arid, arable, desertification, drought.
Students worked with partners today researching topics related to both Northern and Southern African. Groups will share their findings next week and share with the class information about education and health care in Africa as well as the availability of food and water for use by the people living on that continent.
HOMEWORK: Vocab sentences were returned to students in class today. Many students have corrections to make. These are to be returned in class tomorrow. If you did not have any corrections, you do not have any homework. NINE students are missing ‘old’ homework; let’s get these done!
