Mesopotamia

We are starting to learn about Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent, and the first civilizations.  Here is a link that is interesting for additional information about this ancient region.

http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/menu.html

Cave Paintings

One of the things we discussed in class today was cave paintings.  This is a very cool site that takes the viewer on a virtual tour of caves discovered in France in the 1940s. We looked at it briefly in class, but I thought it would be better for the kids to take some time to look at it on their own.


 http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/#/fr/00.xml

Early Humans

Today we used fill in notes to discuss the history of humans.We started with Lucy, the oldest, discovered hominid. We briefly discussed the difference between fossils and artifacts. Then, we moved on to Stone Age hunter/gatherers and tool makers, finding fire, making fire and the benefits of having fire.

Wednesday, we will continue the discussion of the development of humans.

Pangea

On Friday, we looked at the shape of the continents and noticed how they might fit together. Students cut out shapes of the continents (as well as a few other major regions) and created a poster of how the Earth's land masses are arranged now, and how they were arranged 200 million years ago as PANGEA. This video clip from the Ice Age creators offers a funny, alternative version of what broke apart Pangea and set the Earth's land masses in motion. We will be learning the more accurate, scientific version of how the earth has changed over the next couple of weeks in science, so we will not be spending much time on it in Social Studies class.