This week in Upper School:

Student Council is hosting a Valentine’s party for upper school students on Friday, February 15th, after school. We will hang out in the upper school space from 3:30 until 5:30. StuCo is providing snacks and drinks, and we’ll have games for students to play. Upper School teachers will be present to chaperone.

We hope to see you there! Please email esmith@thesummitprep.org if you have any questions.

This week in history:

Currently, middle school classes are learning about presidential power in the Early Republic and the economics of the market revolution. Sixth grade is working on a project to learn more about immigration to the United States in the 19th century, digging into the push and pull factors affecting the movement of people and how that movement shaped the country. 

This week, seventh and eighth grade students are learning about the Louisiana Purchase and how Thomas Jefferson justified the purchase from Napoleon. Students will examine the Corps of Discovery and its role in mapping a route to the Pacific Ocean. The blue and yellow teams will work on a quick research project to learn more about the specifics of the journey. Students in the seventh and eighth grades are also wrapping up their research on the age of revolutions and their law day essays, which are due next week. After this unit, seventh and eighth grade students will be examining the innovations that came with the market revolution and the ways in which inventions and ideas shaped the American landscape.

High school students are wrapping up Reconstruction and beginning to look at the American West. The class will take a look at an episode of Ken Burns’ “The West” to learn about the roles of the Homestead Act and the transcontinental railroad in reshaping the western states. Students will be reading primary sources alongside this study, including Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous essay: “Significance of the Frontier in American History.”