December 21, 2012

History today, well it never happened. We had an assembly to watch the various bands and singing groups preform so we were unable to watch a movie on the battle of Gettysburg. Which is too bad since I like watching movies, but yesterday was much more eventful. We were all divided up into two different groups, who then used their devices and the textbook to look up information on the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. I was in the group that looked up the battle of Vicksburg. After getting information to fill out a worksheet, we got a HUGE piece of paper to transfer all the information to. We got to use our art skills to make the best "billboard" about a war ever. It was pretty awesome.

December 19th, 2012

Well, this is going to be the second to last blog of 2012! All about Abraham Lincoln, or most of it really. Yesterday we talked about the habeas corpus and how it served to protect people's liberty. It was a good thing to have, people then couldn't be arrested or put tried without a cause, but Mr. Lincoln suspended it. Oh no! Why would he do something you may ask, and I'll tell you, he would be able to put people in jail for speaking against him which was a very big "threat" to the Union. And if the Union wasn't all together, well then there couldn't be any liberty. In Lincoln's head it was as easy as that. So, for today's class we got to watch a fun slideshow and take notes on it all about wars of the Civil War and how it started and was fought etc. etc. Mr. Boyle lectured us on all about the generals and the army and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. So that was history.

December 14th, 2012

Today we had a pretty darn fun history class, granted there wasn't to much history involved. We all headed down to the computer lab where we sat in the glass box feeling like a bunch of fish in a fishbowl and worked on the computers. All of us were divided into three different groups and everyone worked on one Google Docs presentation about the North versus the South. We all worked hard on completing our slides and when we finished, we started playing with the chat box. It was a really fun class which lead up to a surprise... Google Docs assignment! We now get to use our slideshow that we made in class to make a wicked awesome essay on who had the advantages going into the Civil War. And that, was the history class update brought to you by me! :)

December 12th, 2012

Today was, well, a day of normal history class. We started off taking notes from the board, which were from a discussion that we were supposed to have yesterday but instead spent most of the time arguing about slave revolts and South Carolina seceding. So after completing these notes we got more sheets of paper! Yay paper! On these papers there was a speech that Abraham Lincoln gave and we read it and answered them. After doing that for most of the class we got to discuss the speech. And that was pretty much it. History!

December 10th, 2012

Let's start off with the question that started today's class, "In a verbal brawl who would win? Mr. Boyle with his sass or Mr. McBee with his sarcasm?" This is like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, the world may never know, until it happens. But, on the exact opposite side of the spectrum, HISTORY! We had a pretty interesting class analyzing document after document and answering questions. This was all about Lincoln and his beliefs about liberty. We talked a lot about the "golden apple" on the "setting of silver,"  which really tied every document we read together. The Constitution, the "setting of silver,"  Liberty, "golden apple," which is what Abraham Lincoln was talking about. It was a  pretty fun class analyzing all this important documentation and finding a way it all fit together, especially when half the time we don't understand it until it's all said and done, at least that's how my mind works in the afternoon. :)

December 5th, 2012

Today was Edcafe day! Yippie! Nobody really remembered what we did, but luckily we all knew all the information from our voicethreads and just being wicked smart. It was a pretty fun Edcafe since we just debated over who was the most important person of the 1850's. Everyone in the class got into it and we had some pretty heated "conversations."  After a set of 3 rotations with 4 or 5 people leading a group, we all came back together and talked about it as a group. Overall, we thought that Lincoln was the most important while there were still a lot of people who still believed their person was the most important. I have to say that it was a super fun Edcafe.

And my 30 days thing-ma-jig has really fallen apart. I don't really remember it until I blog about it.

TIMELINE!

Hey look! It's my new, improved, updated timeline! Yippie!

December 3rd, 2012

History as usual began with a piece of paper. This time with a political cartoon on the front some questions on the back concerning the said cartoon. We were given some time in the beginning of class to work on the questions. After we were mostly done we discussed the cartoon, which was the election of 1860. There was Lincoln, Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. Pretty interesting election. So, this discussion basically took us to the end of class. The voicethread comments and grades were due today, which I have done, but am unsure what to do with since he didn't collect them in class or even mention them. Hm. It's a mystery until next class, which is going to be a pretty fun edcafe convincing the class of who is wicked important in history. :)

November 29th, 2012

Hisory, as usual, consisted of worksheets. Lots of them, well not worksheets exactly but pieces of paper. We got three different primary source documents and a worksheet to fill out about the documents. They were all about John Brown and his raid of the armory. So thats about it. We did a worksheet. Yup! And that was today's history class.

