Mesomuchopotamia

I feel like it's been a LONG time since I've written a genuine post here on the blog.  I've only written one since the new school year.

And we've done so much.  So much Mesopotamia.

Here are some things you can talk about at home to try to reinforce what we're learning:

We studied the Sumerians, and their development of Cuneiform.  They wrote by pressing a stylus into clay.  Then, they'd bake the clay tablets if they want to keep what they'd written.

We didn't use clay, but we did write in Cuneiform with Play-Doh:

Indus River and Punishment

First - and this is VERY important.  If you did not complete your Hammurabi Power Point Presentation, this is the time to complete it.

You may be wondering how to access your files from home.  CLICK ON THIS LINK, AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.

Next, you need the link to get to the Power Point instructions.  YOU CAN FIND THE HAMMURABI WEBQUEST BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK.

That brings me to my next point: if you have a facebook account, it might help your friends to remind them that they can earn some extra credit by coming to this blog and reading it and discussing it with an adult.  Trust me, some of your friends need the extra credit.

To all the parents, and adults reading this: Thank you.  (Really, students - you should have said that yourself.)  Thanks for taking the time to find out what we're doing in social studies.

We just finished up the Hammurabi ppt.  (Well, if you read the instructions above, you'll see that not EVERYONE finished it, but most of us did...)

We discussed the reasons for the law (or more appropriately, the reasons for punishment) today.  I gave 4 reasons - students: can you tell the adult one of those reasons, and give an example of it?

Hammurabi punished people for many of the same reasons we punish people today: he stopped them from committing the crime again (often because he had them executed), he deterred others from committing crimes (because they saw people being executed), people could take revenge on those who wronged them (through execution...).

Ok... I'm being a little tough on Hammurabi here, after all, a lot of his laws did not include execution.  For instance, if a kid hit a parent, the kid only had his hands chopped off.

At any rate, we talked about this a lot in class today.  I don't want you to have to spend 45 minutes reading though, so I'll allow your kid to sum up.

We also watched a quick little video (and I do mean quick - John Green talks faster than most of the adolescent girls in my class...) about the Indus River Valley Civilization.  If you missed any of it, you can watch it again below.

If you want the extra credit for reading and discussing this blog with an adult, write down one thing you remember from the video.  Then, have the adult you discussed the blog with sign the paper that you wrote it on.  Turn it in tomorrow.

Here's the video again:

Can't Keep Myself Away...

Well, I just can't seem to keep myself away from the blog.  I know I said that yesterday's post was going to be the last post until the break... but here I am, posting even more extra credit for all you extra credit lovers out there.

Here's today's bellwork.  Students had to draw this picture.  It lists reasons ancient civilizations were found near rivers.

Yes.  I'm an artist.  Go me.

Then, we went up to the computer lab and continued to work on our presentations.  They are coming along quite nicely.  If you haven't checked it out yet, go ahead.  I have made some minor changes to it, so if you're working on it from home - then you need to delete your cookies, and empty/clear your browser cache - at least of the questgarden page.  Either way, you should still check it out HERE HERE HERE! if you haven't already. 

If you want the extra credit, you have to read and discuss the blog with an adult.  If you've done that, draw a quick picture of Hammurabi - you can make him look however you want.  Have the adult you read the blog with sign the picture and put it in the extra credit tray tomorrow.