Wednesday's class

Today both 8-1 and 8-2 attended a drumming class with David Thiaw; please visit his website for further information at http://www.davidthiaw.com/. David Thaiw has been coming to our school for the last several years to work with our grade 8 students. Not only do they learn about drumming but they also cover a wide variety of global events which are related back to the drumming. This is a wonderful opportunity for grade 8 students this week to attend on a daily basis with Mr. Thiaw. On Friday we will be having a presentation in the gym last period of the day.

Aztec Poster Project

For this project students are to make a poster on one aspect of Aztec life. They may work in groups up to 3 people. Some suggestions for posters are:

• Warrior life
• Gods
• Ritual Sacrifice
• Engineering
• Government
• Aztec Calendar
• Sports & Games
• Emperors
• Spanish Conquistadors
• Markets
• Cooking & Eating
• Farming
• Art

Please note:

• The poster must make 10 well thought out points
• Have at least 5 drawn images
• Be in color
• Have a title
• List all group members

*Students will be marked on this listed criteria

Monday's Class

Today 8-2 worked on their Aztec booklets. Students are starting to finish so they will be given one more class to finish their booklets and then they may come in at noon hour or afterschool if they are not finished them.

8-1 watched the Video that they missed on Friday. The link is available on Friday's post.

Tomorrow students will be getting introduced to the Aztec Poster Project.

Thursday's Class

Social 8-2 watched a PBS special called Secrets of the Dead:Aztec Massacre. This video can be viewed online at www.PBS.org just follow the links.

Social 8-1 worked on their Aztec booklets. Next week they will watching the movie and will have one more class to finish their booklets

Monday's class

Today in class we are continuing on our Aztec Book project. Students should be completing 2 books per class.

Next week we have special guest David Thiaw (pronounced Chow) coming to our school to drum, dance, and speak about his worldviews to our grade 8 students. They will be attending his drumming sessions once a day for all of next week. On Friday May 2 we will have a special presentation by David and students will demonstrate what they learned all week. Poor behavior will not be tolerated and students who cannot behave will have alternate assignments on respect provided to them.

Wednesday's Class

Today we continued working on the Aztec booklet project. I have had students request to take their booklet home to work on but I am saying no because I don't want them getting lost and not returned. I have told students if they do want to work on the booklet to download the pages they want to work on from my previous posting. If this is still a concern please email me and I can email you the attachment if you cannot download it. I'm estimating that we will still be working on this project into the middle of next week.

Tuesday's Class

Today students watched the film Engineering an Empire- The Aztecs. It is available at the Calgary Public Library under call letters DVD 909 ENG v.1 They had to write down 20 points from the video and answer the question: How would Mexico be different today if the Spanish had not arrived? This was taken in at the end of class today.

Aztecs Booklet

Students started this project last week. They will continue to work on it this week. The booklet is quite large so if they lose it or require another one they can print it from here:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcbdzc94_19p4brn6ds&hl=en
Or here:
http://www.scribd.com/full/2535739?access_key=key-2e6ax2ayb0apgwnvg7sg
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2535739/Aztec-Book-Assignment

Updates Since Monday

I was away on Monday so I'm updating the blog for this week. B-Thrild is due now! Mapping Assignment is due this Friday April 11. Today we watched a video of Spain and started chapter 7 vocabulary.

Thursday's Class

Today we continued working on B-Thrild (see yesterday). This was the last full class students would have to complete it. It is due Monday April 7.

Students who were finished started on the Mapping Activity.

Wednesday's Class

On Tuesday students wrote their Chapter 6 Japan test. Students who were absent will be writing as soon as they return.

Today we worked on B-Thrild for Chapter 7.
*Please note that there is no sheet for this- students should be filling this out on lined paper

B-Bold Words (17 total)
T & H- Titles and Headings- Titles are in Dark Blue- Headings are in Light Green (Approximately 50 altogether)
R- Read the first paragraph on page 226 and summarize
I- Illustrations- briefly describe pictures, maps, and diagrams (Approximately 30)
L- Last Page- summarize into your own words
D- Discussion questions (write 3 based on what you have read)

Students who were finished early began working on the Mapping assignment for Mexico and Spain. They will be working on this tomorrow and finishing B-Thrild.