Today we talked about the first factories in the US, they were mostly in the Northeast, powered by water mills. Mr. Boyle also told us how the managers of the factories benefitted so much more than the workers, which is obvious, but I didnt realize the extent. The fact that the factories were dangerous allowed the managers to benefit, because when a worker was injured by a machine, they'd leave work and someone else would be hired for less money.
After discussing this, we got a group assignment to develop our own "factory". We arent done, but we have to figure out the amount of machines needed, the workers, the income, etc. It's kind of difficult, but I think we'll end up learning a lot.
Well today we took notes on the Mason-Dixon line, which I can vaguely remember learning in 5th grade. I definitely need to relearn it though.
Taking notes isnt that interesting, and soon I feel like I'm about to fall asleep. But I don't, don't even worry.
This project was really challenging, surprisingly. My group didnt plan at all about who was going to do what, and deadlines, etc. However, though it was hard, I think we learned a lot. In trying to get all of the information, we learned not only the facts, but other skills, such as teamwork and planning. I think it would have been a lot easier, and probably just as effective to have taken notes on the subjects, but not as entertaining.
On Tuesday we recorded the voice part of our newscast project. It wasnt hard, the hardest part was writing the script, and finding all the information and getting it sorted. My group worked well together, but we could have definitely planned it out a little better. We didnt assign jobs or anything, we just all randomly put info into the google docs shared document. It would have been a lot easier and probably more effective if we had assigned some people to finding pictures, some to writing the script, some to finding info, etc. If we ever have to do that again, I'll definitely know what to do differently to avoid confusion. Overall, I think it was a difficult project, but I feel that I learned a lot.
Today we had an assembly halfway that lasted halfway through the period, so we only had like a half hour to look up pictures and facts for our projects. I get how to do the project now though. It seems like a lot of work and time, but at least we get to do it in school.
Yesterday we had a test, and after a lot of studying I thought it was pretty easy.
On Friday we took a lot of notes, there were so many slides. We learned about "Mr. Madison's War", where James Madison passed a law to forbid American ships from leaving their ports, for protection. This affected seacoast port towns, such as Salem and Newburyport, a great deal. It reduced their income and validity a lot. Also, we talked about the Hartford Convention a little bit, and I was super surprised that New England would try to seperate themselves from the rest of the United States. So much work was put into being a country, why would they ever want to seperate? New England was the heart of America too, where basically everything happened.
Today the seats were arranged in a circle, which made it a lot easier to have a class discussion. Normally, we all are facing away from one another and it never works out well. We read a few documents and answered questions on them, then talked about it. We took notes about Congress vs Constitution and things related to that.
Today, like the past few days, we took notes and had discussions about the Consitution and government, today and in the past. I feel like having these discussions, though theyre sometimes kind of boring, is actually teaching me a lot. I've learned so much about our government in just the past few days.
We have a TV news report project due in a few weeks, which I'm confused about. I hope Mr.Boyle goes over it soon, because we never really talked about it.
Yesterday, like I said, I was absent from school. I didnt miss much in history, since I did the homework reading the night before. Today we talked about the election that happened yesterday, and about what might happen to the government now that it's mostly Republicans. We also discussed government and issues in the late 1700s. There's a lot more to government and the way it's run than I ever knew.
Today we talked a lot about the election and things related to it, and on Friday we took a test, or "quest". I thought it was really hard, and I felt dumb when I didnt know the senators. I think I got one right. But overall it was difficult. Anyways, today we didnt really do much other than talk and analyze the government and voting. I wont be in school tomorrow, I have a doctor's appointment far away, but tomorrow in class we're supposed to discuss the homework reading from tonight.
