Students and Parents,
For the past 5 years I have taught 7th grade social studies. It is with great sadness that I announce that I will not be teaching 7th grade this school year. I am exclusively teaching 6th grade. I will keep my 7th grade tab available for students, parents and educators who may need to use it as a resource but I will not be posting regularly. Please contact me directly if you have any questions, comments or concerns. Thank you, Vanessa Ellis
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7th graders, here is our last academic rap for the school year! It covers all of the economic terms and concepts you all have been learning all year long. Hook: Imports and exports, imports and exports
Buying goods, selling goods, making money cause cash rules Verse 1: The economy, making money, going to work, buying, selling, trading everything Produce is to make, Distribute is to sell, Consume is to buy so we stay looking fly Ok, Gross Domestic Product better known as GDP is all the goods and services produced within a country Every society, has its own economy and a system that helps them provide the people with what they need A traditional economy is just like the name, it’s based on tradition and keeping things the same In a command economy the government controls, what is produced and sets the prices to be sold In a market economy consumers have the right to decide what is produced and what they want to buy If you take market and command and put them both together, you’ll have a mixed economy which makes trading better… Or maybe the best, put your goods to the test, can they beat all the rest? No time for rest, use that time to invest and from there you’ll progress From the U.S. to Canada from Canada to Mexico all across the globe, consumers trying to get to those... ~Back to the Hook~ Verse 2: Different countries specialize in making different products from oil, gas, food, diamonds even electronics Specialization is when a country makes certain products best and uses them to trade In order to trade, internationally, you must exchange your currency which is another name for money But HOLD UP!.....you might run into an issue,different trade barriers can stop trade with you A tariff is a tax placed on imported products to make them more expensive and protect local business A quota sets a limit on how much can be imported and also produced so local products can be used. An embargo's when a country stops trading with another to hurt their economy so it can’t recover There are a few more things that I think you should know, like factors that help the economy grow: Business, training, and literacy Technology, factories, and machinery All of this affects jobs and the GDP This is everything to know about the ECONOMY! Most teachers I know do foldables in some form or fashion. There are just really cool graphic organizers and I LOVE them! The kiddos love them too. They don't mind taking notes, comparing/contrasting, or categorizing because foldables "magically" make learning fun.
In this post I simply want to showcase some of the foldables my students have done. They aren't super fancy or anything but they sure are pretty and creative! Below is my government rap, tailored to 7th grade social studies students in Georgia. It covers systems of government and distribution of power, types of governments and citizen participation as well as government structures of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, India, China and Japan! Attached below are the rap lyrics. The instrumental is "My Partna Dem" by the Rich Kids!
Students were to demonstrate their knowledge of Middle Eastern History by completing one of the R.A.F.T. activities. R stands for role, A for audience, F for format and T stands for topic. The most popular assignment by far was the Osama bin Laden wanted poster. I showed students a movie trailer on Seal Team Six as well as news coverage on the capture and killing of bin Laden. I think that's what got them all into the wanted poster! The next most popular assignment was the political cartoon. We did a whole group analysis of cartoons from Jewish and Palestinian perspectives. The kids really enjoyed searching for hidden meanings within the cartoons and I loved seeing all of the "light bulbs" go off as they had that "Oooohhh, I get it now" moment. I live for those! *This student-generated political cartoon is very clever. It shows two pups playing tug-of-war. The pup on the left represents the Jewish point of view (you can see that the colors of the doggie match the colors of the Israeli flag as well as the Star of David on the stomach) and the pup on the right represents the Palestinian perspective (again from the color choices which correlated with the Palestinian flag). The analogy here is that these two groups have been fighting over modern "Israel" for decades. I had a few students do the peace proposal to the United Nations, the Zionism flyer and the letter to the president. I was overall very pleased with the quality of work from students. When they have choice in their assignments, they are more likely to exhibit their talents and demonstrate their understandings. That is why I like using choice boards like the R.A.F.T. I also do tic-tac-toe style and point value assignments in which students choose a variety of tasks to do to reach 100 points. Less rigorous assignments are worth less points and vice versa.
