Masters of the Map

Today in class, we began with a MAP MASTER activity (page 5) as our question of the day. Students needed to analyze a map titled: The Migration of Early Humans. We specifically talked about the importance of the map title, map key, and any captions that accompany the map. The title helps you to see what it is you are looking at, the key helps you to determine the meaning of symbols and colors, and the caption gives you a little bit of background.

Quizzes were returned to students today and we discussed the format for our vocabulary assignments.

5 Themes of Social Studies Quiz

Today, students took a five question quiz about the five themes of social studies. Most students finished it in a minute or less. Is that a good sign or a bad sign? Grades will be in the gradebook and returned to students Monday morning.

Before taking the quiz, we talked about my test taking rules and expectations. I expect students to sit quietly with their eyes on their own paper at all times. That is simple enough, and I think everyone understood.

Last, we had a simple classroom meeting which gave us the opportunity to share our middle school experiences after the first two weeks of school. We will have classroom meetings regularly this year and this one was for practice. I will update everyone on classroom meetings as the year goes on.

Cave Painting

In class today we looked at a photograph of a cave painting (pages 4 and 5 of the text) and made some inferences. Inferences are like educated guesses that we make, using logic, based on what we know. We were able to see the photograph through the eyes of a geographer, political scientist, behavioral scientist, historian, and even as an economist. This helped us to reinforce the definitions that we made for the new social studies vocabulary. I hope you are all ready for the quiz tomorrow!

It was really nice to meet all of the parents at open house tonight. Even though it is a late night for me, I really appreciating meeting your parents and interacting with them. Even though I was a little bit nervous, everything went well and they all seemed really nice...

Introducing Blogs!

In class today, we had a class discussion about blogs. Some students had an understanding of blogs before class, but all should have understood by the end of class today. A blog is simply an online (web) log of information about a particular topic. On this blog, you will find information pertaining to social studies class. We also talked about the uses of blogs and the main use we discussed was communication. Communication is key to learning and therefore this blog is very important.

We also discussed the definitions we wrote on Tuesday and students were to copy them into their social studies notebooks. There will be a very short quiz on those five terms on Friday of this week!

What is social studies?

In class today, we spent a great deal of time thinking and talking about the components of social studies. I shared that there are five 'themes,' or categories, of social studies. They are: History, Geography, Political Science, Economics, and Behavioral Science. In the form of a group activity, we defined these five terms. I compiled the definitions recorded by all six periods and came up with the following:

History: The study of all recorded events from the past .

Geography: The study of Earth and its processes along with the ways in which people interact with it.

Political Science: The study of the principles and conduct of government and politics.

Economics: The study of trade, money, and building a country’s strength by trade and industry, as well as the distribution and consumption of goods and wealth.

Behavioral Science: The study of people and the way they behave mentally and socially, as well as their interactions with others.

Welcome to a new year at the middle school!

I will be using this blog to communicate with students and parents outside of the traditional classroom. I encourage that questions and comments about the information shared be posted to the blog as a comment. The goals are to include everyone in my classes and create a greater community of learning. I will post regularly throughout the year so check back frequently!

Thanks,
Mr. Winand

Making My Blog Better

Welcome ED 585 students! For a couple months, I attempted to incorporate a blog into my social studies classes. Basically, I posted an open-ended type question each week and allowed students to comment on my post. I think it worked well, but I know it needs to be improved. Please feel free to look back at past weeks and comment to this post with your comments. I really want to make this better. We can also talk about it as part of the discussion on Monday. Thanks for all of your help!