I hope this blog post finds you well. I have enjoyed hearing from current and formers students from around the world. These are hard times, and I am striving to improve my communication with friends and family. Teachers love to hear from former students. I would love to hear from you and to know how you are doing. I have enjoyed watching social media updates about my former students who preparing to graduate at my former school in Chennai, India. I am very proud of you and wish you all the best. I really enjoyed hearing President Obama’s message to students graduating this year. Whether or not you are graduating this year, watch this excerpt from this speech and reflect on his words of encouragement and hope. I hope to hear from you. Please stay safe.
Check out this great story by the CBC on Paul Salopek. He was interviewed while he was in Chennai last month. Listen to the audio version on the way home or to school. An excerpt:
As a long-time foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, Salopek has spent a lot of his life on the road. He says everyone he loves knows this is a part of who he is.
“It might seem crazy to some people that I could maintain family relationships, even deep friendships when I’m inching across the world for five years. But this is not a departure for me. I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Salopek told Tremonti.
He attributes his start as a global nomad to a life-changing move over the border from Southern California to a small village in Mexico.
“[It] taught me that … I may never be truly at home anywhere, I’ll feel at home everywhere to some degree, and that home is where my boots are,” he said.
It was the first rain of the season. It came with fistfuls of blown dust, and it barely wet the sand. Paul Salopek encounters the first monsoon in northern India at Milestone 58.
Greetings from Lusaka, Zambia! I am now teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL) at the American International School of Lusaka where I also serve as the Grade 8 team leader and advisor. I am supporting a colleague, Ms. Conte, who teaches Grade 6 MYP Individuals and Societies (Social Studies), as she launches Out of Eden Learn this week. After a long summer, my hope is to write on my blog and to use this platform as a way to support my students and colleagues. Please stay in touch.
Mr. Martin
rmartin@aislusaka.org
Paul has a new article in the September National Geographic magazine. I am so happy to hear that he was able to spend some time at AISC. I hope you enjoyed his visit.
Here are a few photos from Paul’s recent walk through Pakistan. He is now in India! Check your OOEL posts and see if anyone has left any comments or questions for you.
This week we are moving from part 2 (compare and contrast) to making your final product for our Diverse Places – Moving On! project. All of the related documents for this project are on PowerSchool. In class you will be making a final product for a teacher who is either moving to India or moving to another country. Keep up the good work!
The Silk Road was a network of trade routes connecting China and the Far East with the Middle East and Europe. Although it’s been nearly 600 years since the Silk Road has been used for international trade, the routes had a lasting impact on commerce, culture and history that resonates even today. Readthis articleon History.com.
Silk production, or sericulture, is the nearly 5000 year old process that supplies the world with its most prized threads.
Paul Salopek has spent many months walking through the ancient Silk Road region of Central Asia. He has written a nice article about it HERE (CLICK LINK). Read his article and watch the longer video on his blog post.
Happy birthday to the following grade 6 students celebrating birthdays in the month of August. You can click on ‘comments’ and wish your classmates a happy birthday. Just add your email address and first name only. No need to add a website. If I made any mistakes or forgot someone, please let me know. Happy birthday: Ahmet (1), Luca (10), Junwon and Chaeyun (11), Ritika (17), Neil (21), and DaEun (27).
Welcome to 6th grade! We hope you had a nice summer and are ready for a great year. Along with PowerSchool, my class blog will celebrate learning and share ideas. This blog is also a great way for parents to see what we are doing in class. As of today, this site has had over 90,000 page views from 174 countries. You and your parents can ‘follow’ the blog by adding your email address in the box at the top right of the blog. You need to confirm you are following the blog when you get a message in your inbox. Anytime Mr. Martin adds a new post on this blog, you will get a message, if you are following this blog.
The photos above feature some activities we did in our first day, the name wave. We learned each other’s names and how to pronounce each other’s name. We also did a four corners activity. In addition, we discussed important materials needed for our class:
This playlist features helpful videos to review some of the concepts we have been learning about in class. Our last area of research for your project is on the economy of your two countries. Continue to use the guiding questions on the shared document (“What is good information?) as you complete your research this week.
Happy birthday to the following students celebrating birthdays this month: Luca (3), Mr. Ranson (6), Florian (11), Byunggeon(24), Mayu (28), and Aidan (29). If I forgot anyone, let me know and I will fix it. Have a great day!