This week we are focusing on different forms of government. This is generally a hard concept for kids to grasp so today we created diagrams of autocratic, oligarchic and democratic governments using...GUMMY BEARS! After creating the gummy bear diagrams, students had to explain in their interactive notebooks (ISNs) how their diagrams represented the various types of government. Students were highly engaged in this activity and a bonus incentive was that they could eat the gummy bears at the end of class if all of the diagrams and writing were correct.
Ethnic and Religious GroupsCulture is such a fascinating topic to students. Living in our small bubble in Columbus, Georgia we often do not know about or even understand people who are different from us. That is why I LOVE teaching about cultural characteristics of regions around the world. I like to expand my students' minds and introduce them to traditions, religions, ethnicities, and ways of life unknown to my 12 and 13 year-olds. We focus on three religions in 7th grade social studies: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These religions are in the Georgia Performance Standards so like I tell my students "I am teaching NOT preaching." Students should be able to differentiate between the religions by factors such as founder, holy book and basic beliefs and practices. The majority religion in the Middle East is Islam. Students should be able to explain the schism, or divide, between Sunni and Shia Muslims. I also teach three prominent ethnic groups of the region: Arab, Persian and Kurd. Arab is the majority ethnic group. Students are expected to know the majority religious and ethnic groups of Southwest Asia as well as explain the difference between the two. If given a description, students should be able to categorize it by ethnic or religious group. We spent an entire week learning about culture. We did notes, charts, sensory figures, cartoon analyses and a quiz. Still, students struggle. It is a lot of information that they have no real personal connection to. But with constant exposure to this material, students will know it backwards and forwards! Standard of LivingStandard of living is the last cultural characteristic we discussed .The Georgia Performance Standards focuses on literacy rate (the ability to read and write over the age of 15) as a major factor that affects standard of living. The correlation generally goes like this: If a country has a high literacy rate then it will most likely have a high standard of living. If a country has a low literacy rate then it will most likely have a low standard of living. Discuss with your child how the ability to read and write affects people, a community and a nation. First, locate Southwest Asia on this world map. Look at the key: literacy rates are low towards the bottom but increase as you go up.. How does the Middle East compare to North America? How does the Middle East compare to Africa and other Asian countries?
This week our learning target is "I can explain how the deserts and rivers of Southwest Asia (the Middle East) impact population distribution." Population distribution means how people are spread out across a region. Let's take Georgia for example. Atlanta is the capital and a major urban city in our state. Therefore the population is very dense, or crowded, as I'm sure you know from the traffic jams! But if you go to, let's say, MONTEZUMA, Georgia, the population density is low, or sparse because not that many people choose to live there.. Student recorded notes in their interactive student notebook (ISN) using the Cornell format. Not only did they have to define key terms from the presentation but they had to illustrate the differences between dense and sparse and urban and rural. They also read some excerpts about how geographers study population and what factors impact where people live. Students analyzed physical, population, climate and natural resource maps to gain a better understanding of why Southwest Asia's population is unevenly distributed. Learn more about population distribution and population density in the Middle East by analyzing the following map and watching the video. Then discuss the following questions with your child: 1. How does climate affect where people live? 2. How do physical features impact population distribution? 3. Why do people want to live in areas with natural resources? 4. Why do major cities have high population density? 5. Why do rural areas have low population density? We had a quiz last week on selected countries and features of Southwest Asia (the Middle East) as outlined in the Georgia Performance Standard. Most students did really well and mastered the learning target. Some students still need to study and for 100% mastery. Parents, please quiz your child often to see if they can locate all of the following countries and physical features: Countries:
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AuthorVanessa Ellis has been teaching middle grade social studies for 7 years. She is the 2017 Georgia Economics Teacher of the Year and a teacher leader in Muscogee County. She loves to teach and have FUN while doing it! Who says social studies has to be boring? Archives
August 2016
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