Plans Week of March 17, 2014

Here is the plan for this week:

Reading: Continue reading about the American Revolution. Identify fact and opinion from readings about the events of the revolution.

Also, we'll practice reading selections and analyzing them in preparation for the MCAS next week.

Writing: We'll work on responding to our reading using specific examples from the text as support. In particular, we'll practice answer MCAS open response questions fully in order to achieve the top score of a 4.

Math: We continue learning how to add and subtract fractions. Last week I discovered students had minimal foundational understanding of fractions, so we had to go a lot slower than I anticipated. We'll work on finding common denominators, estimating, and converting improper fractions to mixed numbers.

Report cards will be coming out at the end of this week or beginning of next week.

---

In Class Project: The American Revolution

In this project, students will work in a mix of cooperative groups and partnerships on a range of activities that explore the following:

1. The causes of the American Revolution, such as the French & Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts. 
   
2. Important figures such as John Adams,  Benjamin Franklin,  King George III,  Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson,  James Madison, and George Washington.

1. Major battles such as Lexington and Concord (1775), Bunker Hill (1775), Saratoga (1777), Valley Forge (1777-1778), and Yorktown (1781).
   
2. The meaning of the American Revolution and the founding of our modern democracy.

In their teams, students will earn Revolutionary Dollars for the successful completion of activities and assignments. They will also earn Revolutionary Dollars for dressing in colonial attire and using colonial language. The team with the most Revolutionary Dollars at the end of the project will be praised as the Leaders of the Revolution.

---