November 27th(28th), 2012

As I occasionally do, I forgot to blog about history. OH NO! It's a good thing that I am now right? Anybody? Well, anyways, yesterday in class we really didn't doo too much since Mr. Boyle could barely talk. We got a piece of paper with writing on it. Woah. It was about Lincon and Douglas's debates. Then we filled out a worksheet and watched a video on what we read. Pretty cool. So, that. Was history.

November 26th, 2012

Well, history class. We didn't talk about too much today. It was mostly just about a case that a slave filed against his owner to be freed. It was a really sad conversation really, it basically was about how he couldn't win since he was a slave therefore not a person. I mean, if this slave had filed the charges years earlier then he could've won. Unfortunately is was just bad timing on his part leading to him losing. It was a pretty depressing class.

November 20th, 2012

Today's history class was, well, a pretty average history class. We got there and did some worksheets on slavery in he Nebraska and Kansas territories. So, we did those for a while then discussed what was on the worksheets. And that was class really, so I'm keeping this blog short and sweet.

My 30 days thing-ma-jig is going well... I've been taking pictures. :)

November 16th, 2012

The past few days in history  have been pretty interesting. We've been taking lots of notes on slavery and all the events that occur relating to and of it. Today was really fun since we got to look at a picture and read. Awesome right? All my friends found it pretty amusing that the girl in the story was named Eliza, and guess who else has that name? Me! So it was pretty amusing to them, but the actual story wasn't funny at all. It was about this slave girl, Eliza, escaping from slavery and the slave catchers sent to get her. It was interesting to see how they delt with the escaped slaves and also the way they talked. I found it hard to read at times since the language is so cut up and spelled differently.

The 30 days challenge has been going pretty well speaking of which. I occasionally forget but then remember right before I go to bed, so the pictures get taken for the day eventhough they are late. :)

Frederick Douglass Voicethread!

Here's my voicethread! Hope you like it!

November 13th, 2012

Yesterday we had the day off from school for Veteran's Day, but now we're back and into school mode once again. Today in history we got to go to the library and work on the computers. He gave us a website and a few worksheets that we had to complete that went along with the website, which was and interactive map. The worksheets themselves were relatively easy, other than the last question on the first sheet which made absolutly no sense. I read it over and over but still couldn't get the question. I eventually just gave it a go and hoped I did it right. Other than that little blip in the class, it was a pretty calm day. Just working on the computers filling in the worksheets. So, yup. That was history!

November 8th, 2012

Today in class was, well, another on of those pretty basic history classes. We started off talking about what we did yesterday. Which, we took notes on slavery in the United States. The notes were on everything from cotton farming to the types of slavery. After the notes we were handed worksheets that were on slavery's opponents and defenders. I got a document that was by Aberham Lincoln and had to answer some questions after the reading. That was all we did yesterday, so back to today. Once again we took some notes on slavery, this time about the abolitionists and what they wanted to do about slavery. After these notes we taked about the underground railroad, reading various teaxtbook excerpts about it. It was pretty interesting how all the textbooks were all pretty different. So, we answered this worksheet and had a discussion about the excerpts to finish up class. And for my 30 days challenge, I've been taking pictures everyday and luckily it was snowy out this morning for a really intersting picture.

November 6th, 2012

History. What did we do? Well since today is election day (always on a tuesday since it is the most unoccupied and boring day of the week), we got to do a mock election in class today. We got to get a sheet of paper with the choices on it, then check off the people you voted for and hand it in to Mr. Boyle. I have to say that I had my hopes up for the voting be a bit more creative like setting up multiple booths with the polls and have a big box for the votes, but I guess I'm still living in my elementry school election days... After the mock election we got to do a super-wicked fun worksheet! YAY! It was about if the Constitution was pro-slavery or anti-slavery. We got about a million and five sheets of paper, your killing trees Mr. Boyle aren't you? And got to work. Unfortunately we were unable to finish the worksheets in class so we have to finish the worksheet for homework, well, at least I have to.

