April 27 - May 1 Travel and Art

This week is going to be fun! We’re going to take some trips, check out some cool animals and places, then study and create art!

There will be two tasks with several parts, two grades, and an extra-special Zoom on Friday.  I will meet you at the *Zoom International Airport* at 1:00 pm on Friday, May 1.  There will only be one flight, so be sure you leave plenty of time to get through security.  Don’t forget your passport, walking shoes, bug spray, clothes for warm/humid weather, and an international charging cord for your phone – you will want to take lots of pictures! J

Please, please read EVERYTHING carefully this week! I can’t wait to see your art!

In ItsLearning, look for:

• Overview
• Task One: Travel, Eco-Tourism, Animals with reflection questions
• Task Two: Art with creation
• Friday Zoom link to our trip through Southeast Asia

April 20-24 - Religion

Y’all are doing great!  I’m really pleased with many of the thoughtful water reflections and thoughtful questions you have asked.  We’ve seen all year that because water is essential to life, it dictates and controls much of human history.  When people, goods and ideas MOVE from place to place, one of the strong PULL factors is clean water.

Religion has also MOVED around the world and plays a central role in human life and history.  We looked at the big three western religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  We will review those and look at the other two of the top five (by number of practitioners): Buddhism and Hinduism. We’ll also learn a few interesting tidbits about some other Asian or African-originated religions.

This week there are FOUR TASKS, one grade, two Zooms.  If you still need to do the Water Reflection or the Movement Questions, please keep working on those first. Remember, I’m not counting anything as a late grade, so just keep at it.

Task One – Buddhism

Task Two – Hinduism

Task Three – Some other interesting beliefs

Task Four – Religions Quiz 

• Of course it has the same weight as all the grades this Nine Weeks.
• You may use your notes. 
• If you don’t have your ISN at home to review Judaism, Christianity and Islam there is a copy of my chart on the blog http://nikiconnor6thela.blogspot.com/2020/02/  It’s in February 2020.  Title of the post is “Feb. 17-21”

Last, but not least, we’ll have a zoom at 1:00 and 2:00 on Friday.  I will put the details in ItsLearning and also add them to the Itslearning calendar.  They are not mandatory, but I sure enjoy seeing y’all and want to make sure you have any answers you need.

April 13-17

This is going to be long – but not a lot to DO, I just want to give you as much information as I can.

Recap: March 23- April 9 – We were figuring all this out, continuing to learn, and not taking regular grades.

Now: We will continue to figure all this out, continue to learn, and start taking some grades. I have tried to distill the curriculum down to its most essential elements.  Starting this week, we will have due dates for assignments, but if your internet crashes, your Chromebook hates you, your Mom and Dad decide you need a dance party before you do anymore school work – whatever – it’s okay if it takes an extra day or three. I just want to try and keep you on track with the dates so you don’t get a ton of stuff to do all at once.

Going Forward: I’ll keep putting in each week’s work in ItsLearning Sunday night or Monday morning. You will not need to do anything from the Digital Backpack, but of course you may if something intrigues you! I’ve combined Africa and Asia to make us more efficient. We’ll still do a tiny bit with Australia/Oceana/Antarctica and a modified passion project, but no final exam!

Grades: There will be 11 grades in the gradebook by the end of the year. The first grade was the Silk Road questions you did after reading the BrainPop.  This was before Spring Break. If you did ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING at all during the last three weeks, I made the second half of that grade the full 50 points.  If not, I just doubled the percent you got out of 50 for the first half.

The second grade is a bonus grade – if you read A Long Walk to Water and thoughtfully and completely answered the questions for the book, I put an extra 100 in the gradebook for you.  If you didn’t, it will just be blank.  It won’t hurt your average in any way.

Speaking of bonus, if you did the Jordan Royal Tour extra credit, I will add those points to grade 3, The Water Reflection questions.  You will see how many bonus points (up to 10) were added in the notes on Skyward. I put in Tuesday, April 14 as the due date for the Water Reflection Questions, but finish it as you can this week.

Grade four will be 10 multiple choice questions on “Movement” – migration, immigration, Silk Road, push-pull factors. That is our focus for this week.

If you have any questions about any of this – or the grades in the grade book, please reach out.  Zooms at 1:00 and 2:00 on Friday.  If you have any questions, want to talk about anything, or just say hi, please zoom in!

(Zoom links/details in the email and in ItsLearning)

April 6-10 Water Wrap Up

Can you believe we've been at this for two weeks now?  You're doing GREAT!  I'm so proud of all of you.  I know you miss being at school with your friends, and I miss y'all.

The district is going to give us some guidelines for grades soon. I want you to know there's not going to be any late grades from me.  If you need time or help - you've got it.  Just let me know what you need!

Monday, April 6 I'll activate new plans in ItsLearning for the week of April 6-10. You DO NOT need to do anything from the Digital Backpack.

Task One: Salva videos - since we have to wait until next school year to see him in person.

Task Two: Problems and Solutions with water

Task Three: Analysis and  Reflection

If you have time, check out the Spring Holidays slide show I put into ItsLearning last week.  It has a variety of new life and rebirth holidays. I'm not going to add any additional bonus material or do a Friday Zoom this week because this Friday, 4/10 and next Monday, 4/13 are holidays.  But this Monday-Thursday I will be available via email. I can set up a quick Zoom help session, too,if you need it.

Friday is Good Friday - and whether you celebrate the religious significance of the day or not, I hope you will take the long weekend to appreciate your family and how blessed we are to be safe, in houses where clean water comes right to us!

Spring Holidays Bonus Material

I just added a power point in ItsLearning about Spring Holidays.  I added it under the A Long Walk to Water plans.  This is just for fun and enrichment.  If you read the power point and have questions, comments or additional information, please shoot me an email!  I'd love to hear from you.