...and they are fantastic!  It's amazing to see the hard work of these 6th graders!  In my last blog post, students were working on Medieval Google Docs presentations based on non-fiction research.  Here are some samples in PDF of some student's work.

Castles In Time of War

Medieval Town Life

Health, Illness & Medicine in the Middle Ages

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6th Graders researched, developed and will share a GoogleDocs Presentation beginning tomorrow in social studies classes!  Check out these students hard at work putting on the final touches!

Students were responsible for using non-ficton reference sources (thanks to our LMC & Skokie Public Library) to find information.  Proper citation of print, web and image sources is also required.  

These digital natives loved engaging with our new social studies department ChromeBooks!

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6th Grade personal Coat of Arms on display at LJH!

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While learning about the Middle Ages, students created their own personal Coat of Arms.  Students had to use a common medieval division, traditional heraldry, but were able to create unique and colorful charges that represented their personality, hobbies and/or culture.  Today, students completed a self-assessment of their project, went on a walking tour and shared their shields with their peers.  While on the walking tour, students compelted a "Walking Tour Write-up" & provided project feedback.  The completed shields will be on display at LJHS near the 6th grade social studies classrooms (211 & 212) next week.  

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As our study of the Roman Empire comes to a close, check out these great resources for review!

Odyssey Online: Rome

A Glimpse of Teenage Life in Ancient Rome TED-Ed

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What do we already know about the Roman Empire?  6th Graders made word clouds today to create visual representations of prior knowledge!  Great Web 2.0 resource and taps into visual learning styles!  Create your own Wordle www.wordle.net 

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Advisory 211 participates in Kick Butts Day!  We made Pledge t-shirts with support and resources from Officer Ronderos and the Skokie Health Department.  

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A recent project based assessment in social studies combined Greco-Roman Mythology, NETS (National Educational Technology Standards), and ComicLife Software.  Integrated with our study of ancient Greece, students chose a myth they wanted to "review."  (Think book review, but for a short myth)  Next, students accessed my Moodle site (Digital Learning Environment) to access resources for additional information about the myth, its characters and a template for their Comic.  They completed a rough draft using traditional pencil & paper, then headed back to the computers to create their review.  This project was a great support of Language Arts writing strategies, literature and integration of software and use of our available technology.  Clicking the sample button will take you to a PDF of some student's work.  What you will not see, is the students citation page.  Students were also held accountable to credit their print and image sources used for this project to reinforce digital citizenship.

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On my way into school this morning, I heard this story on the radio and thought to myself, "How cool!  We just learned about the ancient Chinese creating some of the first coins a few weeks ago!"  History is still alive today and being unearthed by some local archaeologists at the Field Museum.  Click the Chinese coin to read more.

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6th graders made a math-social studies connection and graphed data from the London 2012 Olympic Games.  As a connection to our study of ancient Greece, students compared & contrasted the ancient and modern Olympic Games.  Each student was provided with data including number of athletes, broken down by gender and country, and medal count, broken down by total medals, gold, silver or bronze for each country who participated in the 2012 Games.  Students chose 6 data points, calculated intervals, labeled and graphed the data they chose to work with.  For an additional challenge, students could opt to create a pie chart versus a bar graph for their selected data.  One other way we integrate math into the social studies curriculum is by analyzing scale on a map.  We challenge students to calculate distances between places from the ancient civilizations we discuss in class. 

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