In a whole other dimension of history, we have to do something new for 30 days. So, for my new something I'm going to take a picture of a memorable moment every day.  And guess what today's picture is? It's of this blog post!

November 2nd, 2012

Today in class we are back to our normal routine of getting handed some papers and doing whatever Mr. Boyle tells us to do. So, the paper today was a document written by a young slave girl about her childhood as a slave. We then had to make a storyboard that had a description of the story, the signifigance, and more. After almost finishing this quick project, we were buried in paper after paper of projects and such. It was a pretty work filled class, with lots to do not just today but the coming weeks.

November 1st, 2012

I'm not even sure if we need to blog this week, but I'm going to anyway just in case. So, today all we did was look around at all of the integrated projects and fill out a little questionaire type paper on our project. It surprised me how so many people chose to make board games, I would've thought there would be more of a variation. I found it really fun to see everybody's projects all together and all the various ideas of the one project there were. And thats about all that happened today in history.

October 30th, 2012

Well, today was another uneventful day in history class. We were given the opprotunity to work on our integrated project. Allie and I were the only two people who were in our group of five in that class, so we couldn't really do much on our project in the first place. But, also we videotaped our project and only have to smush all the clips together to finish it, which we couldn't do in class. So, basically all we did was brainstorm titles for our video and figure out all the credits and everything. Pretty exciting class, huh?

October 26th, 2012

Well, the past two days of history have been pretty uneventful, unlike the American Revolution. Yesterday we were quizzed on the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, and today we had our test on the revolution. Other than those two things we really didn't do too much. After taking the quiz yesterday Mr. Boyle quickly went over the events that were the end of the revolution. I can't say much other than tat because of our limited classes.

October 24th, 2012

Today was pretty different than that of our normal history classes. That's because we looked at art for the whole entire class period. We just didn't look at it willy-nilly either. Mr. Boyle made this awesome voice thread that narrated all the pictures that he showed us. I have to say that Mr. Johm Copley was probably the artist who produced the nicest artwork, but to each his own. It was pretty interesting to learn about how the painting weren't historically accurate, because when you see a paining of a major event in history you would think it would be right. But they aren't all the time. Also it was cool how there were losts of hidden meanings in the pictures themselves. In the portrait of Paul Revere there was an underlying hint of rebellion since he was wearing a linen shirt, since the linen was inported and not really allowed. I found it to be a pretty interesting class once you started to actually think about the paintings, and not just see them for what they are.

Timeline!

Yay! We have a new and improved timeline for the American Revolution right here... Enjoy!

October 19th, 2012

So, today in history we walked in to find a pretty uneventful class. Basically the only thing that we did was take some notes and talk about the battles of Trenton and Princeton. Before all that fun stuff we had a little rant session about the sub that we had yesterday who was pretty crazy. With the sub we wrote a mini essay on the document that Thomas Paine wrote saying, "This are the times that try men's souls." Today we basically sat in class and listened to Mr.Boyle talk about battles and wars, really just the revolution. We watched a pretty cool animated battle and listened to Mr. Boyle's commentary. That was all we really did, a pretty dull history class.

October 17th, 2012

Today in history we had a pretty deep discussion about trust. And you are probably thinking, "What does trust have to do with history?" Well, let me tell you but posing this question to you... Can democracy exist without trust? This was what we pondered during our class after we got in groups and shared our notes on the Declaration of Independence. But, back to the issue of trust. Its true that democracy can't exist without trust. You have to be able to trust the representative and the president to do the right things as well as them trusting you to make the right choice to represent them. If you don't have at least a little bit of trust in the representatives then people won't vote for anyone when election time comes and democracy won't exist. Trust is like the base of democracy, without it, it will crumble.

