A Great Start!

Yesterday at History Club we got off to a great start!  We discussed what History and Geography are.  We learned the five themes of geography.  (Ask your child what MR.LIP stands for)  We looked at historical atlases and we started our timelines.
On their timelines we labeled 2.5 million BC-8,000 BC the Paleolithic Age (the younger students labeled theirs Old Stone Age), 8,000BC-3.000 BC the Neolithic (New Stone Age), and the Bronze Age from 3,000BC.  We noted on our timelines that around 8,000 BC agriculture began and around 3,000 BC people began to use writing.  We'll get more into that next time!
We looked at some examples of cave art from Chauvet Cave in France and recreated some of our own.  If you'd like to look at the gallery of photos from that particular site, here it is:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/chauvet/chauvet_cave_art.php

We also briefly discussed the transition from pictures to alphabetic writing, and I sent home a cuneiform alphabet that the students can play around with if they'd like.

I assigned each student a person to find out something about and report back to us as we get to them in class, some at the next mtg and some two mtgs from now.  This isn't a report or project, just find out some thing about this person to tell the class about so we understand why this person is important to us in learning history.  It could be one sentence, or more if they are interested in telling more.
Olivia - Hammurabi
Celee - Ramses II
Bella - Abraham
Lyla - Sargon
Gwyn - Nebuchadnezzar
Evan - Otzi the Iceman
Michael - Hatshepsut
Lydia - Nefertiti


For our health lesson, I talked with the students about September being Emergency Preparedness Month.  We discussed having an emergency plan in case of a fire in our homes.  I based the information on the Boy Scout Emergency Preparedness Merit Badge.  They should have all made it home with a sheet with information about fire emergency plans.  I also told the students about the Carroll County Emergency Preparedness EXPO at the AG center Sept 25 10-2pm.  If anyone is interested in going, let me know.  Here's a promo video about it:

Emergency Preparedness EXPO video