Whoa, it has officially been one month since I saw all of you… 😣
I hope you and your families rested this Spring Break. My break highlights were sleeping in almost everyday, baking (and not burning) muffins and biscuits, and managing to run 4 miles without puking. Whoohoo!
Housekeeping #1 (parents!)
All of us teachers have banded together to create a document where you can find all of your assignments for each class in one spot (instead of checking all the different blogs!). I will post all three grade levels here, for those of you with siblings.
6th grade assignments this week:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ia7q51Wf1KthW78aFRCRvL8SDeomJ-EDXMpjsMgMec/edit?usp=sharing
***7th grade assignments this week:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-PHkKc8heiaWBxrzVFCt8n3833N_NDWzdAV83kmRgyg/edit?usp=sharing
8th grade assignments this week:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LAyCKO30bx35x09WrUVuMN4AyvLt53d0fOxs4g4GueI/edit?usp=sharing
Housekeeping #2: VIDEO CHAT THIS WEEK!
As promised, I am organizing a videochat schedule for this week. This is not required, but I would really love to see your faces!
How it will work:
This time around we will do it by class period through Google Classroom. Depending on how many of you are able to make it, we may combine classes later.
- We will meet for about 15 minutes
- We can discuss the assignment, how quarantine is going, how our spring breaks were etc… this is a check in!
- Parents are welcome to join!
- This is optional
Schedule: Thursday, April 16th!
1st hour: 12:30pm
3rd hour: 1pm
4th hour: 1:30pm
5th hour: 2pm
6th hour: 2:30pm
About 5 minutes before the chat starts, I will post a “nickname” onto Google Classroom that you will use to join the chat. I know many of you have already been using Google Hangouts to do video-calls, but I will post step-by-step instructions on how to join the chat on Thursday.
This Week’s Assignment:
Before spring break we learned about two Greek city-states: Athens and Sparta. You compared the lifestyle and government of both city-states, and then I asked you to choose which you would rather live in. Although it was close, more of you chose Sparta… long live Spartans!
This week we are learning about the Persian Wars!
For about 50 years the Greek city-states united together to fight the largest empire we have learned about yet… the Persian Empire. Check out the map below to see how massive they were.
We’ve already talked about the Persians… do you remember back in the day when we talked about Babylon and translating cuneiform? I showed you this picture…
This carving on a mountain in Iran helped translate cuneiform
The main dude (third person on the left) is Darius the Great, King of the Persian Empire! It was Darius who began the wars with Greece, and his son, Xerxes, who continued the fight.
Some things you should know about the Persian Empire:
- They banished slavery… absolutely NO slavery was allowed in all land controlled by the Persians
- If you were conquered by the Persians, you could keep your king, government, religion, language… everything! They didn’t try to change you or your culture
- If you were conquered, you would have to pay some $$ to the Persian king
- Even if you weren’t Persian, life in the Persian Empire was, overall, pretty good. (I mention this because I do not want you to think that the Persians were “bad” and the Greeks were “good”… they were just very different)
Your assignment is posted in Google Classroom and will be due this Friday, April 17th, by midnight. PRESS SUBMIT. You will watch the following video to help you answer a handful of questions. [Use captions and pause a lot!!]
Remember, I care about what YOU think, not what Google tells you. So make sure to do your own work and use your own words on the assignment.
Really interested in this stuff? (not for the assignment)
The video for the assignment does not go into detail about the battles.
If you wanna know more battle-details, just for your own curiosity (not the assignment), check out this video:
Still want to know more? This is a great video that I would recommend if you want an in-depth look at the causes and effects of the wars.
It also is great for learning about this crazy thing called historical bias. Basically, a lot of the history you hear about is tainted by historians’ opinions and their agenda. This relates to whether a source is reliable or not. Most sources and historians are biased in some way (yes… even I am biased!)
He talks really fast so I would suggest using captions and slowing down the playback speed!
Joke of the Day (no, I didn’t forget!)
What can you never eat for breakfast?
Lunch and dinner!
Have a great day, yall!