October 15th, 2012

On Friday, like a pretty ususal history class we were handed papers as soon as we walked through the door. This time, it was on one of three documents, Common Sense, The Olive Branch Petition, and Plain Truth. We got together with our groups and read the doucument, decided what it was saying and what the position of the person who wrote it was, Loyalist or not. My group had the Olive Branch Petition, which was written by Loylalists that were saying with all the problems between the colonies and Britain. They wanted to stay aligned with Britian but if Britain attempt to fix the relations, then they would go to war. After doing this, we were divied up in out groups and sat with people with the other two documents. Each of us took a turn explaining our document. Today, we presented our Revolutionary Replicas that were do today. It was a pretty simple class but it was intersting to hear about all the different people who were involoved with the Revolution and how they were a part of it.

Who is Lydia Darragh?

To find out listen to my voicethread right here!

October 10th, 2012

Today was a really interesting and informative class. We walked into the class unnkowing of what adventures though history we would be doing today. It turns out that we got to learn a ton about the battle of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Instead of just looking at a map and reading the progress of the colonists and British Regulars, we got to watch the battle with this nifty animated battle map. The animation really pulled you into the battle and was able to really make understand the movement and fighting instead of guessing what happened on a plain old, oring map. After we took some notes and went through both battles, we got to make this search movie on google. We got to choose seven important details of the battle of Lexington and Concord. Using thouse seven details we put them into this little google search movie creater-gizmo that created our little video. And here it is for you to enjoy! Voila!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyhKD0sYBfI&feature=g-upl

Civic Values Voicethread

Here is my voicethread on the final two civic values. Enjoy!

October 5th, 2012

Yesterday in class we did an edcafe on the events leaading up to the American Revolution, and it didn't go so well. So today, to really understand the events that we discussed yesterday Mr.Boyle created this snappy flow chart type presentation with the British side of the event and colonist side of the event. Taking notes on the events, discussing, and really getting to understand the event. As we were completing our notes we got Paul Revere's Ride, the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. After this was read aloud in class we got a worksheet to "rewrite" the poem with real facts, as Paul Revere was not the only man who rode that night contrary to popular belief. So, my partner and I wrote our short little poem about the three riders, Revere, Dawes, and Prescott. It was really fun but difficult at the same time as every two lines had to rhyme. Today's class really helped out after the confusion after the edcafe yesterday and was really fun having to "rewrite" the poem by Longfellow.

October 3rd, 2012

Yesterday I forgot that we had a post due, so I am now doing my post on what happened yesterday. A while ago, after we took our Constitution test, we recieved a  packet about the upcoming edcafe. I read over it but it all was a little confusing until we actually worked on it yesterday. The packets that we got had our groups already assigned and our topic. In my case I got the Stamp Acts, which were when Britain decided to start taxing the colonies to pay off war and defense debts. In class we worked in the computer lab creating a powerpoint on google docs. We all worked on the same powerpoint at the same time, which made it very frustrating since google was really slow and didn't always save the information but we managed to pull it together. Our worksheets had information about the event which we divided up amoung us and we each did three slides. My slides were about the reaction of the colonists to the acts, what happened as a result of their rebellion and boycott, and finally the repeal of the act. I really liked working on the comupters and making a powerpoint eventhough it did get a little annoying after awhile!

Comic Strip!

Making a comic strip was pretty fun! And here is my comic!

September 28th, 2012

Today we were back into the same routine of daily history class type activities after our Quest that we had yesterday. The Quest wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be, as the first text or quiz of a new teacher is always a learning curve. Back to buisness. The first thing that we did today was go over a worksheet on the New England colonies, Middle colonies, and the Southern colonies. This was homework the night before so we just had to correct the answers. Last night we also signed up for a voki.com account. We then wrote a little monologue about a person who lived in one of these colonies. We had to make it what the average colonist would be for that area. In my group we had Mr.John Jacobs who came from England and lived in the Southern colonies. He owned his own indigo and rice plantation and hoped to expand it to include tobacco. A few other things that we included was that he went to the Anglican chuch and he owned many slaves. We used this voki.com account to create our person and bring him to life. I liked how we got to connect to the colonists on a personal level and bring them to life, rather than just memorising facts about them.

