Ancient Civilizations World Tour

Spontaneous Problem: Name things that shine.
Boundary Breaker: Which smells better, a rotten egg, or a sweet skunk?

Springing from the cultural universals we discovered last week, students were able to act as time travelers stopping off at Ancient Egypt for a view of the pyramids, and then on to Ancient China to see the making of the terracotta warriors.  Our next stop was Ancient Greece to walk through the columns of the Parthenon, and finally to Rome for a contest of gladiators in the Colosseum.  Students rotated through our civilization stations to get a glimpse of each culture.  They collected facts and stamped their passports as they selected the civilization that they would like to dig deeper into in their upcoming research project.  As a class we looked at the where and when of each civilization and added them to our timeline.  Students also got to explore online resources to help them make their final choice.  Here are some links if they are interested in further exploration at home.

Ancient Civilizations Maps http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/ca/books/bkf3/imaps/

Ancient Egypt: http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html

Discover Ancient Egypt: http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/games/discover-ancient-egypt/

Discover Ancient Egypt: http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/games/discover-ancient-egypt/

Exploring Ancient China: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-china.html

Ancient Greece: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/topics/z87tn39

Guide to Ancient Greece: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-greece.html

Discover Ancient Rome: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-rome.html

Roman Empire: http://www.historyforkids.net/ancient-rome.html

Discover the Romans: http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/games/discover-the-romans/

We also spent some time completing our Chapter 1 math Check-up and completing our first quarter self-assessments.  You will see both of those coming home soon!

Cultural Universals

Spontaneous Problem:  Name things that have an end.
Boundary Breaker: If you could change one thing about our school, what would it be?  How would it help everyone?

In math today we put a twist on our Some Sum game and turned it into Some Difference.  Students were asked to build a subtraction problem with the largest difference from four randomly chosen digit cards.  We added the terms minuend and subtrahend to our math vocabulary and used math talk to explain our strategies.  Students considered if there was more than one way to land on the biggest difference and how the place value of each digit came into play.  We were having such fun that we extended the game one step further to consider the best strategy for landing on a difference that came closest to 20.

As we head into our study of ancient civilizations, we took time today to complete our Shipwrecked game.  Students chose the necessary items for survival and considered basic needs to live and how those needs develop as a society becomes more established.  They saw the progress from finding food, water, and shelter, to creating laws, division of labor, and even recreation.  We read the book Westlandia, by Paul Fleischman to look at Wesley and his journey of creating his own civilization.  This brought to light our nine cultural universals: geography, family, economics, communication, government, recreation, beliefs, education, and resources (food. clothing, shelter).

Some Sum

Spontaneous Problem:  Your feet have become triangles!! What now??
Boundary Breaker: Which is softer- a whisper or a kitten's fur?

Today we had some fun extending our digit game from last week.  Students drew 4 numbers and considered strategies to place them in two addends and build the biggest sum to win.  We got to consider place value, the commutative property, and look at how many different ways we could build the largest sum.  Next week we'll play the game in reverse with subtraction!

Our work this far has lead us through the exploration of our own past, the exploration of South Carolina's past (that we will engage with more at our upcoming field study), and now to the exploration of ancient past- all through the lens of archaeology. We began the kick-off to our study of ancient civilizations by looking at cultural universals in our game Shipwrecked.  Students had to distinguish the most important things for survival in a new society, and how nine basic elements become evident in every culture.  Next week we will finish our game and see how well we did at building our own civilization!

Digit Dilema

Spontaneous Problem:  Animal Rhymes

Boundary Breaker:  Make a simile to complete the sentence...The Past is like _____ because ______.

In our math unit, students competed to build the largest two digit number in our game Card Capers. Students had a tens space and ones space to fill as well as a discard space. When a 0-9 card was turned, they placed the digits one at a time in the space of their choice. without being able to switch and not knowing what the next flip would reveal.  We talked about strategies and the place value of digits affecting their magnitude.  Students were tasked with finding out how many two digit numbers could be created, considering there was only one of each number and zero could not be used in the tens place without resulting in a single digit number.  There was lots of great idea sharing and discussion!  We are continuing to work on expressing our thinking and problem solving in writing that is clear and uses mathematical language.  

We got to finish our archaeology Nearpod project to learn the order of events at a dig site, how it is chosen, and the tools that are used.  We also got to identify some artifacts of our own by playing Arctic Artifacts online.

Students also had a chance to finish their "Where I'm From" poems and complete their Thrively strength assessments!

Archaeology

Spontaneous Problem: Name things you can catch.

Boundary Breaker: After watching the You Can Learn Anything Video, students responded with the idea about learning that struck them the most.

We also added a new element to our morning Morphic Thinking Routine by learning to hunt out patterns in our Set Game tutorial.

Today may have been the best yet!  Our big focus was on Archaeology.  We read the book Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke.  That gave us insights into how archaeology is done. Then students were able to model the organized process by simulating a dig site, dividing it into coordinate squares, excavating, and recording the location of artifacts that were discovered.  Our "dig site" just happened to be a pan of cosmic brownies. 

Here are the key takeaways:

• Archaeologist don't just dig holes, but carefully organized and measured grid squares.
• Most excavated finds look more like trash than treasure.
• Archaeologist work slowly and carefully with small tools that won't damage their finds.
• Careful record keeping is a must.  Knowing where something was found can help explain why it was there and what it was used for.
• An artifact is anything that has been made by man.  
• Midden is ordinary waste from archaic life.
• A feature is archaeological evidence of a place or dwelling.
• All artifacts are carefully bagged and numbered to be taken to the laboratory.
• Carefully mapping your findings in an area helps give a bigger picture of what the space looked like years ago.
• In the lab, artifacts are carefully measured, examined, and tested.  Archaeologists spend more time in a lab than at a dig site.

We also were able to prepare further for our upcoming field study by doing some research and activities using our chromebooks and Nearpod software.  Students build their archaeology vocabulary and knowledge of tools of the trade.  We also took a sneak peek at our field study guides and expectations for the trip.