2023-2024 Theme

 

Modern World: Post Civil War - World War II

May 4 - Last Day!!! AND Civil War Reenactment.

 Vanguardians,

This year has been a blast!  Pun Intended.

Our final day will be also be a blast!  We're excited for a great final day together.  Everyone please plan to stay for the entire day!  9 am - 3:15 pm!

You all have 3 assignments this week. Don't throw tomatoes at me.  They're not hard.

1. Prepare your final presentation.  If you already gave it, you're off the hook!  Please keep your presentation within the 10 minute time frame.  Sign up HERE.  You'll also get to see the schedule for the day at this link.

2. Study your notecards!  Yep, 1 more time!  If you already know them, you're off the hook! 

In class, you'll each use a sheet of paper to write the answers, so it will be very individual.  This is how you will earn your bullets for the war!  1 bullet for each correctly answered notecard. (The government will issue you 2 bullets each for being a soldier).

3. Bring your Vanbucks. This will be your chance to finally spend all those hard-earned vanbucks.  If you have NOT had a chance to auction something off, but want to, please bring your item to auction.  If you have already had a chance, please do not bring something to auction.

And just FYI, the civil war reenactment is like a big game of steal the flag, but with  some finely constructed "wartime" rules.  

Field Trip: IMPORTANT INFO

 Hey guys! It's field trip week which means we USUALLY have to only read a book, but we actually will have a small history assignment on top of that so make sure to read all the details below:

First up, we are reading Freedom Factor by Gerald Lund. If you know nothing about this book, know this: This was one of Marcie's favorite books in high school. It is adventure, it is romance, it is eye-opening and even a little exciting. It's a novel and very readable and has characters that you will love to love and love to hate. I think you're really going to really enjoy this book and you will be amazed at how much it makes you think and learn without being preachy or annoying. 

On the field trip we will be able to visit our capitol building, have a tour and witness bills being discussed by our elected government officials and possibly even meet one of our state senators and THEN get to hear an organ concert that Traci said is "so powerful you will feel the music in your bones." Wow. We are in for a serious treat, you won't want to miss it.

Second, if you recall last history class we started a project in class where we were working on writing a children's book that teaches about the writing of the constitution. I told you that we would be finishing it as part of our next history homework and so we are going to get started on it this week to give enough time to finish it before history class. 

This is how it will work. You were assigned to a group last time and in your group we made assignments, there were at least 4 assignments per group, they included:

• Writing the story (which you brainstormed and hashed out as a group, so this person is the one who is taking all the ideas and synthesizing them into a story that kids can understand)
• Illustrating the story (this person will chunk up the book into readable sections and add pictures -- my hope is for at least 10 images, preferably in color)
• Designing the cover and back jacket (this person works with the illustrator if needed to design a cover and comes up with the blurb and any clever details for the back jacket of the book)
• The fourth person was the one who typed up the book, double checked the work of the author to make sure it made sense, and may be responsible for putting the book together. 

This is a group project, that means EVERY PERSON in the group carries the weight of a part of the project and every person in the group clearly knows what their assignment is. We made these assignments in class last time, if there was any confusion or your group didn't clearly assign these four roles then you need to do that now via text and make sure you are all on board. Participation isn't optional :) We'll be reading and presenting our books in class to the juniors on history week. Thank you for being willing to go above and beyond and create a book you are proud of! I would love for these to be so beautiful that I can print them as a book and ready for display at our history museum at the end of the year. That will depend on how much effort you put into the project so make me proud :D

The Assignment: 

This week I would like the writer and the typer (fourth person) to do their part of the assignment. This will allow the illustrator and cover people to have all of history week to do their part of the assignment. I will be checking in with each group via text this week to see if you got this portion of the assignment done :) Thanks!