Ninetieth Day of School

We are halfway through our 1st grade year. Our last lesson about ancient civilizations taught us that the Egyptians were similar to the Mesopotamians in that they also a polytheistic society who attributed control of unexplained natural phenomenon to gods. Their gods often took the form of humans with various animal heads like a crocodile or birds. Jumping a few thousands years towards the present, we began our study of ancient cultures of the Americas beginning with the Mayans. We learned that:

• Mayans lived on the Yucatan Peninsula.
• were dependent on fish and maize.
• helped each other within the community in times of need.

We have just about completed our midyear Reading assessments. We will be taking our midyear Math assessments this week. Unsatisfactory notices will be sent home soon. The district requires that a notice be sent out when a student may receive a score of 1 or 2 on the following progress report. At this time, it is not necessary for a student to know they are getting an unsatisfactory notice if that should happen. 

In Science we have been modeling our solar system to learn why and how day turns to night as well as how seasons change.

In Writing we have begun our Opinion unit. Our first step was to generate a list of possible topic. Next was to select a topic and then form an opinion. Today, we planned our arguement which means outlining reasons for our opinion.

Eighty-Third Day of School

We have begun the second part of our Early World Civilizations unit in content knowledge. We are learning about and comparing Egyptian civilation to the Babylonians. We have learned that both civilations relied heavily and were built near great rivers. They each had writing systems for keeping historical records. In the course of our discussion we learned that there are 7 continents and 4 (or 5) oceans.

There is Math homework tonight. Two math reports will be scored and reported to Schoology soon.

Tomorrow (time and circumstance permitting) we will show what we know about opinion/arguement/persuasive writing as we take our writing pretest.

In Science we began a unit on earth science where we examine Earth's relationship to the sun. We learned the term 'perihelion'. And how important the tile of the Earth's axis is in determining our weather patterns.

We have begun our middle-of-the-year Reading battery assessment for mid-year reporting.