Students in sixth grade have wrapped up their study of Rome and are beginning to examine the Silk Roads, essential trade routes that worked to connect continents for centuries. Today, they’ll play a favorite sixth grade game in which they trade materials with their neighboring regions and try to walk away the victor. This activity supports students’ understanding of the resources traded, geographic points in relation to each other, and communication/persuasion skills. It’s always fun to see them adapt with each new round, considering new ways of achieving their goals.

In seventh grade, students have been studying Reconstruction this week. After learning about the Reconstruction Amendments, students examined the ways in which the Freedmen’s Bureau supported the newly freed people of the South, as well as the active role of the federal government in the former Confederate states in this time. 

In eighth grade, students completed an assessment question asking them to pull together the different challenges to a growing United States in the Early Republic era. From here, they’re beginning a research presentation about key abolitionists and their advocacy in ending slavery.