Welcome to Ancient China

Welcome to ancient China. As we begin our new unit, I would like to give a little preview into this unit and cue you in on some of the things coming your way. For this post, you do not need to post a comment, it is simply a informational post for you to read and be aware of. Throughout this unit, we will see how very diverse the geography of China is. With deserts, rivers, plateaus, mountains, and plains, China has a wide variety of landforms. Having so many different land forms matters and will effect certain things that we will discover along the way. One of those things that is effected by the physical features is the Silk Road and the people who travel it. You will read a story called "I Traveled the Silk Road" which you will see our main character trying to make the journey. In the story, you will learn all about the Silk Road and what it was like traveling this very dangerous, but important trade route. You will learn about the first four Dynasties of China, the Great Wall, and the many, many important inventions China produced. The White Shirt production for this unit will show you some of the ancient Chinese Weapons in Action, letting you decide for yourself which were the most effective. You will see that ancient China is a very interesting, intriguing place. You will also see that ancient China has greatly influenced the world today.

Ancient China Test: December 21st, 2010

Ancient Egypt: Teach Timmers

As we sprint to the finish of the ancient Egypt unit, it is that time once again to share our knowledge with the world, specifically, Timmers. Though his brain is overflowing with Stone Age and Mesopotamia knowledge, he is ready and waiting for some ancient Egypt information. Unlike past units, we will not have computer lab time to "teach" Timmers, so this is something you must do on your own. Be responsible and own this post. Though our previous two units have been intrigueing, they don't even come close to as amazing as this place called Egypt. Pyramids, Mummification, Pharaohs, Nile River, Hieroglyphics, gods and goddesses and the list goes on! Show Timmers just how great this civilization is by explaining to him all the things we have learned this unit. Though you do not know anything about Timmers, you do know a lot about Egypt, so prove it!

Task: Teach Timmers about ancient Egypt by sharing with him AT LEAST ONE thing from the following topics: (You may do more if you want)
Nile River
Pyramids of Egypt
Gods and Goddesses
Daily Life
Mummification
DUE: This post is due on Wednesday, November 24th, 2010.
Points: 20 points completion

I talked to Timmers last weekend and he said he is excited about Egypt. Don't let him down. Good Luck and Thank you for your great effort.

Test Your Classmates

As we near the completion of the ancient Egypt unit, we are going to take some time to create a study guide-blog style. This is going to be a student-created study guide, so the harder you work, the more effort you put forth, the better this study guide will be. In other words, do a good job, it will benefit yourself and your classmates. Throughout the ancient Egypt unit, we have learned about many things from this great civilization. The specific topics we have covered are: Nile River, Pyramids of Egypt, Mummification, Daily Life of Egypt, and Gods and Goddesses of ancient Egypt. Your test will cover all five of those topics, plus one word from the vocab packet. For this blog post, you will be posting "test questions," or in other words, questions about the five topics. Your comment will be six questions about ancient Egypt, then next week, we will follow up this blog post by answering a fellow classmates questions.

Task: Publish a comment on this post with SIX questions about ancient Egypt. You need to come up with one question from each of the five guided notes we filled out plus one word from the vocab packet.

Format: The questions that you post can be short answer, multiple choice, fill in the blank, or true/false. You can do a variety of question-types, or all the same. Number your questions 1-.6 Use good grammar and capitalization. Do NOT include the answer.

DUE: In-Class.

In my opinion, you have all done a great job during this unit. You have worked very hard and shown a great attitude towards Egypt. Thank you.

Giza: Our mini-necropolis

Giza: A necropolis, or ancient burial ground. It contains four main structures: Sphinx, Pyramid of Menkaure, Pyramid of Khafre, and Pyramid of Khufu.

Ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses

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Guess the Sketches. Would you like to see a different one? Let me know.

Let's Have a Chat about Egypt

This has been, in my opinion, a great week on WSG. Water for Sixth Grade continues to surpass its traffic totals each day and Ediscio blew up (Not literally, that would be bad) by having over 100 students sign up and having over 600 ancient Egypt flashcards viewed. All this in only 3 days. That, my faithful students, is awesome. Great Job. Today, we will be having a conversation about Ancient Egypt. We are going to use some of the information we have gathered thus far, and use it in a different way. For your blog post, you will be having an imaginary conversation with someone about either the Nile River, or the Pyramids of Egypt. I know what your first question is: "Can the person be anyone?" And the answer to that would be yes, it can. The person you have your imaginary conversation with can be a real person, someone you actually know, a movie star, a famous athlete, your Wax Museum character, someone dead, someone living, etc. You will type your imaginary conversation as a comment and post it to this blog post. Let's use our Egypt knowledge and have a little fun with it.

Task: Write an imaginary conversation with whoever you want about Ancient Egypt. The person you are having a conversation with does NOT know anything about your topic, so teach them!

Details: If your LAST name starts with A-K, your conversation needs to be about the Nile River. If your LAST name starts with L-Z, your conversation needs to be about the Pyramids of Egypt. Use your guided notes to help you.
Amount: You need to tell your "person" about AT LEAST five things about your topic.

Creative: Being that you are making this conversation up, be creative. In addition to your Egypt topic, your conversation can also include additional things unrelated to Egypt, but related to your person. See Example below.

Points: 20
DUE: Monday, November 8th, 2010. 8:00 a.m.

My Conversation with Miranda Cosgrove:
Me: "Hi Miranda, my name is Mr. Klumper. How are you?"
Miranda Cosgrove: "Hi. Nice to meet you. I am doing great."
Me: "Good to hear. Hey, by the way, I think you are really funny in iCarly."
Miranda: "Oh! Thank you so much. That means a lot. I love to hear from my fans."
Me: "Actually, I was kidding. I haven't laughed one time while watching your show."
Miranda: (starting to cry) "Oh, ok. Well, I'll try to get some better jokes."
Me: "That would be a good idea. By the way, have you ever heard of the Nile River?"
Miranda: "No, uh..not exactly. What is it?"
Me: "Well, Miranda, it's the major river of Egypt. It is very important"
Miranda: "Cool! But why is it so important?"
....and the conversation continues about the Nile River.

Welcome to Ancient Egypt!

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Water for Sixth Grade Bloggers: Here is a new sketch introducing you to Ancient Egypt. Watch it. Watch it again. And again. Let's make this the most viewed sketch for the month of November!