Blog Book #6: Public Baths

The Romans were not shy. The public baths were a place of great popularity and socializing. In our world, if people wanted to hang out and socialize with friends, they might go to a resturant. Not the case in Rome. People in Rome went to the baths. Sure, these people took baths there, but they also did many more things. Copy this list down in your blog book for your "Public Baths" page:

Facts about the Public Bath:

1. It was very expensive.

2. The baths also included a library, exercise rooms, saunas, and hair cutting rooms.

3. Slaves would help the people.

4. The men and women would attend the baths at different times of the day.

5. Children could not use the baths.

Blog Book Conclusion: Color Time!

With the conclusion of the Blog book activity, we are going to branch out a little bit from ancient Rome information. Water for Sixth Grade usually focuses on social studies and learning about ancient civilizations. WSG not only wants students to learn social studies, but also to become better people. It is time for you to work on being a person of strong character. The last activity for your blog book is determined by the color of book you have. Each color means something different. All assignments, however, are designed to help you become a better person. All activities will call for you to do something unrelated to social studies, but very much related to life. Good luck to you as you embark on this very unique opportunity. It will be interesting to see what happens and to see what you learn from this experience.

DIRECTIONS: In your blog book, for activity #7, you must do the following: 1. Write down what you did and the date. 2. Write down how you felt after you completed the activity. 3. Get your parents to sign your blog book after completion of the activity. If your parents do not sign it, it will result in a zero.

Click HERE to see what your color assignment is.

***Your blog book will be turned in on Monday, April 4th, 2011 in class to all you to complete your conclusion activity over the weekend if you need to. Thank you.

Teach Timmers Ancient Rome = Earn Extra Credit

We have traveled far in the ancient Rome unit. Luckily, the ancient Romeans were master road builders, so our travels have been smooth. We have covered a lot of information in our Rome unit. Now, we have the opportunity to share our knowledge with not only the world, but with Timmers. It is now time for us to Teach Timmers about the wonderfuly amazing place we have been learning about for the last three and a half weeks. It has been decided that if you choose to Teach Timmers about Rome, you will receive extra credit in social studies. So, this could be a great opportunity for you to make sure you do well in the ancient Rome unit. If you choose to take this extra credit opportunity, here are the requirements: Requirements **Post a comment teaching Timmers about ancient Rome by telling him ONE fact from each of the following topics: 1. Rome Begins! 2. Roman Republic 3. Emperors of Rome 4. Gladiators 5. Colosseum 6. Punic Wars 7. Pompeii 8. Blog books topics 9. Chrisitanity 10. Give him some Roman numerals for him to try to figure out. Please consider this extra credit opportunity. It would be a great way to study for the test and gain some extra points as well. Good Luck.

Extra Credit Window of Opportunity closes at MIDNIGHT on April 1st, 2011

Timmers is waiting. Teach him!

Blog Book #5: Roman Mythology

Roman Mythology on Prezi

Welcome to Roman Mythology. Using this Prezi, copy down the three-column chart in your blog book. On your Roman mythology page, you should have three columns: "Roman god" "god of what" "greek Version." Try to figure out the Greek god/goddess on your own. This column is for you to figure out what greek god or goddess it would be. The answer key is located somewhere in the Prezi. I think you will find that the Roman gods and goddesses are quite similar to those in Greece.

Blog Book #5: Circus Maximus

The name Circus Maximus is a leading misleading. It wasn't quite a circus like we think of when we hear the word Circus. It wasn't a bunch of fun and games with clowns, elephants, trapeez artists, etc. Though fun was had at the Circus Maximus, there were times of high intensity. The Circus Maximus served as the arena for chariot racing. This was a very popular thing in ancient Rome and though people who raced chariots were safer than gladiators, chariot racing could turn very dangerous. People were killed every so often during crashes. Unlike racing today, these chariot racers, or "charioteers" had no protective suits or seat belts. Instead, they were in the wide open chariots, with no protection against crashes. In your blog book, you will complete the second "hand notes" by filling it out with Circus Maximus notes. Just like you did with the Pantheon, write one fact in each of the five fingers, then a 3-4 sentence summary in the middle of the palm. Use the link to read about the Circus Maximus.

Click Here to read about the Circus Maximus.

Thank you and good luck!

Showcase: Gladiator Trading Cards

Water for Sixth Grade would like to share with you a few Gladiator Trading cards. You, the student, worked very hard on your gladiator trading cards, and it was very difficult to choose what cards to share on the blog. Due to the amount of time it takes to scan the gladiator trading cards, it was not realistic to put every gladiator trading card on the blog. Therefore, a few have been selected from each class period to share. There were many, many great gladiator cards that didn't get chosen. There are many different types of gladiators from ancient Rome. Some were criminals, some were slaves, some were prisoners of wars, some were volunteers, and some were even Emperors! Emperor Commodus fought as a gladiator in the Colosseum but he only fought against amputees and the wounded and on top of that, his opponents were told to lose on purpose being he was the emperor. Click the link below to see a variety of Gladiator trading cards. It was defiantely very interesting to see what types of pictures were turned in. Like the students themselves, there was a wide variety of drawings.

