History here

Grade 6/7 students

I have added some links to the blogroll which might help you with your presentation on the period of earth’s history you are researching.  Remember to use at least three different sources.  The last slide on your power point is a bibliography – check with Jessica if unsure how to write one or else use this website. Encyclopedias and science magazines in the library might also be helpful.  Use keywords from your time period  to find images and other useful websites.

Mr Hand would be a great resource as he studied this topic while at University.

Queen Sue has been called away from her secondary castle (school) because of problems at her home.  The moat has overflowed and is causing many health problems to her villagers. The road is impassable to both carts and horses because the local road builders have been derelict in their duty while the Queen was away collecting taxes.

There are still many things you could be doing while the queen is absent.

Lords and ladies 

• get your noticeboard up to date
• add your villagers as users – on dashboard users >add users
• add each villager’s role as a post category eg blacksmith, cook, knight – there should be at least two per member of your village

Priest - organize your tax sheet – print out to keep in Lord’s accounts folder

Villagers - write a blurb about your role in the village ready to add to noticeboard. Remember to use first person eg I am Esmerelda and very pleased to be your Lord’s cook.  I know a lot about herbs and spices to make your food more tasty.

Some villagers might want to visit the biblioteque to collect some manuscripts to help with researching this period of history. Remember these are valuable and must be kept in the Lord’s safe.

Also make sure you are researching the history of your village during the Dark Ages – in the time of the Barbarian tribes.

Attribution:

Original image: ‘Adare/County Limerick/Republic of Ireland/Milk Cart‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/2721064798
by: Bill Barber    Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License

Three major barbarian groups , Goths, Huns and Vandals, arrived in Europe during the last few hundred years of the Roman Empire.  They were powerful and had spread across Europe and Asia, fighting each other, invading countries and generally helping in the decline of the other empires from the previous post.

Activities

Compulsory: Take notes on the three barbarian tribes, ready to add information to a timeline about this period of history.

Choice:

1.  Research the way in which the words barbarian, hun, goth and vandal are used or have been used in our society since the twentieth century.  What do people mean when they use these words?  Are the meanings based on the historical version of the word? Write a post about the words and their use.

2.  Imagine you are one of the leaders of a barbarian tribe.  Write a speech you might give to your tribe to convince them to fight against the Romans and other tribes.  Present your speech by using a voki or vocaroo. Remember to embed your speech in your blog.

Atli (Attila the Hun) in an illustration to the Poetic Edda.

Public Domain. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Dark Ages are the lead up to the Middle Ages, but what was the world like before the Dark Ages began in 400 AD?

There were four powerful empires spread across Europe and Asia – Roman Empire (Western and Eastern), Persian Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire), Gupta Empire and Chinese Empire.

Research the decline of these empires – why did the Gupta and Persian empires decline but the Chinese didn’t – not in the same way at least.

The Gupta society was based on art, literature, charity for others and a well organized economy.  The Persian Empire is remembered for its mosaics and smithwork – gold and silver. The Chinese were great inventors in this time – wheelbarrow, paper, bells, carpet, paper money, the saddle and gunpowder.

The Roman Empire was ruled by many emperors in the time before or just into the Dark Ages.  Many of these emperors died by being assassinated.

Activities

Compulsory:  Choose a Roman Emperor of this period of history.  Research his life, particularly what he did as an emperor.  Present your findings on an A4 poster ready for display. Check with teacher name of emperor you are researching.

Choices:

1.   Byzantine mosaics often told a story.  Think of an event in your life that would make an interesting mosaic. Visit this website to create your own mosaic, take a print screen of the final product and then write a post including the image explaining why you chose that event. 

2. Which of the Chinese inventions mentioned above might have influenced the world the most?  Write a post about this giving your reasons.

This term, grade 8 students in my history group will be studying the mediaeval period or the Middle Ages.  Students will be divided into three villages and will be imagining themselves in a variety of roles within the village. Each village will have their own noticeboard (blog) and will have a certain amount of work to accomplish to pay their taxes to Queen Sue (that’s me, the teacher). They will have to work as a team and their notice board will have to include:

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        • roles within the village
        • hierarchy in the village
        • development of the castle or manors in the village
        • punishment in the village
        • entertainment
        • religion and its influences
        • life in the castle
        • castle defence and attack

They will also have to set up a bibliotheque where the Queen can see where they are getting their information.  Each student will have at least two roles in the village and they will have to write posts relating to their role. The posts will be written in first person as if writing to the Lord of the manor.

Attribution:

Original image: ‘Stand firm!‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8765199@N07/3477595011
by:

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Today students in Miss Wyatt’s history class were asked to write posts in their own blogs about people triumphing overadversity.  They had to mention the challenge, how it was overcome and what type of skills or qualities a person would need in these situations. 

Below are two wordles created by the posts.  The first one is the boys.  Can you guess what their main hurdles were and how people overcame those challenges?  The second wordle is from the girls’ posts.  How is this different to the boys’ wordle?

What does this mean?

Visit this visual dictionary and thesaurus to find some synonyms for ‘triumph’ and ‘adversity’.  Make a list of some words you had never heard of before.  Have there been any times in your life when you have had to ‘triumph over adversity’?

I’ve included a list of people who I think have had to triumph over adversity.  What was their adversity? How did they triumph?  What qualities, skills or abilities do you think a person needs in order to triumph over adversity?  Write a post in your blog or a comment on this post.

Rachel – eating disorder

Vivian Bullwinkel - nurse and Prisoner of War 

Weary Dunlop – surgeon and Prisoner of War

Barack Obama  – 1st African American President 

Sir Gustav Nossal – refugee and scientist

Tan Le - refugee and Young Australian of the Year  start at page 5

Original image: ‘Going up!‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7997249@N06/1322719882
by: Johann Snyman    Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Last year, some of my grade 7 students (now in grade 8 oops those emoticons get me every time) went to the pioneer village over on the primary site of our school and began an inventory of all the articles found in all the different buildings.  I used one of their images and cropped it to fit in our header.

As part of your history research project in term 2, you might also like to research some of these articles and put together a series of blog posts about our pioneer village.  In our school website, there is also a page about the village.

But there are also other pages on schooling and farming within the district.  Do you want to research one of the events mentioned on the timeline or perhaps continue the wiki we began last year?

Maybe researching our ‘Hall of Fame’ members is more to your liking?  Check them out here – but we are missing the most recent ones.

Ancient Greece is very important when it comes to forms of government. Early Greece was made up of many small ‘countries’ based on a different city each.  The most famous were Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Olympia and Delphi. Because each city state developed in its own valley or area, they were not all ruled in the same way.

In your book, write notes about these forms:

• monarchy
• aristocracy
• oligarchy
• tyranny (dictatorship)
• democracy
• anarchy

Your notes must include the meaning or origin of the word which can be found in this online etymology dictionary. You must also include who had the power and how it was passed on.  Find out which countries of the world are under these forms of government now and perhaps the names of some famous leaders in these forms of government. This website might give you some more information to use. The more information you can find, the easier you will find your assessment task.

Original image: ‘Selinunte Acropolis‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24648322@N00/539331082
by: Greg Robbins

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

We’ve been discussing opinions and being able to look at both sides of the question, so give two reasons to support and two reasons to oppose the following statement:

All students from grades 5-12 should spend at least one hour per day school time in physical activities.

Do you, personally, support or oppose this and why?  If the government were to make this a law, who would be the most important people you would have to persuade to join your side and how would you do that?

Original image: ‘air time‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90483352@N00/96795910
by: in transition

Released under an Attribution License