Students continued work today on their travel agency project. We will spend one or two more class periods on this, then begin presentations of our findings next week.
HOMEWORK: No homework as per “The Wheel”. Thank you to the twenty students that turned in their progress report on time. A reminder for the remaining nine students – BRING YOUR SIGNED PROGRESS REPORT TO CLASS TOMORROW PLEASE!
Students began their Australia travel agent projects today in class. Each student started a virtual tour of three locations of their choice. Over the next three days, students will research at least 3 places of interest to visit in each of these locations, then make an oral presentation to the class. Several class members asked if they could make a power point or a travel brochure or a poster. The answer to all of these questions is ‘Yes!’. One might simply make an oral presentation without visual aids which is also perfectly acceptable. We will share these starting next week on Monday.
HOMEWORK: Please share your progress report with your family and get it signed.
The class as a whole today went carefully through their geography binders to get organized as we approach the end of the 3rd quarter. Students noted any missing items as a heads up for things they might need to find or rewrite by next Thursday. We also began to research the square mileage of each of the seven continents so that we could order them from smallest to largest. These research notes will be our last addition to our binders this quarter.
HOMEWORK: Research and choose 3 specific places in Australia that you would enjoy studying the rest of this week in class using your laptop. You will be a travel agent expert and tell us about what we might enjoy doing and seeing in this Australian location.
After completing class notes on Australia in class today, we traveled mountain ranges of the world via Planet Earth. Next week students will continue to explore Australia using Google Earth and other sites.
HOMEWORK: Have a safe and wonderful weekend. Review your class notes for our quiz on Australia that will be done in class at the end of next week.
Students identified the 8 states and territories of Australia on their maps today in class. We also agreed on the most recent population numbers for Canberra. When asked if that was bigger or smaller than our city of Savannah, students asked if they could find that out for an extra credit homework assignment.
HOMEWORK: Only outstanding assignments need to be worked on tonight, so if you are one of the ten people with outstanding work, get that taken care of tonight please! Also note the above mentioned extra credit assignment to compare the most recent census for Savannah and for Canberra to see how our city relates to the capital city of Australia.
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.
