Myth or Mist?
I love delving into a good book, or sometimes escaping to a compelling movie. When my two favorite past times are joined, I try to read the book first. With this upcoming film release schedule, I decided to read Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan for this week’s National Book Month Middle School Entry.
I love mythology, and listening to the tales of the gods, demi-gods, and the different battles or skirmishes. When I lived in South Carolina, I use to enjoy a yearly visit to Brook Green Gardens, just so I could hear the stories of the statues. However, like Percy Jackson, I tend to mix up the gods quite easily. Not the major players, but there are just so many to keep up with! Which means, this is a natural fit for netTrekker. I came across two this morning that I wasn’t sure about, and used netTrekker to quickly look them up and frame my mind around who they were and their role in the life of the gods in the 21st Century.
The other item that I found interesting in this book is the talk of moving west. Mt Olympus started Greece, but it moves with the gods, and they move with society. The book even made it sound like the Roman gods were really the Greek gods, they had just moved west and that the gods also were the reason for events such as wars or Prohobition. Time to break out a timeline and map and see if you can find ways to compare those events with the gods that would have been involved – and see if the trend still was to move west.
However, one of the items that really grabbed me was the idea of mist. I am often told to get my head out of the clouds and to come back to Earth or to pay attention. Here we have the gods explaining to us that often times we “miss” events because the gods are involved and there is a “mist” that comes into play to distort our vision or memories. What would a day be like if the “mist” did not work and we actually saw the gods in action? I would love to challenge my students into researching a specific god or goddess and write what a day of that god’s life would be like in the 21st Century and the reaction us mortals would have to that god’s presence.
I think I’m going to have to finish this entire series. And I’ll definitely be using netTrekker as my source for the 4-1-1 on the gods.
Among the Hidden
On the recommendation of a friend, Chad Lehman, I selected Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix as the book to read this week for my entry in our month long blog series about books in honoring the National Book Month. I was totally engrossed in the book, that to be honest with you, I let my ice-cream melt! It’s that good!
I don’t want to give the book’s plot away, but it’s the first in the Shadow Children series, set in the future where we have things such as “Population Police” and the government is fiercely involved in the daily lives of people. Due to a drought and then a famine, a law has been enacted that only allows families to have no more than two children. A third child is to be aborted right away. However, many families have chosen to have the third child and hide them away, hence the name “Shadow Children”.
Many comparisons can be made to this book and to the one child per family law of China, using a graphic organizer. Another topic for discussion is how droughts can effect the food supply and demand, and even how a pet, cattle, or other things we take for granted help drive up costs and take food away from others. So many possibilities and ideas, making this a great novel for the classroom.
Either way, you will definitely find resources in netTrekker. I found an interesting article about a family in China who had twins after their first born and therefore their home was sealed up until they could pay the extraordinary fine for having more than one child. I found lesson plans based on this book, and information on the author.
I’d love to hear how you use this book in your classroom! Leave a comment below.
Thanksgiving
Folks, Tami. tksgiv03-1.jpg. . Pics4Learning. 13 Nov 2009
How many of you know the history of Thanksgiving? The first Thanksgiving was declared by George Washington in 1789. It was declared in September before the recess, and celebrated on November 26, 2009 as a day of “publick thanksgivin’”. Each President after George Washington continued to declare a date for the nation to give thanks, with the date always varied. President Lincoln however needed order to the date, so he established that the day of thanksgiving will be the last Thursday of each November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt however looked at the “economic” calendar and realized that the last Thursday of November cut the shopping time for the Christmas holidays, and therefore he moved it to the second to last Thursday November. But not everyone agreed with this, and so not all states celebrated on the same date, which just caused confusion. So Congress got together in 1941 and after many considerations, set the day of thanksgiving as the fourth Friday of November.
Kolk, Melinda. plimouthplantation2.jpg. Apr-02. Pics4Learning. 13 Nov 2009
But the day of thanks and friendship also are marked back to early Greece, other parts of history, and throughout religion. The more and more I read the different websites in netTrekker, the more I found about this day that we get to celebrate thanks. It’s more than turkey, football, and getting up early the next morning to shop the big sales. If you conduct a search in netTrekker you too can find the entire scoop.
Share your favorite way of celebrating Thanksgiving on netTrekker Village.
Today is netTrekker’s Safe Search Day!
Today we recognize those schools that are keeping students safe online with outstanding netTrekker usage in the 2008-2009 school year and for an extremely successful district-wide implementation of netTrekker.
We would like to send our congratulations to those districts that finished in the Top 100 this year. Click Here to view the full list of qualifying districts and to read the press release honoring them during netTrekker Safe Search Day.
Our company’s mission is to engage students through personalized learning, by helping connecting educators and students to digital resources and tools that enhance the teaching and learning process. These districts exemplify our mission with their ongoing support, and we hope they can serve as an example to others.
We would like to see all our schools and districts keep students safe by achieving high netTrekker usage rates. To assist you in this effort, we have created a set of tips to help you increase netTrekker usage at your school. Click Here for your free copy, so you can join the Top 100 list next year!
Email Notifications
Educator Blog Roll
- Backroom Educational Technology by Michelle Morely
- Cliotech, by Jennifer Dorman
- Educational Technology by Palm Beach
- etechplace: Henrico’s FETC Blog
- Geeky Momma, by Lee Kolbert
- Moving at the Speed of Creativity, by Wes Fryer
- NCS-Tech! by Kevin Jarrett
- Randomly Speaking, by John Lien
- Southgate Technology Blog
- Teach 42 Blog by Steve Dembo
- Teach the Civil War with Technology by Jim Beeghley
- Tinkerings, by Tim Childers