Mullen’s Megaphone

Today we finished our notes and discussion of the five themes of geography. After our discussion, Mrs. Mullen had a cool transparency activity to help explain the five themes. Oh Chandler….sorry your house was eventually taken over by a graveyard! Hopefully this transparency help to make the five themes easier to remember. (I’m all about that, aren’t you?) We also worked with our appointment clocks for the first time and completed the study guide for our test. What test????? The map skills test that you will have on Wednesday, 9/5th!

Homework: Study guide if not finished.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying…

Be safe over the holiday weekend!

We finished our presentations today of the different maps/map skills. After our presentations, we completed our appointment clocks. We will start using our clocks tomorrow! We also watched an informative video explaining the five themes of geography and why they are important to geographers. We will finish discussing the five themes tomorrow.

Homework: none

Reminder: Your map skills test will be on Wednesday, 9/5th.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying…

Extend yourself. Always have a great sense of humor!

Classwork:
We finished our map/map skills projects and starting presenting them in class today. I was impressed! They were very informative as well as colorful. If you have been absent, make sure that you see me when you return. You will have an alternate assignment.

Why do pilots use great circle routes? Hum….the first five people to answer this correctly tomorrow gets to visit my UT jar. Speaking of UT….Go Vols! It’s football time in Tennessee!

Announcement: Map Skills test (including the five themes of geography) will be Wednesday, 9/5th.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying…

Laaaaaaaatitude, Looooooongitude

Classwork:
We had several miscellaneous items to take care of today. We turned in our classroom grid, took part in a gallery walk for our notebooks, filled out our seating contracts and reviewed the video worksheet on landforms. We also had a chance to look at our pictures. Remember, tomorrow you will have a substitute teacher and will be working on a group project over map skills.

Your notebook cover and classroom grid are now past due. If you did not turn your grid in, make sure that you turn it in tomorrow to receive late credit. Your notebook DOES NOT have to be photographs! I have explained this several times. You can use clip art, magazines or your own artwork to show off your notebook cover. I need to see your cover if I have not graded it.

Announcement: Chapter test over map skills and five themes of geography on Wednesday, September 5th.

Sorry my blog was not updated on Friday. I could not access my blog after several attempts on Friday afternoon. Here is the homework procedure that I promised you:

Homework:

I will check homework approximately 10 times during the nine week period. Each time I check homework, it will be worth 10 points. If you do not have your homework, you will receive 0 points and if it is incomplete, you might receive 5 points depending on your effort. At the end of the nine weeks, you will have an accumlated homework grade average.

Just let me know if you have any questions.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying…

Extend yourself. Be respectful to all teachers….

Whew! Mrs. Mullen’s head is swimming after today’s classes. We were very busy decorating notebooks, retaking pictures and working on our classroom grid map! I think I have taped enough to last me a while!

Tomorrow we are beginning to glue in our notebooks so remember to have all handouts and worksheets ready.

Remember: Notebook cover and classroom grid map is due on Monday.

Also, I will post my homework procedure for parents Friday.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying…

Extend yourself. Be honest!

We started today’s class with a couple of "housekeeping" items such as reminders of deadlines and explanation of the way I grade homework. Then we took a pre-test covering map skills. What did you remember from sixth grade? We’ll see….

We spent quite some time looking at a cool picture of the earth at night. You guys had awesome questions and comments! Good job! I really liked Michael’s thinking when he asked the question "how could they take a picture of the entire world when the entire world is never dark at the same time?" We even learned that Mr. Hausdorf was technically right with his claim that the Sahara is not the largest desert in the world!

Tomorrow will be a fun day when we decorate our notebooks. We will also retake the pictures (that didn’t turn out). And yes…you will be working on a map grid project.

Reminder: pictures are due for your notebook tomorrow. Also, I will post my homework procedure on my blog tomorrow for your parents to see.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying….

Extend yourself. Be inquisitive! 

Classwork:
Today we took a look at our brand new textbooks. It is important to know how our textbook is organized so we don’t spend too much time looking for things. Also, it will behoove us to maximize the use of our textbook. Wow! Behoove….I love that word! Hummmmm…..  Do you know the meaning of behoove? The first five students to come to me in homeroom with the meaning of "behoove" wins a sweet treat!

I also handed out the syllabus for this first semester. Parents need to sign this along with students.

Reminders:

Cover page is due and will be graded tomorrow. Syllabus needs to be signed by tomorrow.

Pictures, stickers, etc… for your notebooks are due in class on Thursday.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying…

Extend yourself. Develop a great vocabulary…

Today everyone received a textbook while we worked on our cover page in our notebooks. A couple of reminders about the textbooks:
–You will need a book cover for your book. These books are brand new!
–You will need to bring this book to class daily unless I tell you in advance or there is a sign on my door stating otherwise.

Almost everyone had their notebook for class today. Awesome! If you did not have your notebook, please bring it tomorrow. If there is a problem about purchasing a notebook, please come to me.

A sad note: The pictures that I took on the first day of school did not turn out:( No worries…we will retake pics later this week:)

IMPORTANT DEADLINES: The cover page that you worked on today in class is due Wednesday, 8/22. Your pictures for the notebook cover are due Thursday, 8/23.

Tomorrow we will be looking over our new textbooks and how they are organized.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying…

Extend yourself. Be creative!

I don’t know about you, but I have had a great first week back at school! You guys are awesome and I have really enjoyed getting to know you. We will have an exciting year ahead of us learning about different places and their cultures.

Today we put on our "drama" hats and made up skits on how to go about getting the things we want in the classroom as well as life in general. We also had fun watching the skits that were all about the things NOT to do! Chris can really show that "bad attitude". It was great! Monday we are going to settle down and start reviewing map skills and geographic terms. Woohoo!

Remember: You need to bring your spiral notebook to class on Monday. We will start working in them on Monday and I don’t want you to fall behind. Also start looking for pictures to decorate the front cover. We will probably starting decorating with the tape on Wednesday.

This is Mrs. Mullen saying….

Extend yourself. Be enthusiastic…

Today we played the "Geographic Name Game". You did an excellent job with remembering names like Dominican Republic De’Andre and Trinidad/Tobago Taylor! It was a fun game and a great way to remember names (especially for Mrs. Mullen:)

Tomorrow we will start class with more serious stuff, like classroom procedures and expectations. See you then!

A special note: Thanks for everyone’s birthday wishes! You made me feel special!

This is Mrs. Mullen saying….

Extend yourself. Always celebrate life….