Freedoms Ed-cafe

Today in history we did a class exercise called an ed-cafe. Thats when you are grouped together and assigned a topic, then in groups of other topics you lead an 8 minute conversation about your topic. You rotate your groups after every time so you are talking with other students in the class. This was the first time I ever did an ed-cafe and going into it I was a little unsure of what it would be like. After the fist conversation I really started to get into it and really enjoy talking about these freedoms that we have in the United States. I think that this was a really fun class and would definitely do it again! A couple things that I think could've been better was that the discussions got more involved, there were a lot of pauses inbetween all the points that were made but I think part of it was that we have never done this before. I think that the conversations that went really well were the ones in which the leader had prepared questions for the group before the point to get you really thinking about it before discussing it. Also I think that if people more of jumped in on the conversation instead of one person talking, then the next, and back and forth between two people, it would end up to be a better conversation. Or the leader get the people who didn't say anything to give some input because they might have a terrific idea but be too shy to actually put it out there. Overall I thought that this ed-cafe went really well and I'm looking forward to the next one!

My Constitution Timeline

Here is my timetoast.com timeline for the Constitution. Enjoy!

September 24th 2012

Again we find ourselves in the room of Mr.Boyle learning about United States history. Today we learned all about the Bill of Rights. To get a real understanding of these rights in a real-life, not really realistic scenerio created by Mr.Boyle himself. So, in a nutshell, the scenerio is about these party-goers that are having a blast at a Madonna concert on Mr. Roger Will's property on Sunday, which the Blue Laws prohibit. All of the characters get brought in, the party-goers got a bench trial and were sentenced with a day in the stocks, Roger Will got a trial jury and had to wait a few years for him to be sentenced to banishment and his farm sold off, and last but definitely not least, Madonna, who got a trial which ended up with her being hung. It was very saddening to hear that Madonna was killed in such a vicious way, but she had a nice career behind her. After we read this little scenerio we got to find the ammendments that the characters would have for appealing their convictions. A few of the most common ammendments that came up were the First Ammendment in which there is no law establishing a national religion, or the right of the people to peacefully assemble and the Sixth Ammendment which is that the people have a right to a speedy and public trial and have the assistance of a lawyer. Just to be clear what I have just stated aren't the ammendments in full, but the important pieces that go along with the scenerio. I found that learning the ammendments by having a fake scenerio really made me pay attention and enjoy learning them as opposed to  memorizing them off a sheet of paper. All in all today's class was surpisingly fun!

September 19th 2012

Yesterday in history we learned about the different branches of our govenment. We got some worksheets that taught us what jobs the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches have. ALso in these fabulously informational worksheets we learned how each of the branches keep the others in check, like if a bill gets a presidential veto, Congress can overpower it with a 2/3 vote in each house or the Courts can declare laws made in Congress unconstitutional. In the middle of this we had a lunch break, but soon enough we were back in class making little infographics. We had to make an infographic on the three branches, which you can see in my blog I posted yesterday. It was fun having to figure out ways to represent the jobs of the branches in little pictures as well as little facts blurbs. Today we ended with another crafty history assignment, but before I can get to that I will have to explain what we did in class a little bit. When we walked into class today, the first thing that happened was that we were handed two pieces of paper, in my case I got a sheet with information about federalists on it. Keirsten, Allie, and I then filled out a question sheet of the arguments for the approval of the Constitution. We then got paired up with a person of the opposite arguments, in my case an anti-federalist. We then swapped answers on our sheets to learn about the opposite sides ideas and arguments. Mr. Boyle then gave us a big sheet of paper to create a magazine cover for the side he gave us. The magazine cover we made was for anti-federalists and had 'articles' such as "Secret Drafting- What's really in the Constitution?" and "No Bill of Rights- No Freedoms." The past couple days in history have been fun, especially with all the little crafty things that we did.

Infograph

Here's the inforgraph that Kiersten, Allie, Jolene, and I made during class today...

Sorry for the inconvenience of the infograph being sideway. :)

The Civic Values of My Friends

Here's my podcast of the civic values of my two friends, Mary and Rachel.



Voila! I hope you liked it!

