9/25 Class Update

You guys were amazing today.

Our class was awesome, and it was so great to be back!

Before I jump into the recap, just wanted to remind you of assignments for the week:

- Write your opinion paper on "What are your God-given rights?"
- Finish Landing of the Pilgrims (book discussion next week!)
- Start John Adams: Reluctant Patriot of the American Revolution
-BENJAMIN and DAVID: finish your presentations on your assigned colony: Virginia (Ben) and North Carolina (David), as you are presenting to us NEXT WEEK! Remember to prepare for about 10-15 minutes.

So...back to our class on 9/25:

David and Mary gave GREAT inspirational thoughts to start us off.

We had a rousing lecture on how America is our birthright, our land. We also discussed why a moral people is necessary for good government. We heard some awesome insights from you all! Teacher Betty modeled how to take notes, and hopefully you all started taking notes yourself. This will really help you in the future, preparing to write your papers and more deeply understand the topics we are exploring.

We had a simulation of a free enterprise economy (modern-day America) versus a planned economy (think communist government shown in "The Red Scarf Girl" and socialist, communal structure of Pilgrims when first in Plymouth). Your car designs were inspirational! Your ingenuity and performance grew and astounded Teacher Betty and I as you were given incentives (candy) to produce what we liked. Then we saw your efforts fade as you realized (planned economy) every car design producer would be paid the same amount regardless of results. We had a blast going over this concept.

We celebrated the summer and September birthdays in our class (Mary, Kaleigh, David, Kenny and Benjamin) by sharing a hot cocoa cake together.

Teacher Betty gave an amazing presentation on South Carolina that we all loved. She used great visual aids (3 panel poster board) with lots of color, valuable information about the colony, and she even gave us a quiz, and let us earn candy when we answered correctly! It was a great presentation.

I just finished reading over your papers from last week and you are all doing some deep, critical thinking, coming up with sound ideas, true principles and sharing them beautifully. THANK YOU so much for taking the time to really ponder these opinion topics, and for sharing your insights. I love reading them! If you haven't turned in all of your papers yet (by next class I should have 3 from each of you) you can still do so!

WE ARE LOVING THIS CLASS with you ALL! Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Have a GREAT WEEK!