Student Choice in Current Events!

Every other week EarthBuzz students report out on international, national, or local news stories. Here are some of the headlines for January.

IPOD Touches

I am very excited to announce the addition of 4 ipod touches and 4 wireless keyboards to our classroom! The ipod touches will be used to enrich learning in the classroom. So far we have uploaded typing applications, Scrabble, and Boggle to improve our keyboarding and literacy skills. We will also be tapping into the WIFI in the room to view search engines to learn more about topics. In the picture you can see one student using the ipod touches while other students are preparing for our "Current Event Round Table." Every other Friday students self-select a current event to report on - if you click on the right hand side of Earth.Buzz there are Current Event Wordles that display the monthly headlines students have selected!

Guide to the Glyphs

Maya Calendars - Sacred Round

We have continued our studies of the Maya Civilization following the holiday break. This week students are investigating several aspects of Mayan religion. In the video students are in choral reading groups to extend our studies beyond the textbook with this topic. Students are in the process of creating their Sacred Round (Tzolk'in) which is the 260 ritual calendar. They will soon learn about different problems that have been presented to the Mayan priests of Chichen Itza. Students will be taking on the role as the priests and interpreting the Tzolk'in to give the advice to the respective ruler. Look over your glyphs over the next few days to become more familiar the great Sacred Round! You do know that priests that gave poor advice were sacrificed ;)