WEEK OF JANUARY 6, 2014

Monday and Tuesday, Jan 6 & 7

NO CLASSES

Wednesday, Jan 8

We reviewed feedback that students provided to Miss B about first semester teaching and learning practices. 
Prep for using laptops. Laptop issues logged, updates on programs. See the following list - NOTICE! Not all apps will need to be updated by all students. If the icon for the app is not there - don't worry about it. 
Open Self Service and update/install the following Apps:
Self Service refresh DO THIS ONE FIRST
Google Earth Install
Inspiration 9.1 Install
Java 45
Adobe Flash

Thursday, Jan 9, 2014

• Finish any updates from yesterday
  
• Students find where new Mission Logbook is located on Miss 's Website
  
• TCI accounts - make sure students remember their login and that they have access
  
• Create folder for Aztec & Inca Quest in Google Drive within Time Traveler’s chest
  
• On their vocabulary page, add NEW SECTION at the bottom of the page beneath all the other words: Aztec and Inca Unit Terms
• Add the word, civilization

Friday, Jan 10, 2014

Intro: Recognize that The Maya Unit is “over” but just like in math, we are building on previous knowledge because it is all like one big puzzle. The Maya unit is one piece of the puzzle. Also, we are still learning about Ancient Americans. We will study the Aztec, the Inca and some of the North American Indian nations.

Quick review in class. 
Take two minutes to write a list of all the things you can think of that the Maya have in common with us. Students will share their list to be compiled into one list by Miss B.

RECAP OF WHAT WE LEARNED DURING THE MAYA UNIT:
Skills:

• How to organize and save our files/work in Google Drive
  
• How to use a collaborative tool like Google docs for everyone to write on and share at once
  
• How to organize information using a visual mapping tool - Inspiration
  
• Used geographic tools like Google Earth and maps
  
• How to observe - Google Earth, artifacts
  
• How to hypothesize - make educated guesses
  
• Locate specific information with Google Search/images

Content:

• How the Maya lived
  
• Their social structure - Social Pyramid
  
• Daily practices such as appearance, what they ate, what kind of housing they lived in, the types of work they did.
  
• The time period in which they lived and the changes/advances of their civilization over time.
  
• How the geography and climate affected their lives in terms of resources available for food and building etc.
  
• How climate and geography as well as Maya leadership goals influenced the types of structures they built.   Build structures to help manage too much or too little rain which influenced their food and water supply. BIG=POWER!
  
• Their advances in technology: architecture, writing, math, science, arts etc
  

HIstorical Thinking Skills:

• Understand that knowing the source of information is as important as knowing the information which helps to assure that the information we are working with is accurate. Remember this idea was in our Essential question: How did the Maya live and how do we know?
  
• Learned about different kinds of evidence. We especially looked at physical evidence during the Maya unit. We found out that we can use information acquired from physical evidence such as old ruins and artifacts from the efforts of archaeologists. We rely on the physical evidence to either add to what written records are available or when written records are not available. for example - lack of codices.

CONTINUE WITH CIVILIZATION DISCUSSION
When we compare what the Maya had in common with us, what we are doing is comparing civilizations.
Add the word civilization to your Time Traveler’s Terms if you have not already done so. 
Find a definition of civilization. We will compare definitions.