Click Here to see Gladiator trading cards.

Blog Book #2: Pantheon

One of the most lasting buildings of the Roman Empire is the Pantheon. With its distinct look of the pillars in the front and the dome on top, the Pantheon has been a tourist hot spot in Rome for years. One of the most intriguing aspect of the Pantheon is the hole, called an oculus, at the top which lets in sunlight and is the only light source in the building. The pantheon was a place for worship for the ancient Romans. Below, you will find an article to help you with your Pantheon blog book activity. For the Pantheon, we will be using the "hand" method of note taking.


Here's how the hand method works: As you read through the article, write down one fact in each of the five fingers. Then, in the middle of the hand, write a quick 3-4 sentence summary of the Pantheon, focusing on the most important aspects.


Click here or here to find articles on the Pantheon that will help you fill out your "hand" notes.

Creating Rome Facebook

Facebook is an amazing website. Not only for what it offers, but by how many people use it. The number of people on Facebook is staggering: 600 million people. In fact, if Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest country in the world behind only China and India. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, has unbelievable vision to create something like this, and to take it to the heights it has soared. You see Facebook everywhere and it seems this is something that is not going away. I find it interesting and intriguing to take certain things and turn them into school projects. This is one of those examples. Let's take the idea of Facebook and turn it into something we can use with ancient Rome. Specifically, we will be using the "profile page" feature of Facebook. For us, we will be selecting topics of ancient Rome and making out own "Profile Page." Very important that you realize you will not actually be on Facebook, but instead, using a piece of paper. Ideally, we could all be on Facebook creating real profile pages of Rome, but that just isn't the way things work. This post is informational only, but I have attached the requirements of the project for easy viewing. On the right side, you will see a section called "Ancient Rome Websites." Use those to help you research on the Internet. Good Luck Facebook-ing Rome!

Read the Instructions on this assignment.

Blog Challenge: Unscramble the word, win a book!

Unscramble this word and win your own copy of Johnny Rawten. Be the first to post the correct answer and you are the winner! Good Luck!

"All Roads Lead to Rome" (Blog Book Roads)

Roads? Aren't roads kinda boring? Don't they just sit there on top of the earth and do nothing but provide a path for people to travel? Yes, that's basically what a road does. However, in Rome, that seemingly simple task was extremely important. Because of the vastness of the Roman Empire, roads were extremely important because the military, emperor, and others needed to be able to travel throughout the empire easily. With roads, the entire Roman empire was connected. The Romans built a lot of roads. Not only did they build a lot, but they also built GOOD roads. They revolutionized the way roads were built, taking it from a dirt path, to an actual road built with stones, mortar and blocks. Whenever the Romans would conquer another town or city, they would build a road back to Rome. So the phrase, "all roads lead to Rome" was actually true during this time period. The picture you see is an image of the Appian Way, the most famous Roman road ever made. As you can see, the Appian Way, like most of the Roman roads, were built in a straight line. They were also built with gutters and roads signs showing how far it was to Rome. The gutters and road signs gave the Roman roads a modern day look. 

In your Blog Book, you will complete two tasks for the "Roads" section.

1. *Click Here to see the different layers of the Roman Road. Use the picture to label the layers of the Road in your blog book.

2. Somewhere else on the Roads page, answer the following questions with COMPLETE SENTENCES:

     1. What is the most famous Roman Road?

     2. Why were roads so important to ancient Rome?

     3. How did the Romans revolutionize (change) roads? 
     4. What gave the ancient Roman roads a modern look? 

Roman Numeral Battle Monday: Time to Get Ready

Here we are, once again, with some Roman Numeral practice. This isn't just any old practice, this is very important practice. How important? Well, Monday, there will be a Roman Numeral Battle for points in the Social Studies League. It is your responsibility to do your part and make sure you know how to translate. Over the weekend, please practice these Roman numerals so you can help your team in the battle. For this practice post, I have included an answer key and a link that explains roman numeral translation. So, go through the practice questions, then check the answer key to see if you got them right. If you got them wrong, look through the translation website and figure out what you did wrong. Be prepared. Be confident. Your team needs you on Monday. Good Luck.

Roman Numeral Translation: Find the translation of each number. Post a comment or simply write them down on paper and check the answer key.

1. 56

2. 32

3. 98

4. 411

5. 609

6. LXXIV

7. CXII

8. CCCLXII

9. DCCXXXIX

10. MCCCIX

Answer Key

Website for translation help

The Pompeii Disaster

The Pompeii disaster rocked the Roman empire. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius completely wiped out the city of Pompeii, burying it in ash and pumice. Though a completely devestating event, it allowed scientists to learn a great deal about the time period. Pompeii essentially became a time capsule, as the ash froze everything in time. As it was excavated, the archiologists couldn't believe what they found. Gaps were found in the ash and as the scientists poured plaster into these "holes," they discovered that it was where people died during the eruption. They were all frozen in time, in the position they were in when they died. Mt. Vesuvius is a "stratovolcano" which erupts every 2,000 years. It's last eruption was 79 AD, so it might be due for another....
Below, you will find a story about the last day of Pompeii, written by a 12 year old kid that witnessed the devestation as he and his family fought to stay alive.

