Critique of the Painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze

NPR Morning Edition October 28, 2002. This NPR program discusses the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze. We are listening to this after we read the Introduction to Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer.

Guest Speaker in Geography

The students in seventh grade are studying Mexico in geography. Today Mr. Layne brought in a guest speaker, Mrs Salas, to speak on her experiences growing up in Mexico. She shared a folk tale and talked about how as a child she had to carry water from a local creek to her home so they had water. 

World Geography Games

World Geography Games is a website that uses maps to gameify learning places. It is a pretty basic site and it focuses specifically on factual knowledge but if you like learning geography you might like to play this.

Why Do Some Become Famous While Others Do Not?

This essential question is the guide for this lesson. The students will be examining the role of Paul Revere and Joseph Warren from Revere's famous ride to the Battle of Bunker Hill. We will look at what Paul Revere and Joseph Warren contributed to these famous events. 

Here are the links to the media we will use in class along with pages 134-135 in our textbook.

Andy Griffith Lexington and Concord http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3boDX-3iRJg

Lexington and Concord Map http://www.paulreverehouse.org/ride/virtual.html

‘Real’ Story of Paul Revere http://www.paulreverehouse.org/ride/real.html

Longfellow’s Midnight Ride of Paul Revere http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4hUMQG3MI8

Paul Revere's Ride http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere's_Ride

The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_death_of_general_warren_at_the_battle_of_bunker_hill.jpg

Joseph Warren http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Warren

Ode to Josesph Warren http://books.google.com/books?id=3r-ClEcWHsQC&pg=PA217&

Ode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode

After learning the stories of Revere and Warren the students will write an ode to Dr. Warren using the following rhyme scheme: ABABCDECDE

Foam Cup Printing

Here is a video of Jose explaining how he created his foam cup print. We created these in conjunction with Paul Revere's etching of the Boston Massacre. The students created a print to represent the massacre from the Loyalist point of view. 

Paul Revere and the Boston Massacre

Paul Revere's etching of the Boston Massacre shows a definite bias against the soldiers. Our goal today is to take the incident and create a print from the Loyalist point of view. 

Road to the Revolution 1763-1775

Here is the presentation over the events that led to the creation of the Declaration of Independence. 

The essential question is: What events led to the creation of the Declaration of Independence. 

The first activity is to create a timeline for the events. 

7th Grade Benchmark #1

STUCO Candidates Speeches 2013

Presidential Candidates' Speeches

Vice Presidential Candidates' Speeches

Treasurer Candidates' Speeches

Secretary Candidates' Speeches 

Representative Candidates' Speeches

Student Council Elections Ballot

Kayla's Youtube Video for American History

Kayla rewrote the lyrics to Men at Work's Who Can It Be Now and created a youtube video. How did you complete the assignment? Will we see your work of art online too?

#SaveComicSans Performing at Junior Java Coffee Shop

Bus Safety Video

Creating Art to Represent Your Learning: Pre-Columbus through Columbus

Here are the instructions for your assignment. I can't wait to see what you create. 

This is an example I created. As you can plainly hear I am not asking for great art, just a good time and some proof of learning.

Here are the lyrics:

Some Island That I Thought I Knew

I think of all the time I spent looking for you

I went to the kings of both Portugal and Spain

I even drew some maps

Read a bunch of Marco’s crap

But still I only thought I knew where I was going

I talked the Queen of Spain into giving me 3 ships

I hired some sailors to follow me to the end, all to the end

Even when things got really rough

I was sure we had the right stuff

We would stick it out until the voyage was over.

But you didn’t have to surprise me

You were really San Salvador and not the West Indies

and I never really did know

that the place I found was not what I was looking for

What about when I stooped so low

got on my knees and kissed your sand and made a fool of myself

I would never figure it out though

Now you’re just some island that I thought I knew

Hall of Fame Noel Elementary Style

Chris Hadfield, Mentoring Pre-Service Teachers, and a Lip Dub That Is Out of This World (Literally!)

So I participated in a lip dub with others who were part of mentoring or students of ECMP 355  (including our own pre-service friend, Dylan Longmoore). To be honest it was the hardest thing I had to do this year, and that includes playing ukulele in front of the school board! Dean Shareski put it together and did the video editing.



I.S.S. The Lip Dub from shareski on Vimeo.

Here is the original video in case you want to compare.

Imagine my surprise when I read the post Collaboration: We've Arrived and discovered that Chris Hadfield watched it while on the International Space Station orbiting the Earth! How cool is that?

Update

I just found this great post on Art with Mrs. Rose that details the story a little more fully. There I found that the activity had been broadcast on the CBC radio program Voyage North. 

Samorost 1: A Point and Click, Critical Thinking, Trial and Error Adventure Game!

Samorost 1 is a crazy cool game. The idea is to get the character, Samorost, to explore the space ship that he finds flying towards his planet. To play this game you simply point and click until you find out how to progress. You will have to collaborate on this one, don't be selfish we you figure out the puzzles!

Now for your assignment: I want you to write Samorost's story. Why is scared when he sees the spaceship? Why does he decide to explore it? What does he find along the way? You will need to take notes as you travel with Samorost. You will be posting Samorost's story to the class ning.

I will leave you this picture as a clue for the first puzzle. Can you see what has changed?

The Hobbit (in under 4 minutes)

 Dylan Longmoore made this Common Craft style video for my students. I am going to use it to introduce the idea as another way for them to tell their Peter Pan story.

  Spoiler Alert: If you haven't read the book, you may want to stop the video early. It encompasses the whole book, not just the first movie.

Above and Beyond

What does this mean for our lunch project?

Baking Soda and Vinegar Volcano

Fun activity in science lab, we did spend time talking about the differences between a chemical reaction and the pressure created through convection which actually causes the volcanic eruptions.