Dec. 17, 18 and 19

Wednesday, Dec. 17: We watched a short segment of the dvd "Wonders of the African World." Students answered questions as they watched the film. With the remainder of class they worked on completing their Sundiata books.

Thursday, Dec. 18: Classes were shorter today because we had an assembly. We continued the "Wonders" dvd and I collected both the Sundiata book and the second packet of in class assignments from the W. Africa unit.

1	Daily Appetizers	10
2	Niger River	15
3	Geography Practice: Empire of Ghana	5
4	The Growth of Ghana’s Empire	10
5	Wonders of African World: I	5
6	Wonders of Africa : 2	5
7	Wonders of Africa : 3	5

Friday: We watched Kung Fu Panda. No Homework over the break. Happy Holidays.

Monday, Dec. 15, and Tuesday Dec. 16

Monday: I sang a song about Sundiata, legendary king who started the empire of Mali. Students had about 25 minutes to work on their Sundiata "little book." 

Tuesday: We watched a 12 minute video segment about Mali. Students then had about 25 minutes to work on their Sundiata "little book." 

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Dec. 10,11,12

Wednesday: I sang a song about the Niger river and students worked on writing their narrative of an object floating down the Niger River to its mouth.

Thursday: We watched a short video about the empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai. We then completed a reading guide in class, as a class titled "The Growth of Ghana's Empire, pp. 159-161."

Friday: I discussed the epic/legend of Sundiata, the king who established the empire of Mali. We read the legend aloud and students began creating a "mini-book" that summarizes and illustrates the story. No homework for the weekend. Stay Dry!

Monday Dec, 8, Tuesday, Dec. 9

Monday:

I collected the packets of work. We reviewed assignment 3 from the packet as a class, and I gave students 15 minutes to finish any work that was not completed in their packet.

Tuesday:

We talked about rivers. I gave students an assignment about the Niger River. It included a map and a writing assignment. The written portion is due on Thursday.

Friday, Dec. 5

Today we watched a short segment of the Planet Earth dvd series that illustrated an African Savannah. Students listed 10 adjectives that can be used to describe the savannah. Over the weekend I'd like students to write a 6 sentence paragraph describing the savannah which includes the adjectives they listed. I also assigned a map of Africa's physical features. The first packet of the Africa unit will be due on Monday. See grid below.

1	Daily Appetizers
2	Zane Academic Vocab. Development
3	West African Culture pp. 151-154
4	Africa GDP map
5	Africa Lesson 1: Physical & Political Characteristics (Extra Credit)
6	Savannah Paragraph
7	Physical Map of Africa

Wed. Dec. 3 and Thursday Dec. 4

Wednesday: Students worked on labeling a map of Africa, or worked on completing the photoshop/powerpoint assignment about W. African culture. 

Thursday: Students color coded the Africa maps based on GDP per capita or finished the powerpoint/photoshop. 

Tuesday, Dec. 2

Today we analyzed which sort of images work well in a photoshop document and then students worked to complete their power-point (complete with photoshop montage) about an element of W. African culture. No  Homework. 

Monday, Dec. 1

Day one of the second trimester. Today we worked on Zane Academic Vocabulary Building by focusing on the word culture. After that student teams worked on reading about a specific element of culture in W. Africa during the years 500-1600, or worked on a photoshop  montage of the same material. No Homework.