A Loyalist/Patriot Game

Santana the Magnificent has found an amazingly cool game where you work your way through different tasks and questions and determine whether you would have been a Patriot or a Loyalist living during the American Revolution.

Let me know if you've played the game and what the outcome was!

Want Some Bonus Marks? - Special thanks to Santana!

Santana continues her wonderful 'net research skills. She has found all kinds of exciting sites, including the following:

#1. An article about Black Loyalists.
#2. Many articles from different points of view in America about the American Revolution.
#3. Some American heroes of the American Revolution. How do you think the Loyalists saw these people? What about the British North Americans?
#4. An article from the American point of view describing the causes and effects of the American Revolution.
#5. I haven't played a lot on this one yet, but it's pretty neat - HistoryWorld. If you check this one out, let me know what great features it has!

For some bonus marks, you can check out these sites and write a review on your own blog, linking others to them. As always, if you do a bonus assignment, send a comment my way so that I know to check it out!

Historical Trends by the Decade

The incredible Santana has discovered one of the greatest sites I've ever seen. You can select a decade and there are lists of important events, who is "in", who died, the "bad guys", entertainment, music, literature, art, slang, and fashion and beauty. This site is an excellent place to start your research or enhance your diary or journal. So, so cool! I love it!

Escape to Canada

This morning we saw an awesome assembly, bringing to life many elements of Black History/African Heritage. Inspired by that, Jessica in E7B was doing research on Harriet Tubman. She found a really neat online game where you experience what it would be like to be a slave escaping to freedom in Canada.

Be Creative! Be! Be! Creative!

Hello dollies,

I absolutely encourage and embrace any creativity you can bring to these assignments. This is a learning process for all of us (even me, your perfect teacher!) If you can figure out a better way to present your information, let me know. Helena and Sarah in E7/8 were in one of my classes last year and are a great dramatic duo. They will be working together to create their Louis Riel interview. They came to me with the request to incorporate their powers (what word did you use, girls? It was something better than that!) and made an arrangement that is fair and still showcases the things they've learned. Awesome. Another group is looking into getting their mark through a video of their interview. Just as awesome. Come and see me or leave me a comment with if you have creative ideas you'd like to try out. I'm happy for you to try new things, we just have to make a deal so that it's fair!

Just FYI, I felt I needed to offer you this because my brother Sam (who many of you will remember) was very upset about homework on the weekend. He was assigned a project in which he HAD TO use visual aids. He feels he works better without visual aids. He got stuck on that one requirement and had difficulty getting the content for his project completed. I learned a lesson from that. I always try to create assignments that I feel will be fun-teresting (fun+interesting) for you. Sometimes I get things wrong. Please, in a respectful way, tell me how you can reach a higher level of success - the options for creativity on your blog are ENDLESS!

I look forward to reading about and seeing all your juicy brain nuggets!

Test Your New France Knowledge!

   Try a quiz to see how much you know about New France.  This is a pretty neat quiz because as you get questions correct, your canoe moves further along the St. Lawrence.  How did you do?  What did you learn that you didn't know before?

  If you liked that quiz, you can try another quiz about Canadian Daredevils.

  Both quizzes come from the website for Kayak Magazine.  Their website is good, but their magazine is better.  If you have a chance, pick up a copy of this magazine, it's a Canadian History magazine for kids and is full of lots of great information presented in a fun way.  

  As always, you are more than welcome, you are encouraged to leave comments after my posts so that I can hear about what you are doing and if the things that I am posting are useful to you!

The Great Upper Canada Adventure

   I found a cool online interactive game, called The Great Upper Canada Adventure, to explore some of the difficulties early Canadian settlers had in moving from Europe to Canada.  You take on the persona of a European peasant family member and make decisions.  It's pretty interesting.  The game is kind of like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that I read as a kid.  Based on your decisions, the outcome of the story changes.  If you're done all your assignments or need a break, you can play this.  

   Also, as always, I'll be reading comments that you leave here.  If you play, let me know what you thought, and read and respond to your peers' feedback.  (Note: This is a great way for you to show me that you're working with the information that you're given and for me to see that you're understanding the things your learning - this will help me to give you marks!)

Helena Gives Some Advice, Which Reminds Me...

Hey ladies and germs!

Helena in E7/8 never ceases to amaze me! She has posted an amazing entry giving advice to you, her peers, on how to write even better blog entries. She has outlined the process that she uses in her own writing. This is something helpful for all of you to read.

It's so interesting for me to see the process that you use when you do your work. Remember that you can use your blogs for any History related things. Some of you have embraced this and have written reflective entries, made polls or contests, and commented on things that are going on in Canada today. That is perfect. In addition to the marks that you will get for completing your assignments, you can get bonus marks for using your blogs creatively to share relevant information. Some of you have done creative things, like add video bars, music, personalized templates, etc. That is a good way to personalize your blog, but is not relevant, so will not get you bonus marks.

To get bonus marks, be CREATIVE and RELEVANT. I look forward to seeing all the cool things you come up with. If there is something you want me to check out, simply leave a comment for me.