Happy New Year! I hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season. I know I was glad for the chance to recharge my batteries and catch up on some grading. Speaking of grading, I am working my way through the projects that the students handed in for Egypt. They are fantastic so far, however there are 400 in total, so I am doing my best to get them done as quickly as possible, they will be completed by next Friday.
In class this week: It was a short week and we had had some problems with lectures for the New Kingdom, so we watched an in-class film that covered those Pharaohs. I was very impressed with the knowledge that the kids pulled from it, they really got into the "human side" of the story, which I always like to see. If you get a chance ask them about Amenhotep IV's tragedy or why Queen Nefertiti was different from other queens.
I changed Mastery Test 5 for the students and decided to give them a chance to write their own test question. I usually don't do this until the unit on Rome, but students really seemed to get into Egypt so I thought we would give it a try. Students wrote their questions in class today and will be answering them over the course of the next week. I will be available after school on Tuesday and Wednesday next week if students need help outlining their answers.
Next week: We are starting Ancient Greece! I've very excited as this is usually my student's favorite unit. The ENTIRE unit is up and available on Schoology, which I'm especially pleased about since we've had some technical issues in the past. I will be handing out Coursepacks on Monday, but if students wish they may get a head start this weekend. Some of the sound quality in the videos is a bit fuzzy, I'm doing the best I can with the equipment I've been provided, if students had trouble understanding something I'll be happy to clarify it in class. Overall the notes are fine, its just on some of the videos that I show within the lectures. Those video clips are more for students to visualize things any way so they are not really missing if they can't hear what is going on. I am working to fix this (as I got a new microphone from the tech department) and will repost video lectures as I alter them.
Have a wonderful weekend, I am excited to embark on a journey to Ancient Greece with students next week!
