Win the White House

Today in class we played "Win the White House" on iCivics.  This game is a bit more involved and takes longer to play, and many students used today to learn the game so they can play it as part of their assignment at a later time.  The assignment itself is not due until Monday night, so there's plenty of time to get caught up.

You can play Win the White House by clicking here.

The Presidency

Today in class we discussed Article 2, which is the Presidency.  You can see what we discussed below:

Students are to read about Article 2 tonight and complete a 3-and-Out Assignment for their homework.  This can be completed on classroom or on paper if they chose to take the assignment in class.

Bill Writing Part 2

Today in class we began writing our bills.  Below is an idea of how a bill should look.  The red writing is replaced with student information.

When it is completed, a finished bill looks something like this:

All of our bills will go to committee soon!

Writing our Bills

Today in class we began writing bills using the student handbook as our "laws."  Students created their idea for a law using the handbook and the bill generator below.  Students entered this information to prepare for tomorrow's class where we will turn them into bills.

Later this week we will be debating our bills in committees and later on the floor of the House or Senate.  We will work to get the bills passed through the legislative branch and on to the President.

Article 1- Congress

Today in class we discussed Congress.  Article 1 of the Constitution is the legislative branch, better known as Congress.  We learned a bit about how these people are chosen, what they do, and how each house passes bills to be sent to the President to become laws.  You can see what we discussed below:

We are going to begin discussing our law-making project tomorrow!  Stay tuned for the next Spartan Sum-Up in the next couple of days.

Political Parties

Today in class we continued our discussion about political parties from yesterday.  We talked about the history of parties as well as about the ideas and beliefs of the two major parties:  the Democrats and the Republicans.  You can see what we discussed below:

We will soon be working on a lawmaking simulation using our school handbook to write laws.  Stay tuned for more details on that!  Students do have something to read about Congress tonight!

Junior Lawmakers

Today in class we played LawCraft, a game on the iCivics website.  Students pretended to make a law as a member of the House and the Senate.  They got a sense of how cooperation and compromise are required to make a law.  To check out the game you can click on the link below:

LawCraft

We will be doing more with lawmaking this week!

Spartan Sum-Up #2

Spartan Sum-Up #2, September 8, 2016

The History of the Constitution

Today in class we talked about the history of the Constitution.  We learned about the influences on the Constitution as well as how compromise played a role in writing the document.  You can see what we discussed below:

Students also had a quick Google Classroom assignment to answer for tonight!  Look for a new Spartan Sum-Up soon!

Substitute Teacher and a Crash Course

Hello everyone!

I attended a social studies workshop this morning and didn't get back to school until after lunch.  Students were to watch a video in class today from the Crash Course series.  The host, John Green, talks fast, but there's a lot of good information.  We filled out questions on the iPads today as we watched.  The questions can be found in Google Classroom.  Take a look below to see the video again, or perhaps for the first time.

First Spartan Sum-Up: The Anatomy of the Constitution

My first video recap of the year.  Hopefully the editing and the setup get fancier in the future.  But this is what we went over in class today!

Additionally, here is the presentation we looked at in class today: