Movie: The Greeks

Today in West Civ we started a movie on the Greeks. For about the first 20 minutes of class we were having problems with the projector. No one really knows what was going on or how to fix it. After that happened we finally got the movie started. It is a lot more interesting then I thought it would be, and this really smart guy has the weirdest voice I have ever heard. The movie is really fun to watch. I am learning a lot of new things about the city-states in Greece. They were really smart to create boats, if it weren't for the boats they would have had to walk through the mountains and things would be a lot more difficult then they should have been. They also will be a lot more time consuming. If they wasted that much time on traveling for trade it wouldn't even be worth trading anymore.

Finishing the Test!

Today in West Civ we finished the test! I think that I ended up doing really well! I am so happy we got to use are text book. Even though I couldn't find all of the answers it was still such a big help. Thank you Mr.Schick! Even though I don't think I got a hundred I know that I did so much better from the test before this. Once we finished the test we were supposed to work on a study guide. I didn't really have time for that since i messed up on my test so much the first time. I finished everything though (thank God) and even had enough time to check it over. If we didn't get them back I probably would have just gotten a 50% with how much I didn't get done. Thanks again Mr.Schick for giving them back and letting us use our text books!

Open Note Test!

Today in West Civ we took an open note book test. We also had a sub, which was Mr. Bolden. The test was a lot harder that i actually thought it was going to be. The short answers questions were tricky and I couldn't find them anywhere. I am not even close to finishing. In the beginning I couldn't find the page that we were supposed to be on which was a disaster! Once i found what page it was on after being confused for so long. Then after I had to go and erase all my answers so I could write the right ones in. After all of this I didn't even have time to start my essay. Thank god a lot of other people didn't finish either cause I probably would have had to take the grade without the essay. Also the translators didn't seem to be much of a problem today. 

Translators.

Today in West Civ we had a discussion on weather the Chinese students should use the translators or not. In some sense I feel that it's fine if they do but in another I don't find it as fair. I feel this way because when Gavin showed us that he could look up the word and it would give him the word in Chinese, I had no problem with that. But next he looked up a vocab word just the word was in Chinese but the definition was in English. Why would they need it if the definition is in the book in English. I don't really get that part. But if they really need them then I guess that could use them. If you wanna come to America and learn though you would think that you would learn there language too. They have been taught it since they were 4. I think they know what most of the words will mean. If i went to France (I am taking French right now) I could pick out a couple of words and put them together and realize what the question would ask me. In a sense I guess that Chinese and English are completely separate languages and I hope they do good on the test.

Finishing Outline!

Today in West Civ we finished going over LO-2 and LO-3. Today was the longest class ever though since it was during first mod. I was so tired that this class just felt like it was never going to end. When Mr.Schick turns off the lights every time I just wanna go and fall asleep. I stayed awake to listen to the rest of the outline though because it got really interesting. We started to learn a lot of new vocabulary. A lot of people already knew this stuff from 6th grade social studies so it might not be that hard for them. It was a little challenging for me but i remembered most of the things that Mr.Schick was talking about. In 6th grade we just didn't learn as much as we are going to now. We learned some new words that had to do with the government back in Ancient Greece. We also learned that women had no rights back then, they basically had no say at all. I wonder what it would be like if it was still that way today.

Outline!

Today in West Civ we started looking at a outline which outlines LO-1 to LO-3. This is going to help so much when studying for the test because instead of reading everything over again we know the important things so we can just look at the outline. Its also easier because now we can print it out so instead of getting distracted we can just use this as a study guide to quiz ourselves. This also helps us because instead of studying every little thing we now know what is really important. This will help to save time and so you will know more about the topic. We also have to know now where certain locations are. This might be a little challenging but I think that it will be easy because there are certain ways to remember these types of things.

Presenting Powerpoints

Today in West Civ we started off by talking about the powerpoint that we finished over the weekend. After we finished doing that we started looking at some that were finished! The first group that went up was Nicolette, Gavin, Alex, and Joesph. There powerpoint looked really good with all of the pictures and the notes they had but the problem was that they it wasn't in order. After Mr.Schick got angry because of this, he had another group go up. That group was Maheer, Lexie, Parker, and Ricky. There powerpoint looked really good and it was in order and all of there points had really good and important information. They had really good info especially on the Minoans. Then after we finished looking at the powerpoints we found out that there is going to be a test Monday. One this one I am going to get an A and study really hard!

LO-1 Writing Blog

Barbarians lived completely different lives compared to how we live today. More than 3000 years ago leading up to the Persian Empire civilization spread from its homelands in Sumer and Egypt to Southwest Asia and Northeast Africa. It also spread to other places like China, India, and other parts in the Western Hemisphere. People were also still living in prehistoric villages and other areas. They earliest Europeans farming and spreading more village life around the continent by 4000 B.C. When this happened more people were becoming richer and started populating more and more in the area. By 3500 B.C. people were becoming smarter and also stronger. They were able to start building megaliths, which are huge stone structures such as the Stonehenge. The Stonehenge which was build by religious farmers, and traders in the West of England. The plow was then first used when archaeologists found some furrows in the soils right were the megaliths were. The Stonehenge itself was finally finished being build in 2000 B.C. by 160 huge boulders that weighed up to 50 tons each which is almost equal to about 100,000 pounds, yet they all had no fancy tools like we do today. It is still a mystery on how they actually did it, but it is still surprisingly holding strong and standing today. Indo (Independent) European people started moving into Asia Minor and Persia. Once people started settling in they started to make ethnic groups who combine their tradition and the traditions of the Indo Europeans and started to combine them. Some of the Europeans were also violent and warlike (but not all) others were peaceful and calm. They both have the same main business which is farming. They lived in villages with several other families that were on big farms so they could work and also eat right at their house. These small groups of families started to form tribes, which made little agreements under their warrior kings or queen of very powerful tribes. The tribes ended up fighting a lot though over a lot of things that would help their civilizations grow. Many tribes fell apart because of disagreements on who had the victory. After all of this skilled and organized people who had no cities, written records, or fixed structures of government were called European Barbarians. From 2000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. the Europeans started to see civilization form. After this the Greeks, who were the first Europeans to notice the change in civilization, barbarians started getting used to the civilization life. Because of them interacting with the people South and East of them from 2000 B.C. forward. Then the Greeks came up with their own civilization and made it the first to come about in Europe, this is considered and the first that actually counts as "Western" 

