MENTAL MAPPING:

As part of the sixth grade curriculum, students will be asked to draw a map of the world without any resources in front of them. As you can imagine, the first time through some of the maps look more like ink blots than actual world maps. We practice and practice and eventually the maps become very accurate and exact.

CULTURE:

In the culture unit, we learn about people and their differences. We will learn that differences are just that, different, and not weird or strange. We also will discuss the very few things all cultures have in common. After learning about differences, we'll try to identify our own specific culture and analyze how we came to have our own very unique and separate culture from everyone else. Who influences us? How are we taught? What are we taught?

TIME LINE:

Much like the Mental Mapping exercise, we will begin to learn about time lines by simply creating many different types of time lines without too much prior information. After we learn by creating, we will then analyze historic periods of time and try to analyze why certain things happened when they did.

EARLIEST CIVILIZATIONS:

We will talk about the earliest forms of human beings that were found in Central Africa. We will discuss how scientist have found clues of the first homo-sapiens and how they determined where and how long ago they lived. We then will discuss the spread of humans to other parts of the world. What caused these first humans to move? Why did they move to where they moved? Why did it take them so long to cross over into present day North America? How and why did these groups of people stop moving and settle in certain areas? These are just some of the questions we'll be discussing when we talk about the Earliest Civilizations.

PREHISTORIC LIFE:

What was life like before writing was established? We'll look into life before the written word was used to document exact happenings. What can we use as clues to how civilizations lived if there weren't any writings? We'll look into what skills archaelogists use when studying prehistoric life.

ANCIENT GREECE:

Finally we get into the blood and guts of Ancient Greece... wait, what is that you say? There's more to Ancient Greece than blood and guts? They gave us the foundation for the democracy we know have today? They were great philosophers and playwrites? We'll delve into much more than just the gore that is so often attributed to Ancient Greece... even though we won't stay completely away.

ANCIENT ROME:

Here we will learn about the great Roman Empire. We'll also learn about the great and sometimes crazy roman emperors. The daily life of a plebian (an average Roman citizen) is much different than students initial perceptions. We'll take a look at daily life in Rome and the difference between the day of a normal Roman as compared with a Roman of high stature. And here we will also create a video Roman newscast as if we were living in present day Ancient Rome. One of the kids' favorite activities for the year.

MEDIEVAL WORLD:

Knights, castles, and bears oh my. Again, we will discuss what the world was like in Medieval Times as well as the roles of the people for this time period.