Major Pre-Columbian Civilizations

Today in class we learned a bit about the major civilizations that existed in the Americas prior to the Europeans arriving.  You can see what we discussed below:

We also looked at the answers to the chart we began filling out yesterday.  Here is that as promised:  

The 7 Forces of History

We've been talking about the 7 forces of history in class quite a bit this week.  The first assignment of the year is due tonight at 11:59!  Here's a look at the forces and what each means:

From there we began to think about what different forces were present at different times and places in history.  You can see below the work of the 8th grade to make connections between different events and the 7 forces:

Today in class we used Google Keep for the first time to see how to take notes on our Chromebooks.  We will be doing more with it in the future.  Hopefully we will see less paper used and fewer materials misplaced or lost throughout the year!

INSPECT

The new school year is off to a quick start!

The first few days of this week have been spent learning about the major forces of history.  These forces, when combined, form the acronym "INSPECT."  As you can see below, there are 7 historical forces that we are learning about:

We are discussing these forces so that we can get more out of what we read.  Each force has been given a color so that it can be highlighted when discovered in texts that we read on paper or on our Chromebooks.  It is my hope that students can have more intelligent discussions both at school and with parents at home about what they are learning using the words above!