LO-1 & LO-2 Powerpoints

Today in West Civ we finally started our powerpoint, and Mr.Schick was mad because he saw how little everyone had done. But we also didn't have a lot of time to do it yesterday because of the Ash Wednesday Mass. By the time that Mrs.Ferry finished everything we literally only had 10 minutes to start. But it's ok because we finally figured everything out today and got pretty far! we have like 1 slide left before we are finished! We really worked on that the whole time since we didn't get any done the day before. I mean no one really got anything done the day before so we didn't get in trouble for that! But I really wish that we would have known how to use it before so it would have made it a lot easier on my group/

Figuring Out Google Drive

Today in West Civ we started a powerpoint on google drive, and I have no idea what I'm doing at all. I have never used this before and I was just trying to figure it out the whole class. My group also have no veterans so they were also trying to help and we finally got to the website, but then we didn't actually know how to use it. Mr.Schick wasn't there today though so we had Mrs.Ferry who was my French teacher, but I don't even think that she understood what we were going to do, so she just kept reading it over and over again. We had to create this blog on LO-1 & LO-2 but my group didn't get to start yet basically because we wasted all of out time just trying to get to the google drive. I hope that Mr.Schick comes back tomorrow so we actually know what to do and we won't be so behind!

Greece!

Today in West Civ we started learning about ancient Greece. As more people started to move around Europe they started to find ethnic groups and even ways of life. This is when the barbarian life came into the world. Barbarians are people that move and move and really don't stay in one location. The barbarian life was a way of life based on farming, warfare, and also tribal organization. This type of life style became really wide-spread in all of Europe. Not only the people and where they stayed changed up all the Language. Some people began to speak languages of Indo-European, which is a group of many languages, but they were mainly European languages. These people started to put themselves into specific villages and farmstead, these settlements were both widely spread apart and housed MANY related families together. These settlements also started to form tribes. 

Chapter 1 Test!

Friday in west civ we took a test. It was a pretty easy test actually but I'm not sure if i did good or not. But i need to start making my blog more useful and putting my notes up on here because it wasn't that useful during the test. After taking the first test though I know for next time what I need to know. Mr.Powell's test are a lot different thought but these ones will be a lot easier to get used to. I forgot to study though so I'm not expecting as high of a grade that I could have gotten, but i think that i didn't fail, which is good!

  

Changing Seats Again

Today in West Civ, we changed seats again. I was almost late thought because chorus ran later than expected and then Lilly and I went to go give Fabs his birthday cupcake. After I rushed to class barley making it, we went over some powerpoints and watched a couple of videos. Those crash course videos are always my favorite, I fell that the main guy can relate to us and make it funny at the same time so its not just one of those boring videos that teachers usually make you watch. Before we started we got to change seats, which I was so happy about! I actually wasn't all the way in the back anymore. Now it's so much easier to actually see the board and I'm close to my friends now. Before I felt like I was on Mars or something. Class was fun today though, just like every other day. Me and Nicolette also decided that we are going to take a picture everyday for my blog. (:

Land of the Pharaohs

· Two Lands

Upper Egypt

§ 500 mile long strip of fertile land along the Nile

Lower Egypt

  Wide land of the Nile delta, emptying into the Med. Sea

· The Nile

Major provider of life

Everybody lives on the Nile

·3100 B.C., the 2 lands were united under a single kind or pharaoh

Government by a God-King

·Pharaoh is 1^st

·Pharaoh was thought to be able to communicate with the gods and goddesses

·“maat”- harmony and balance with the world

·All routes to financial and social success were though the palace

·Women could inherit money and land and divorce their husbands, though only tin few ever wielded real political power 

Gods, Humans, and Everlasting Life

·Gods were often portrayed with animal heads and bodies

·Believed in afterlife

·Only pharaohs and rich people were mummified

·Souls will be judged and will either be sent to an after-world paradise or the jaws of a monster 

The writing of the Words of Gods

·Writing formed around 3100 B.C. and were small pictures called hieroglyphics that represented religious words, or parts of words

·Hieratic Scrip was short and developed by scribes and priests

·Papyrus was used to write on and was made of the plant that grew in water 

Calendars and Sailboats

·Came up with the 365 day year

·Knew there way inside the human body

·Made sailboats for transportation on the Nile 

Pyramids and Temples

·Pyramids were used as tombs

·Pyramids were originally covered in marble that was later stripped off during the Muslim conquest

· Temple of Amon at Karnak is the largest religious building in the world

  

Best West Civ Class Yet!

TODAY WAS THE BEST DAY IN WEST CIV. Nicolette and I actually got second on the pyramid game. I seriously am so surprised and this is seriously like amazing. I am still so surprised that i even won just because on the boat ride i literally hit everything in sight. West Civ was so much fun, I’m really competitive so it was fun because I really wanted to win. It only took me three tries to actually do it. Usually at these games it will take me forever. The only bad part is that on Friday we have a quiz. So far this class has been really fun though, and I am having such a good time. Sometimes it can be more fun than others. Today winning this game though completely made my day.