Conclusion

We have come a very long way with this unit. This is the last thing we will be doing with our unit, the Civil War. We will work together in groups to present the most important information from the unit. At the end of the presentations, we will schedule a test. We will have plenty of review time. We have worked so hard on this unit and I have a lot of confidence in everyone. Thank you for working so hard on this unit. We have really enjoyed learning together!
~ Miss Levine

Primary Sources

It is important for us to remember what makes a good source. We have been doing so much work and researching and it is time that we find out what makes a good source. Together our class will explore sources and what makes them wonderful. We are lucky enough to live in a time of technology. Now we will learn how to use that technology in a way that is safe and beneficial to what it is we are trying to learn. Let's dive in to a new lesson with a whole new group of things to learn about the Civil War, and the Internet! See you there!
~Miss Levine

Fact, Fiction or Folklore

As a class we will be traveling the stories of the Civil War through literature. First your child will learn what fact, fiction and folklore means. After a class read-aloud, discussion, and a quiz your child will be reading and excerpt of literature from the Civil War. After they read their passage they will decide which category it falls under, fact, fiction or folklore, and will then add a pamphlet about the passage they read to a class bulletin board. The bulletin board will allow the your child's peers to check out their work!

Letters of the Civil War

Hello again time travelers! For this lesson your child is going to be putting themselves into someone else’s shoes. The whole point of this lesson is for the students to use multiple perspectives when thinking about a situation in addition to using historical resources. Your child will read two REAL letters from the Civil War; one that was written by an occupant of the south and another that was written by a northern occupant. They may be reading a letter that was written by a slave, civilian, soldier, or a politician. As an accumulating activity each sixth grader will make a poster that compares/contrasts letters from the north and south and will present them at our mini-fair. We hope that this activity will help the students relate themselves to the people of our past as well as realize that those who were in conflict with each other often have some similarities. Be sure to ask your child about the letters that they have been reading!

Causing an Effect

This week's lesson focuses on cause and effect. We have used cause and effect in many areas in the classroom. It is only fitting that we discuss the causes and effects of the Civil War on us today. Students will be assigned an event to research. We will post all of our information on a wiki that can be read and edited from school or home. Students will then update information as they learn more about their "cause" and begin to discover its "effect". Some of the effects we find will have effected a time in our past, and many will still have an effect on us today. I encourage students to brush up on the cause and effect knowledge and get ready to apply it. I am looking forward to this lesson and I think we will all learn something new by the end!
~Miss Levine

The Big Picture

Hello Parents! This lesson will help your students define different branches of social studies. As a class we will define, civics, geography, history and economics. Then the class will be divided into four groups. Each group will travel through all four of the learning stations in a matter of four days. The students will use primary sources to learn about each area of the Civil War. The purpose of this lesson is for students to learn about the different disciplines of social studies and learn the context of the Civil War; or to see the big picture. All of the students will be write in their journals as a means of reflection on each learning station. Be sure to check out what your child learned by taking some time to read their journal!

Take a Tour of the Civil War

The places in history are just as important as the events that took place there. Together, we will use programs such as Google Earth and googlemaps to discover the places that were important to the Civil War. These programs are wonderful ways to take a virtual tour of the places that were so influential back in the time of the Civil War. Each student will research ten places and identify them using googlemaps. After each student has had a chance to learn all about their ten places, they will present them to the rest of the class using both googlemaps and Google Earth. I am so excited to introduce these programs to you! Both of them can be used in many ways in the future and I hope this project inspires your own ideas for the further use of googlemaps and Google Earth! So join me on our virtual tour of the Civil War!
~Miss Levine