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

Learn how to draw cartoons, comics, and anime at Sketchfu!


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!

Learn how to draw cartoons, comics, and anime at Sketchfu!


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!

Destination Ancient Egypt

We have closed the book on the first ancient civilization of the world, Mesopotamia. Now, we will be traveling west from Mesopotamia to another great civilization of the world: Ancient Egypt. As we explore and discover all this civilization has to offer, you will be amazed at what we will find. Pyramids, Mummification, gods/goddesses, pharaohs, Giza, Sphynx, the Nile River, Hieroglyphics, etc...The list goes on! As we begin our quest for Ancietn Egypt knowledge, we are going to start by scouring the internet for helpful websites that can aid in our never ending thirst for knowledge. For this Ancient Egypt introductory post, we will be searching for and gathering websites about ancient Egypt. We are looking for good, quality websites. Perhpas you want to simply search for "Ancient egypt" or perhaps you want to get specific and actually take a more focused approach like searching for "pyramids of egypt," or "King Tut" or "Nile River" or "Mummification" or any other topic you are interested in. At the end of the week, I will look through all the websites you have found and compile a list of only the best and form a Ancient Egypt Websites gadget on the side of Water for Sixth Grade. Perhaps your website will make the list!

Task: Search the internet by using google or bing to find good, quality, interesting websites about Ancient Egypt.
DUE: Friday, October 29th, 2010

Helpful Hints: websites ending in .gov, .edu, .net are usually the best, most trusted.

Good Luck!

Wax Museum 2010: A Look Back

Wax Museum 2010: A Look Back at the First Show from Dan Klumper on Vimeo.

Ladies and Gentleman of 6th grade: Welcome to the Wax Museum 2011. With this video of last years Wax Museum performance, we will be kicking off this year's version of the Wax Museum. This will be the single biggest event of your sixth grade life, possibly your whole middle school experience. The experience of doing the Wax Museum will be something you hold on to and remember for the rest of your life. I already feel very confident that this year's Wax Museum performance will be a great one. As we kick off this year-long project, take a look at the list of people, share it with your parents, and think about who you might want to be. I can not guarantee that everyone will get who they want, but there are hundreds of great characters to choose. Being a little nervous at this point in the project is totally naturally and normal. However, you will see that as we go throughout the year, we will work hard on this project getting prepared so when the big night comes, you will be excited, not nervous. April 12th, 2011 will be a day like no other in your young lives. I am already greatly anticipating the night and watching all of you perform splendidly.
Wax Museum 2011: April 12th, 2011. 6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.

Teach Timmers about Mesopotamia

I can not believe how fast time goes. It seems just yesterday was the introduction to the "Teach Timmers" feature. Now, here we are four weeks later, for round two of "Teach Timmers." Today, we will be teaching Timmers about Mesopotamia. Throughout this unit, we have covered many different topics and done many different activities to try and gain an understanding and knowledge base of this first civilization of the world. Now, we will review all of our Mesopotamia information by teaching Timmers. Like you at the beginning of the unit, Timmers perhaps does not know a great deal about Mesopotamia. Though it is the first civilization of the world, it is something that few people know a lot about. Fortunately for Timmers, all of you now know a lot, so share your knowledge about this very interesting place. Read your "task" to get started.

Task: post a comment to Timmers telling him about Mesopotamia. Topics you should explain in your comment: vocabulary words, Lesson 1 guided notes, Lesson 2 Guided Notes, Flip packet, problem/solution poster, Mesopotamia Vs. USA, Cuneiform, "I Invented Farming", irrigation, the fabulous four inventions, Epic of Gilgamesh, Code of Hammurabi, Deadliest Warrior, Ziggurat tournament, and anything else you would like to include from this unit.

Length: You need to thoroughly explain five topics from above.

Points: 20 completion points.

Remember, Timmers is a real person. He will respond to only the best comments, so do a good job of teaching him about Mesopotamia and you might get a reply back!