This Thursday we will have our second Inspiration Conversation of this year on Fake News vs. Real News. We will be meeting on the 2nd Floor of the ES/MS CIC at 3:45 for snacks and refreshments, and we will start the session at 4:15. I hope that you can join us as we explore what makes news fake, what tools do we have to help us determine if something is fake, and what role do we have in stopping the spread of fake news. This is a pressing and important issue in the world today, which plays a role in everyone’s life. This is open to MS and HS students. See you there!
I am a little late, but as promised I am sharing three more geography games. It seems like some of you really enjoyed the speed test game where you had to name all of the countries in the world. Here are some more games you might like that were featured in this blog postby another teacher:
GameOn World is a multiplayer geography game developed by a high school teacher and his student in Portland, Maine. The game is similar in structure to that of Kahoot. In GameOn World the teacher selects a game category (cities, places, and timeline are three of the nine categories) and starts the game. The students join the game by going to GameOn.World and entering a game pin. In the location and timeline games, students answer the questions by moving a placemark on a map or selecting a date on a timeline. In some of the other games students answer by choosing a number on a sliding scale. See the directions in the video above.
Capital Tossis a free geography game from ABCya. The game has a state capitals mode and a country capitals mode. In both modes of the game works the same way. The name of a state or country appears at the bottom of the screen and three rows of capital names scroll across the top. When the correct capital name appears players virtually toss a ball at it. After ten correct answers players can choose a new ball. Three consecutive incorrect answers ends the game.
Where is…?is another good game geography game. This game uses a popular format for geography games; the name of a city is presented to the players and they have to click the map to guess where the city is located. Players are given immediate feedback on their accuracy in the form of a measurement, in kilometers, of the distance between their guesses and the correct answers.
Happy birthday to the following students celebrating birthdays in the month of November: Miruna (13), ChaeYeon(17), Paula(24), and Gautham (27). If I left someone off the list, let me know. Have a great day!
Students have finished Out of Eden Learn, Footstep #2 – Creating a Neighborhood Map – and written a story using one of the five prompts provided by Out of Eden. Here are is a sample of some more of the maps that were created. After Week Without Walls, we will share the maps in a Gallery Walk with our classmates. Click on the images to see a slideshow.
“The brutal heat makes it difficult to work. Yet every day you must walk to the river with animal-skin bags to get water for the plants. You repeat the trip hour after hour, until your legs feel like they won’t support you any longer. Your back aches from carrying water and bending over your crops. The plants need every drop of moisture they can get. But the heat of the sun seems to evaporate the water as soon as it hits the ground.” – The Long Dry Spell” (pages 80 – 81).
Check out Sophia’s animal blog, Save Earth: Save Us. It’s a very nice blog which focuses on endangered animals and the environment. It’s quite nice. Take a look, and post a comment. Click HEREto see the blog. Great job, Sophia. I hope you continue to make posters next year.
End of Year Party on Friday, May 20 from 4:30-6:00 in the FAC Cafeteria.
Tickets are 200/- and will be available from Tuesday, May 17. Ticket sellers are student activities club members and Ms. Jaya (3129) and Mrs. Hall (3131).
Three years ago, Pulitzer-winning journalist Paul Salopek embarked on a decade-long walk around the world, charting the path of the original human emigrants who left their birthplace in eastern Africa to spread across the globe. As he prepares to follow the Silk Road from Central Asia into China, Salopek checks in with Hari Sreenivasan to reflect on his journey thus far and what lies ahead. Watch the video and/or read the interviewfrom PBS news and see what is next for the Out of Eden Walk.
If you enjoyed STEM, like biking, and want to help others, this project might be for you! Here is a video I created last year for the project. More information is in the student bulletin!
Did you know bikes are one of the most efficient machines in the world? Are you interested in helping local kids? Mr. Ryan (8th grade) is putting together a team of students to pair up with a local orphan. You can work together with another kid to rebuild their bike. Don’t know how to work with bikes? No problem. We can learn together! The Orphan Bike Project will take place on 4 Saturdays here on campus. Here is the schedule:
April 23rd- Introductions, Clean bikes, Note what needs to be replaced, pictures and interviews
May 14th- refurbish bicycles (brake pads, brake cables)
May 7th- refurbish bicycles
May 21st – Bikeathon! To raise money for the orphan’s school costs.
Please e-mail Ms. Heidi sheidi@aisch.orgif you are interested. Fill out this form, get it signed, and turn it into Ms. Heidi (Room 2123) by Friday, April 15.
"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."
- Maya Angelou
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