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. :)