17 & 18 December

Today's starter:  What do you think made Washington such a successful leader?

After discussing the starter we watched a video about a team of scientists, historians, and artists who worked together to develop a better understanding of how George Washington would have looked at 19, 45, and 57 years old.

We finished The Revolutionary War assignment, and began the battles page - those who were able to finish moved on to the Revolutionary War Theme Park Activity.

The test is next time!

13 & 16 December

Today's starter was: Why do you think that the Patriots were able to win the Revolutionary War - even though the British seemed to be the stronger force?

Today we worked on finishing pages 4 & 5 of The Revolutionary War packet.  Page 5 is your test review (as well as the items we starred on the "snake" packet.  The test will be on Thursday and Friday of this week.

We started work on the Revolutionary War battles page.

11 & 12 December

 

Today's starter was: Thomas Jefferson listed three rights in the Declaration of Independence - what were those three rights?

Today we started by reviewing some of the events leading up to the Revolutionary War.  We then discussed the Declaration of Independence and tried to tie-in the major concepts that we developed yesterday in our thought experiment.

We answered the questions on page 3 of your Revolutionary War Packet.

9 & 10 December

Today's starter was: What is the purpose of government?

We started today by taking a few notes - 

We then conducted a thought experiment.  We conducted a thought experiment where I asked the class to consider the following scenarios:

• What would Vista Heights be like if there were no school rules?  What would happen?
• What would happen if there were no laws at Vista Heights?
• What would happen if there were no laws in the United States?

We used these three scenarios to begin a discussion about rights and what happens to those rights in a "state of nature."  We then discussed how people would most like likely organize together to protect their rights from being taken away.  In organizing together we give up some of our rights to protect the majority of our rights.  This led to a discussion about the purpose of government.

5 & 6 December

Today's starter:  Do you think that the revolutionary war could have been avoided?  Why or why not-

We finished up with the Utah Scholars presentations - see yesterday's post.

For B Day, we had plenty of time to finish our Revolutionary War Crossword puzzles - these will be due next time.

3 & 4 December

 

Today's starter was: Do you think that you would have been a Son/Daughter of Liberty?  Tell me why or why not.

 
We had a little bit of a different schedule today.

Our A Day classes handed in our starters (this was a large set) and then we made a "living timeline" of the major events that led up to the Revolutionary War.  We then watched a video review of those same events.

Finally, we spent time finishing the Road to Revolution crossword.

B Day was a little different.  We also handed in the starters and made the living timeline - we did not have time to work on the crossword - we will do this next time.  We had presentations on the Utah Scholars initiative made by volunteers.  This is a great program funded by the State of Utah.  If you have questions, or would like to learn more, visit their website.

26 November & 2 December

Today's starter was: Do you remember the 4 parts of the Intolerable Act (also called the Coercive Act by the colonists)?  List as many as you remember.

Today we played "Road to Revolution" Jeopardy to review the events we have discussed that led to the Revolutionary War.  I handed back your Road to Revolution assignment.  Keep this as it is the test review for the first half of your upcoming test!