Craig and I reviewed and discussed what occurred at the end of World War II. We learned about Japanese internment and the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. We looked to a short video on History. com and the textbook. We will add new words to the word wall - succession and internment - and complete flashcards in our next class.
Henry worked on the gardening project today. We also began a new behavior chart for math and social studies giving him a reward on Friday of 45 minutes for gardening or other projects he chooses if he earns 10 stickers per week.
Craig and I took a "virtual field trip" to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. We listened to primary sources (about death trains), firsthand accounts, and examined "Some Were Neighbors" and other vaulable resources on the site. We looked at photos and film footage and reflected, asking questions about who was complicit in the crimes agains humanity and war crimes. We looked to an interactive map of Dachau and film footage of Jews moving to the ghetto. We discussed confronting genocide, how this historical period was similar to racial segregation and discrimination in the U.S, and how to prevent it from happening again. We recalled the pyramid of hate. We looked at this last year - from the Anti-Defamation League. We read from the text and examined the reaction by the U.S. to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Finally, we discussed the Neuremberg laws and the post-War trials, convicting Nazis of war crimes. Craig will have an additional week for monologue HOMEWORK.
This afternoon Bobby and I made a quick visit to the new school to water and feed the praying mantis and then returned to the classroom to continue working on his powerpoint presentation. Bobby is approaching this assignment with marginal enthusiasm and I am hoping to give him as much time as possible to get this done.
Henry did a lesson on English and French explorers. He added more faces of explores to his wall and made a timeline of when and where the French and English explorers went to add to his existing timeline. We also began discussing the Columbian exchange and how this affected Native Americans and Europeans.
Arianna played "Count the Money" game on the ipad today. We examined coins and paper money to find the things we learned about in our last class - secrets of money. We discussed earning, spending and saving and goods and services. Arianna matched goods and services. She also completed sentences about Presidents Washington and Lincoln.
Craig and I added new words to his word wall - antisemitism, ghetto, genocide and blitzkrieg. We looked to the text to learn more about Hitler's "Final Solution," the Holocaust, and about the progression of the war. We watched a very short video on History.com about D-Day. I reminded Craig about the HOMEWORK monologue. We will begin to look at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website in our next class.
It was an exciting day today! We began the session by joining our school community for a quick celebration. We celebrated Ms. Judie's birthday and Valentine's Day with a tasty cake and other treats. This was a wonderful opportunity for Jayne to socialize with her new school friends. After the celebration, Jayne continued her study of the Olympics. She viewed a short video of the Olympic games in ancient Greece. After viewing this, she completed a graphic organizer which asked for a good topic sentence, 4 facts and a conclusion. She did a wonderful job. She is very excited about this topic and has enjoyed learning about it.
This morning we labeled our location and Egypt on the map that Danny added to his Mummies in the Morning project. Then, we continued on with our Winter Olympics project. We watched Shaun White's gold medal winning half-pipe snowboarding run from last night. We talked about how hard the athletes work and the pride and joy the feel when they are successful. We applied science terms to the motion of how the snowboard works down the half-pipe. Danny decided he didn't think he'd be able to do that! We updated our medal count for our ten countries that we are following. We did this by searching on the internet and matching the online chart to our list. Danny worked to find the starting letter and match the written word of the country. We looked at who has the most medals by type. Danny also wanted to find our 10 countries on the map again, so we searched and located them as well as South Korea. We read some basic information about Pyeongchang from our packet. Danny then had to recall 4 facts from the reading to fill in a graphic organizer. I read the passage several times and offered two choices to assist Danny in recalling the information. We also read about the stadium and ways people all over the world view the Olympics. Danny then answered questions after hearing the passage again. After lunch, we returned for more social studies which involved the celebration of Ms. Judie’s birthday! The children congregated together to sing and eat birthday cake!
