Thursday, April 4, 2013

Weekly Update 4/5/13


Weekly Update 4/5/13
This week's bloggers:
Charlie, Ziran, Keatyn, Michael K. Colin, Emilia, Cassy, and Nathan W.


Social Studies:  Ancient Greek Settlement Simulation
To simulate the way ancient Greece was settled, we each chose a place to live.  Then what we did was we put down pieces of paper with numbers on them to claim our land. The rule was that we could not overlap the paper. The areas we claimed were our ancient settlements of Greece.

William on left is a Spartan claiming as much land as he can.



Michael K. is visiting Colin in Crete.



Nathan H. is in Messenia and Michael P. and Alex S. are in Elis, both trying to claim the same land.



In this picture you can see all of the different settlements trying to get as much land as they can.


After we claimed our land, the people with the least amount of land started colonies and traded with the colonies to get the goods they needed, like barley, grapes, and olives.  The people who claimed the most land farmed their land, so they had enough resources and didn't have to trade.  We learned that settlements in Greece were isolated because of all of the steep, rocky mountains, so traveling and trading was hard.  

Emma and Sean are in Crete. Devin went to North Africa to be a colonist because he and Nathan H. didn't have enough resources to survive in Messenia.



Rocco is from Marathon and doesn't have enough supplies to survive.  Lorie and Veronica are from   Messenia and also need goods, so they are trading with Tyler, a colonist in Italy.


Nathan and Alex are cutting up pieces of paper that represent the things they are trading to non-farming settlers in ancient Greece.  Nathan is a colonist in Asia Minor, and Alex is a colonist on an island in the Black Sea.


They traded things like jewelry and crops.  Jack B. is trading with Kayce, who is a colonist in North Africa.


Morgan and Claire are in Corinth with the goods they traded for.  They have everything they need to survive now.


Poetry Workshop with Mr. Bill Bucinzsky
On Tuesday, Mr. Buczinsky visited Thomas for a poetry workshop for all sixth graders.  He read a lot great poems that the wrote, and he taught us about how to write our own poetry and to just have fun with words and sounds.
He also did a magic trick with "fire" (he threw fire), 
sang, and played the bongos, guitar, and harmonica!
Thanks to Thomas PTA for sponsoring this great workshop
We can't wait for Mr. Buczinsky to come back to  Thomas on April 17 for 
Sixth Grade Poetry Night!!

Period 4/5

7/8 period listening to Mr. Buczinsky

Mr. Buczinsky with Trey



We wrote our own poems using Mr. Buczinsky's sculptures made of rope, beads, and lots of other things.  Here all of the sculptures he brought:

We think this is a goat.

And that this is a monkey.

Here is Buczinsky comparing differences between Cameron and Ben's poems.

And this is Tyler sharing his poem.

And this is when we are helping Mr. Buczinsky act out a poem.




 Mr. Buczinsky sharing a poem that he set to music.

Below Mr. Buczinsky is singing his poem about a belly dancer.  The surprise was that the belly dancer was his grandma!

He jumped over a bunch of kids while sharing one of his poems.


The moment before the jump!!!



∑igma Celebrations!
Congrats to everyone on a great third quarter!



Me (Colin) won the Rubic's Cube speed cubing contest at lunch with  a time of 40 seconds!

We get report cards this week.

9 comments:

  1. I loved the hands on learning of ancient Greece.
    It is always exciting to see what the kids of Sigma are up to.
    Keep up the great work!
    Rachel Moran

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  2. Fantastic! Such a creative and interactive way to learn about the ancient settlements of Greece.
    I was fortunate to see the Poetry Workshop with Mr. Bill Bucinzsky. His presentation was so very clever. He had each class completely interested in his unique delivery. Laughter filled the air during his entire performance. What an engaging way to present poetry!
    Well done Team Sigma.
    ~Mrs. Ronzio


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  3. The settlement thing was so fun to do. Congagulations to Colin for the rubix cube competition ~Alex S.

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  4. Nice Post!
    ~Michael P. ∑

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  5. I liked all of Mr. B's poems and sculptures. They were great! It was a fun week.
    ~Carol

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  6. Nice blog this week. there was a lot of great stuff in it.

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  7. I like all the captions and the video! -Cecelia

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  8. Great job, Bloggers! You really included a lot of pictures and info of the things we did this week! :)

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  9. I really liked the poetry workshop.It was really fun!Good job bloggers! :)

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