September 17th 2012

Today in class we learned a lot about presidency and how the election works. It was interesting how there were actually three different plans that were on what the country needed for an exectutive. Earlier in the week, or rather last week since today is Monday, Mr. Boyle posted a question on if there should be one president or two and interestingly enough having more that one president was included in one of the plans. One thing that I found strange was that in the Hamilton Plan, the term length for the president could last for years and years if they were well behaved, like not breaking the law, etc. After I spent a few minutes pondering over this odd declaration, Mr. Boyle explained that Mr. Hamilton liked the idea of having a king which influenced his ideas. He also told us we'd be learning a little more on Mr. Hamilton later. I learned a lot about voting and the presidential election today too, like how the president can't win with only the electoral votes from the big states. When you just think about it you would think thay add up, but no, the numbers just don't add up quite right. We also found out some other little tidbits of information like Californina is usually democratic and Texas is usually republican, and Maine can go wither way. I am chock-full of little blurbs of information that I can pester my parents with when they go to vote. Voting and presidency is actually a really neat thing and I found class today to be really interesting.

September 13th, 2012

For the past couple days in American History we have been leaning a lot about the Constitutional Convention. We have been focusing on the topic of representation and what all the ideas based around representation were. On the 12th, or yesterday, we were divided into groups to focus on one of the 3 questions of representation. My question was the question of election by the people or election by state legislatres. What surprised me was how many of the people opposed the election by the people. Roger Sherman, Elbride Gerry, Charles Pinkney, and Oliver Ellsworth all opposed election by the people. I would've thought that most of the men involved would be for election by the people as they were already governed by one force and didn't have a say. Most of their opposition came from their ideas that people are easily influenced to vote one way or another, which I really understand. The other three men all supported the election by the people, mainly for the reasons as that was what democracy was and that a government couldn't really be strong without the support and confidence of the people which they would get by letting the people vote. The next day, or today rather, our groups got split up and we had to explain our question of representation to people who had different questions of representation. The other two questions that we learned about were if there should be one branch of government or two branches and if there should be proportional or equal representation in congress. I found the question of proportional or equal representation to be really interesting. I think that it would be more fair to have more representatives for the larger states but then the smaller states would be easily out voted by the larger states. I found it really interesting how all these ideas were piled together to create the House of Representatives and the Senate and how all the ideas of representation are divided up to be a well organized branch of government.

This is my photo essay of the civic values of my family.
My Family's Civic Values

Three Artifacts Describing Me

If someone were to come and look back on my life, I would have to say that one of the artifacts that they would find that describes me would be my vast clothing and jewelry collection. I spend hours watching fashion television shows and reading the fashion section in The Daily News. Shopping is one of my favorite activities, I love to just go to the mall with my friends and buy new clothes that I end up finding along with some matching jewelry. My closet if ever expanding and I doubt that it will ever stop growing. Occasionally, on a whim, I will attempt to make my own clothes. I have never really succeded in making something very wearable, but I came close! I'm always inspred to try new looks and clothing styles mainly through the television show Project Runway. One of my favorite designers, Mondo Guerra, who always designed in bright colors and crazy prints set me on a summer look including checkerboard pants and neon t-shirts. I absolutely love fashion and anything related to it, which is why my clothes are a really important item to describe me.

Another item someone would come across if they were to look back on my life would be some Cadbury chocolate wrappers. I absolutely love chocolate! Cadbury chocolate, in my opinion, is the absolute best chocolate in the world. I spend a lot of my time snacking and munching on sweets, mostly chocolate. I also love to bake, anything from cupcakes to pies! Most of the things that I end up making have some form of chocolate in it, big surprise there! My favorite thing to make are coffee chocolate cupcakes, which everybody who has tried them has fallen in love with. I'm pretty sure that I get my chocolate loving side from my grandmother who is always on the lookout for the sweet treat.

I would have to say that the most important artifact relating to my life would be my horse Stanley. He is basically my whole life. He was my 13th birthday present, which I have to say is pretty awesome. I spend every single day with him at the barn, riding him, grooming him, and overall just really taking care of him. I started riding horses when I was 5 years old, and have been hooked on horses ever since. There is never a time where you could find me without something related to horses. I feel that horse back riding has really taught me to be a more responsable person, because everytime you ride a horse you have to brush it off and clean it before and after you ride as well as maintain the equipment that you use. Riding has also brought me life-long friends that I wouldn't have met otherwise. My friend Mary and I always get together and go riding our horses on little trail rides around the property when we get ther chance, which is really fun. Horse back riding is and always be the center of my life, which is why Stanley would be the most important artifact.