7th Grade U.S. History

This year I decided to do things different in U.S. History. I am beginning with Chapter 27 which is called The Cold War and the American Dream. This chapter covers the time span from 1945-1960 and is usually not covered before the school year is out.

This chapter covers the origins of the Cold War, Berlin Airlift, containment, Korean War, McCarthyism, arms race, space race, u-2 incident. The last 2 days have been used showing the classes what living in the 50's was like by using YouTube and finding movies, television shows, cartoons, commercials & music from that decade.

The students have had three assignments so far. The first assignment was filling in a map of Europe during the Cold War. The 2nd assignment was a book assignment p. 855 #4 & 5 and the 3rd assignment was a worksheet dealing with a speech by Margaret Chase Smith. The 4th assignment will be a worksheet dealing with the last lesson in Ch. 27 on one side and will have a graph on the other.

This week we will begin Chapter 28 which is called The Civil Rights Era

8th Grade Geography

The 8th graders began the year working with IL Highway Maps. They have been working with finding population, counties and cities. They have learned 3 ways to do mileage on the map as well as finding highways, rivers and recreation areas.

The 8th graders will have their first test this week dealing with a highway map. The first page is memory work from worksheet #1 and the rest of the test will deal with working with a highway map.