Wow!  Where has the year gone?  Our government unit is complete.  MAP testing is done!  The classes did a fantastic job in their research of the Bill of Rights, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton.  Explorer poems (Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Zebulon Pike) decorate the classroom. 

The 8th grade had a wonderful time at Dauphin Island this past March (March 29-April 2).  Our time spent by the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay was delightful!  Lifelong learning in action!!!  Please see the pictures.  

Currently, students are in the midst of their Westward Expansion unit.  Their study of Manifest Destiny (the idea that Americans had the right to expand West) has the class creating flyers for pioneers who wanted to travel westward. Our wrap-up of the unit will have us discussing the effects upon the Native Americans as Americans expanded West along with exploring the changing politics of the 1830’s and 1840’s. 

Our essential questions for our

“Westward Expansion” unit are:

Why is there a need to explore?

How democratic was the Jacksonian era?

How did the expansion of the United States affect the lives of the people in the 1800’s?

How does the geography influence travel and settlement?

Our last unit for the year will be exploring the war that changed our nation forever, the Civil War.