The Boot Map

One of my favorite parts of each unit of study is exploring the geography. I have always been fascinated by maps, geographic features like mountains, rivers, and a their proximity to other features. On October 9th  the students will start the Rome unit by examining the Italian peninsula. Many students know Italy is in Europe, but some struggle with identifying it on a map. I believe that Italy is THE most identifiable nation on the map. When we start the unit I always tell students to look for the country that looks a woman's high-heel boot. Within seconds hands fly in the air.


As we begin to explore the geography of Italy we will have students come up to the Smart-board and see if they can identify the various features associated with the Italian peninsula ( by the sea, surrounded by water on 3 sides, Mediterranean Sea, etc); then discuss the benefits associated with living in a country that is a peninsula. It is great opportunity for students to engage the class and each other while exploring topics in geography. This is a conversation that allows students to discuss geography and is a great lead in to how Rome evolved from a humble city located on seven hills to the Grandeur of the Roman Empire.

If you would like to test your geographic savvy follow this link and label the Map of Italy

Spending the Fall in Rome

We started our journey through World History in Ancient Greece. As we move forward in October we will continue our voyage on the Mediterranean to the Italian peninsula. The most popular city of Italy is the grand city of Rome. In our next unit of study we will exam all the things that makes the Ancient Roman world still so intriguing to the world today.

The students will witness the rise of the Roman Republic, death of Julius Caesar, and collapse of the once great Roman Empire. Students will discover how the Punic Wars led to the expansion of Rome, why Caesar was a threat to Roman power, and how a multitude of political corruption, economic crisis, and social issues all lead to the Roman Empire being too weak to defend themselves from Germanic invasions.

Students will have the opportunity to explore Rome using a variety of learning strategies meant to promote higher level thinking, engage and explore.  One of the first things we will explore is the legend associated with the founding of the city of Rome. If you have never heard the legend of the "Twins of Rome", check out this clever animation on YouTube. 

Spending September in Greece

It's hard to imagine that we have already been in class for one month. Nonetheless, our World History students are set to close out the Ancient Greece unit on Monday October 7th. In the month of September we have explored everything from the geography of Greece, the Minoan civilization and Mycenaean civilizations, Athenian democracy, Persian Wars, Golden Age of Athens and Alexander the Great.

It has been a wonderful journey in which students have used a multitude of educational strategies to demonstrate understanding,of what life was like in Ancient Greece. Ms. Blockinger and I want to engage students in our ambitious content. The following assignments/instructional strategies are a few ways we attempted to do just that. The following list reflects our dedication to finding fun and engaging ways to promote higher level thinking for the month of September:

• Wordsplash-format used to review key vocabulary used throughout the unit 
• Venn Diagram-used to review the similarities, differences, and commonalities of the great city-states of Sparta and Athens 
• Speeches-Students wrote speeches from the perspective of a Peloponnesian War hero (objective was to share the causes and effects of the war)
• Musical chairs/Dolls-After researching 35 famous Greeks and 20 Greek gods, students participated in a rousing game of musical dolls. Reminiscent of musical chairs, students passed a rag dolls to music. When the music stopped the person with the doll was given a description of a famous Greek or god, and had to use their knowledge acquired by research to accurately respond
• Storybird.com-Students created children's books that shared their research on the Golden Age of Athens
• Whiteboard Test Review-Students came prepared with study guides, readings, notes, etc to participated in the Whiteboard review. In this review students were asked a question orally, and asked to respond on their whiteboard. At the count of three all students held their boards up to show their answer. This review provided 100% participation from students, reviewed key content, and test format (multiple choices, matching, etc)
• Greece Unit Test-The Students demonstrated their proficiency via a scan-tron assessment on Ancient Greece

It has been quite an exciting month. We look forward to exploring the great Roman Empire in October. As always, feel free to contact us via email with any questions or concerns. If you require additional details about the assignments listed above, all are posted in great detail on PowerSchool.