Post a comment on what you think about Pompeii and the destruction Mt. Vesuvius caused....

Read: Pompeii Final Day

Make your own Volcano erupt

Rome Blog Book #4: "Daily Life"

Time to focus on Daily Life. In class, you will explore the Roman's daily life of entertainment, education, and housing. For your blog book, your Roman daily life focus will be on clothing. Using the attached website, read about the clothing of the ancient Romans. The article will talk about clothing style for men, women, and young people. The article will also discuss hair styles, jewelry, etc. For your activity, you will compare the clothing style of the ancient Roman's to the clothing style in 2012. You will point out similarities and differneces with a Venn Diagram. On the "Roman" side, simply list things about Roman's clothing style that is different than ours in 2012. In the "Clothing in 2012" side, list things about our clohting style that is different than the Romans. In the middle, under "similarities," list things that we have in common. You can compare your clothing style to theirs or just clothing style in 2012 in general.

Read about the clothing style of the ancient Romans.

Quantity: For each section of the Venn Diagram, you MUST list at least 3 things.

***Important: If you put "wore Toga's" for the ancient Rome side, you can NOT put "do not wear Toga's" for the clothing in 2012 side.

Ancient Blog Book Begins!

Get ready for the never before used "Ancient Rome Blog Book." As we launch this new product on WSG, prepare yourself for some intense learning via the blog. With this blog book, you will use Water for Sixth Grade to fill it out. The blog book does not require you to post comments, but to use the posts or whatever is loaded on to the blog to complete the activity. In your blog book, you will be covering many different topics. Each topic will be labeled. We will insert the topics as we go throughout the unit. You will be expected to get this blog book completed essentially outside of social studies, though from time to time, we will have "blog book catch-up days" in which we will be in the lab and you will have a chance to get caught up. If you ever miss blog book posts on WSG, simply look in the label cloud for "blog book" and you will find all the posts that are tied to your blog book. Finally, this is going to be a very valuable resource as we go through the Rome Unit, so be sure to do a good job, which I know you will.

Good Luck and as always, thanks for being such rockin' students.

Roman Numeral Practice

Okay, my little Roman Numeral experts. Here is some practice for you. Can you translate Roman numerals? Here are some numbers for you to translate. Remember, we see Roman Numerals a lot in our world, so it is good to learn how to read them. Plus, there will be translation on the test. So, good luck!
Roman Numeral Practice:
1. 45
2. 89
3. 678
4. 921
5. 301
6. 331
7. 570
8. 811
9. CXXIII
10. CDLXIX
11. CCI
12. CLXXVIII
13. DCXXVI

Ancient Rome: "You Are There"

All year you have been reading about other people time warping back into ancient civilizations. Now, it is time for you to time warp. Johnny Rawten gets to time warp. The I Series character gets to time warp. Why can't you?
We have introduced ourselves to ancient worlds a number of different ways (library books, video, comic books, textbook, etc.) I think, though, that the best way to get introduced to an ancient world is to not read about it. Not watch a video about it. But to actually GO there. With this new creation from WSG, you will time warp back to ancient Rome. You will spend a day in this ancient civilization discovering and learning about it. You will be making decisions. Your decisions will have consequences and like all decisions, some are better than others. So now, it is time for you to time warp. Hang on, its going to be a wild ride. (Maximum score is 100. Good Luck!)

Play: Ancient Rome-You Are There

Bonus Questions: As you made your way around Rome, making decsions and dealing with the consequences, you discovered many things about ancient Rome. Can you find the answers to these bonus questions in the game? Post a comment with your answers.

#1: What type of food do patricians eat?

#2. What is a Eques gladiator?

#3. Where do charioteers race their chariots?

#4. What is the Forum?

#5. What is the Pantheon used for?

Thank you!

BLOG CHALLENGE: ROMAN NUMERALS

Blog Challenge: This is a number written with Roman Numerals. Can you figure out what number it is? Be the first one to post a comment with the correct answer and win an authentic Augustana Football Helmet. Good Luck!
Use this website to help you decode Roman Numerals: Roman Numerals Help

Ancient Quest: An action adventure through the ancient world

Ancient Quest takes the reader on a wild ride through the ancient world. The main character, Johnny Rawten, goes back in time on a quest to help the people of the ancient world and save a Tiger he killed in the Roman Colleseum. Join him, as he attempts to accomplish major tasks in the Stone Age, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, Greece, Rome, and the Medieval Times. Check out this website for a lot more:

Accept the Quest (http://acceptthequest.blogspot.com)