Week of March 18-March 22
This week in class, students embarked on a comprehensive exploration of Imperial China, delving into various aspects of its history and evaluating different political developments. To enhance their understanding, students engaged in a range of activities, including vocabulary exercises in context to deepen their grasp of key terms, jigsaw activities to collaboratively dissect complex topics, and writing CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) responses using the Short Answer platform. Through these varied approaches, students not only honed their historical knowledge but also practiced crucial skills in analysis, critical thinking, and effective communication.
Monday: Fast & Curious PreAssessment & History Investigation
Tuesday: Vocabulary Drag & Drop & History Investigation
Wednesday: MyShortAnswer Mini CER & Political Development Jigsaw
Thursday: Triple Threat: Stand, Share, Sit & Political Development Jigsaw
Friday: Chinese Advertisement Project
Week of March 11-March 15
In a recent mini-unit on the rising warrior class in feudal Japan, 7th-grade students engaged in a Samurai simulation, facing challenges to test their mental focus, physical ability, and academic prowess to qualify as Samurai. Ten students were inducted into the 2024 Samurai Class. The unit concluded with stations highlighting the role of women from the 12-17th centuries, the tea ceremony, and Buddhism, providing a deeper understanding of Samurai culture and its broader context.
Do Now Slides: Mini Lesson Slides
Monday & Tuesday: Samurai Training Student Document
Wednesday & Thursday: Samurai Stations
Friday: Open Notes Quiz and Medieval World Crossword for Early Finishers
Week of March 4-March 8
This week we continued our exploration of the Heian Period of Japan. Students spent Monday and Tuesday completing and displaying their Golden Age projects in a Museum Exhibit style Gallery Walk. All projects were thoughtfully completed, informative, and creative including videos, posters, google slides, canva’s, and authentically crafted artifacts. We finished the week harnessing AI to gain perspective from historical figures across various empires to gain insight on their thoughts of what factors contributed to the Golden Age where they lived during the Middle Ages. With my take on an EduProtocols Cyber-Sandwich, students worked in partners or groups of 3 to collaborate, analyze, and compare/contrast their findings from their assigned historical characters. I selected Justinian I, from our first unit of study of the Byzantine Empire, Charlemagne to represent Medieval Europe, and Al-Khwarizmi to share from our unit on the Origins and Spread of Islam. Humy.ai was a hit!
The end of the week closed out with listening and watching an EdPuzzle on the Rise of the Samurai Class. Next week, we will simulate activities to demonstrate the skills necessary to be a Samurai, and will finish our Feudal Japanese unit of study.
Monday & Tuesday: Before, During, After Gallery Walk Notes
Wednesday: Formative Assessment-Progress Monitoring Skill identified by LinkIt Data
Thursday: Golden Age Humy.ai and EduProtocols Cyber-Sandwich
Friday: Rise of the Samurai EdPuzzle
Week of February 26-March 1
Students worked in small groups to research various aspects of Japan’s Golden Age. The topics highlighted include; Fashion and Beauty, Painting and Sculptures, Writing and Literature, and everyone’s favorite, Entertainment. Students collaborate on the shared google document, and then contribute in a specified color making it easy to see each group member’s contributions! Each day there is an engaging starter to get the students primed to work.
Research Organizer: Student Document
Starters:
Monday: NYTimes Connections (*my 7th grade Teaching counterpart made this…and it is AWESOME!!!)
Tuesday: Research Assistants, all students respond to Google Classroom Question curating a list of appropriate websites for all classmates to access and research from.
Wednesday: Blooket (Heian Period)
Thursday: Quizlet Live (Vocabulary)
Friday: Gibbly.co (Think Blooket, but more team-oriented)
Week of February 19-23
Week of February 12-16
This week students continued exploring life in Feudal Japan with a focus on the Heart of Japan’s Golden Age; The Heian Period. After winter break, students will conduct research to create presentations as experts on various Golden Age Topics. In order to be prepared to research, students worked with the Librarian and practiced citing in MLA format. Towards the end of the week we did a slow reveal image activity to encourage critical thinking skills about the depiction of the Heian Period through pictures.
Monday: MLA Citations
Tuesday: Drop Down: Heart of Japan’s Golden Age
Wednesday-Friday: Slow Reveal Image Slides & Student Record Sheet (*Created by my teaching counter-part…how cool!)
Week of February 5-9
Last week we wrapped up our Medieval Europe unit ending with a DBQ on the Black Death and the impact it had on the world at the time. The students were able to make connections to the global pandemic that has been ravishing the world since 2019. Students were assigned a partner and were responsible for completing one of the slides on the various ways the Black Death influenced Life in Europe during the Middle Ages. Check out an example below:
Thick Slide-Black Death
This week we started our new unit of Study; Feudal Japan. EduProtocols activities have elevated the performance of students’ learning outcomes in my class. We started with a Fast and Curious on Quizizz and continued with introductory activities to cultivate an understanding of the impact geography played on the culture developing in isolation, and then with the influence from neighboring societies such as China and South Korea. The students also participated in a Pre-Assessment, and were tasked with constructing key terms based upon definitions and images associated with the topic to provide them the language to speak knowledgeable over the next few weeks. Some highlights include:
Monday: Fast & Curious & Low-Tech QfT
Tuesday: Vocabulary 3 Rounds
Wednesday & Thursday : Geography, Timeline, 3X CER
Friday: Formative Assessment on Japanese Feudalism Created to progress monitor a skill identified as a gap in our 7th graders based on recent Benchmark ELA data in-district