Students recently participated in the Jamestown Escape Room, they had to work together in small group and solve four clues, using four ciphers to uncover information about the colony. Students then used their information to crack a code that opened John Smith’s safe. Many groups got close to escaping, but only three were successful on all tasks. Congratulations to the following students!

This week our focus will be on the second English colony established in the New World, Plymouth. We can trace our Thanksgiving tradition back to this colony, but many times the Pilgrims who celebrated with the Native Americans are mistaken for the Puritans who came to the colony much later. Do you know the difference? We will take a look at N.C. Wyeth’s Pilgrims to help distinguish between the two. We will also look at some other Mayflower Myths, so be sure to ask your students about some of the things they learn this week!

Later in the week we will do some comparisons of the first two colonies as well as choose a colony to be a part of, look for blog posts about your student’s choice.

We will continue construction of our physical map, your student should be spending five to ten minutes each night studying the landforms on the map in preparation for a map quiz!

Reminder: Friday is a student holiday!

This week we will continue our journey through the National Parks and will be making a stop at the very first park to be established. Do you have any idea where that might be? Here’s a hint, Old Faithful can be seen here.

We will also begin constructing a physical map of the United States. This map will have all major landforms that students will need to be familiar with this year.

Jamestown will be our hot topic this week as we learn about the first successful English colony established in the New World. On Friday students will participate in an escape room activity that will require them to solve puzzles about Jamestown’s history.

It’s Homecoming Week, an event that only happens every three years! We will have an early release on Friday so that students can attend the pep rally, we will dismiss at 1:15!

This week student will have a quiz over parts of a map and the map skills we have been working on in class. We will also be learning about the Lost Colony of Roanoke, students will conduct a CSI type investigation over possible explanations about what happened to the 117 colonist who vanished from the colony. Be sure to ask your student about the theory they believe explains this historic mystery!

This week we will be wrapping up the Age of Exploration. On Mindset Monday, we will explore what type of brain we have and find ways to develop our weaker areas. Tuesday students will have a chance to exchange their library books. Wednesday we will be doing some preliminary work on our National Parks project as well as taking a virtual field trip to a National Park! Hopefully students will be able to crack the code that will lead them to correct park! Wednesday is also an Early Release day, we will dismiss at 12:00! We will end our week studying landforms. Students will be posting the results of their research to their blogs, if you have not already taken the time to subscribe to your students blog, please do so, it really means a lot to them.