Socials 10-4: The West: unit test

Today we took the whole block to write the unit test. I will have the results for you tomorrow! Tomorrow we will begin a study of BC including the gold rush. There's no time to relax; we'll be moving a bit faster now while we work towards the end of the course.

Socials 8-3: The Spanish and Portuguese

Today we carried on with our theme on exploration. The study guide included a political cartoon so we had a short discussion about the role of satire and how it might be used to affect change (either in people's attitudes or actions). I was pleased with the work ethic today and have noted that generally folks are working well to ensure they do not have any homework at the end of the day.

History 12-1: Working with evidence/wartime conferences

Today we spent most of the class working with evidence relating to the dropping of the bombs on Japan. I was pleased with the insights you came up with. Next, I started discussing the conferences, but we ran out of time. Tomorrow we will share our presentations in small groups. Be ready to do self and peer evaluations. I have decided to use this as the assessment for the Second World War unit. There is no homework today, unless you have still to tweek your presos.

Socials 8-3: Ships and Navigation

Today everyone worked very well. I gave a short explanation of how the wind can "pull" a sailing ship, as well as "push" it. Since sailing is my recreational passion, I love studying this unit. If you were unable to finish in class, please do so for homework - I'll check your progress on Thursday.

The Renaissance sketchnotes that came in looked excellent - if yours is still missing it is now overdue.

A nice photo to show the "curve" (like a wing) in a sail

Socials 10-4: Unit review and test prep

Today we watched two short segments of the People's History (Riel's hanging and J.A. Macdonald's tour across the country afterwards) and then looked at the test format for Thursday. I strongly suggest you review the blog posts in addition to your notes. Don't forget to review your paragraphs: one of those will be a prompt for the long writing section at the end of the test (there will be a choice of two prompts)

.

Socials 8-1 and 8-2: Intro to the ocean explorers and trade

I started today by reminding you of the time expectations in class. The study guide activities are designed to be completed in 70 minutes or less. If you are unable to complete all of the questions/activities, please do so for homework so that you don't get behind. ENSURE you keep all of your work in the rings of you binder so it is not lost (it needs to be ready to be checked for completion).

We began the lesson with a look at the world map where we reminded ourselves about projection and scale. Next, I showed a short clip of video so that you could see a replica Chinese junk under sail, and learn of Admiral Zheng. We used the rest if the block to complete the guide titled "Riches of Asia."

If you want to watch it, here is the LINK.

History 12-1: Guest speaker Barry Krangle on the Holocaust

We were honoured today with a visit by master teacher and principal Barry Krangle who came to share his international experience working to develop curricula on the topic of the Holocaust. We started with a review of some of the mechanisms that the Nazis used to implement their racist laws and institutions and then heard of Mr. Krangle's experiences researching in Germany, Poland and Israel. In our discussions before today's lesson, I asked him to put a human face on this topic and I think he did that very well. There is never enough time to give to any one topic in this course, but I think it is important to be reminded of Mr. Krangle's message that we all have a duty to use our knowledge of the past to stand up against that which we know is unjust. Thank you, Barry.

Monday is a pd day. We will review the protocol for sharing our inquiries on Tuesday, and you should be ready to share on Wednesday.