Blog Post

Interactive Civics Provides New Learning Experience

  • By Laura Phillips
  • 29 Sep, 2015
A raging woman shouted, “Crazy,” as she slammed the office door shut. “You can’t please everybody, but it’s the law,” explained Colton, a student in Civics class.  The response Colton gave her was part of a new learning experience now being used in the classroom. iCivics, a new technology based learning resource, led by Justice […]

Isela explores iCivics, an on-line interactive technology that teaches civics.

A raging woman shouted, “Crazy,” as she slammed the office door shut. “You can’t please everybody, but it’s the law,” explained Colton, a student in Civics class.  The response Colton gave her was part of a new learning experience now being used in the classroom.
iCivics, a new technology based learning resource, led by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, was recently introduced to ninth grade civics students at Chambers Academy.  iCivics, a non-profit organization is dedicated to reinvigorating civic learning through interactive and engaging learning resources.  Resources include curriculum units, lesson plans, games, drafting boards where students write solid argumentative essays, information quests that challenge students to tackle important civic questions using primary source documents and analytical skills, and web quests that help students connect civics concepts to the real world.
The new resource provides students with the tools they need for active participation and democratic action while providing teachers with the resources and support.  “I like the way we can interact and using the interactive games makes it interesting to learn,” said Alston, civics student.  “It’s not everyday we get a chance to see how civics really plays a role in our lives.”   Knox played, “Do I Have A Right?”, one of the games included in the technology that place students in different civic roles and give them agencies to address real-world problems and issues.  The problems and issues are rooted in clear learning objectives and integrated with lesson plans, explained O’Conner in an iCivics tribute interview.
iCivics has a growing base of more than 85,000 educators and 3 million students and supports individual, small group, and whole-class learning across a variety of settings, discussions and games that introduce and explain complex concepts.  “Learning is not always exciting, but when you can have fun while learning it makes it very effective,” said Colton.
By Laura Phillips 07 Mar, 2020
Congratulations to all girls who tried out for both squads!

The 2020-2021 Junior Varsity Squad members:
Tyane Anthony
Abigail Brooks
Talley Carter
Kayla Howard
Halle Hurst
Gabby Lamb
Baeda McClellan
Sarah McClellan
Jordan Miles
Meleah Tigner

The 2020-2021 Varsity Squad Members:
Bailey Allen
Claire Allen
Jamie Clark
Lindsey Fuller
Kaylyn Keebler
Natalie Lovelace
Audrey Miller
Abbie Morgan
Kamdyn Oliver
Mattie Reese
Brandalon Rombokas
Alyssa Sorrells
Kendall Talbot
By Laura Phillips 04 Mar, 2020

Media Mentions

Our Book Fair is March 9-13. We look forward to visiting the “jungle” to search for some great books!


February top readers are as follows:

Kindergarten: Allison McElvy and Phoebe Benson (11 points)

1st Grade: Rowan Benson (21 points)

2nd Grade: Yates Lashley (20 points)

3rd Grade: Layton Caldwell (22 points)

4th Grade: William Lashley (29 points)

5th Grade: Beth Landrum (10 points)

These students will enjoy lunch off campus!

By Laura Phillips 05 Feb, 2020

My seventh grade science class has been doing some labs this week. We grew bacteria that was collected from different items in an incubator. They got to see how much bacteria is lurking and what it actually looks like. They compared bacteria and fungus. They also used the scientific method in performing this experiment and discussed independent and dependent variables. This was a nice break from note taking!!!

By Laura Phillips 05 Feb, 2020

Hello Everyone

          HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! We hope you all had a GREAT winter break. We are happy to be back in class. First grade has been working hard in January. We celebrated our 100th day of school. We are working on the first story of our fourth reading unit. This school year is flying by. We are all working hard to reach our goals for AR quizzes. First graders ARE SMITTEN with books. Our top AR reader in January is Rowan. Keep up the good work First Grade.

    We are looking forward to February; we will be doing a “Tell me something good” project for Valentine’s Day. We will write a nice comment about each student in the class on hearts. The ground hog did not see his shadow so we hope we can start enjoying the warmer weather of spring. We had a great time doing an experiment to see if we could blow up a balloon inside a bottle. Thank you to Mrs. Flanary and everyone else who helped us conduct our experiment. Do you think you can do it? Give it a try! Well that is all the news for now. Have a Wonderful February!

By Laura Phillips 05 Feb, 2020
In the month of February, our students ‘love’ learning about new events in history. The 9th graders are finishing learning about World War 1 and begin to study the roaring 20s and World War 2. The 10th graders are finalizing their studies of the Civil War and succession of the states. The 11th graders are moving into World War 2 and our 12th graders have moved into economics and politics. The speech class is writing speeches on important figures from the 1920s! We can not wait to see what spring has in store!
By Laura Phillips 05 Feb, 2020

January was a busy time in 4th Grade! In Reading, we read stories about puzzles and mysteries. We focused on literary elements and plot/theme. In Alabama History, we started discussing Alabama’s Early Statehood – specifically the first 5 capitals. In Science, we talked about Earth’s Changes like erosion. We did our first Weird Science Wednesday and completed an Ice Castle STEM Challenge.  WOW – it is hard to believe how quickly the year is passing!    

Our great year continues!

By Laura Phillips 04 Feb, 2020

January has been a busy month in the library! We’ve gotten back in the groove after the break, and we’ve enjoyed making books of our own, and performing Readers Theater scripts!

Our Spring Book Fair is coming up! It will be held during the week of March 9-13. We will be open from 7:30-2:30 Monday-Thursday, and 7:30-11:00 on Friday. “ Finger Foods with Families ” will be held Monday morning from 7:30-8:00. Please come and join us for shopping and snacks. Grandparent luncheons will be held on Tuesday, March 10 for grades K-3, and Wednesday, March 11 for grades 4-6. More information will come home with students soon.

Top AR readers for this month are:

K: Phoebe Benson- 10 points

1st: Rowan Benson- 30.3 points

2nd: Yates Lashley- 34.4 points

3rd: Layton Caldwell- 18.3 points

4th: Eben Sasser- 14.4 points

5th: Beth Landrum- 36.5 points

6th: Easton Janowiecki- 18 points

 

Congratulations to these students!

By Laura Phillips 04 Feb, 2020

The second graders are learning a new way to write ----- cursive!

Cohen had a tooth pulled and has now joined our Tooth Club. We have 6 members now!

Harleen guessed the closest number of triangles in the Triangle Tree! She guessed 32.

The first week after Christmas break was “Frog and Toad Week!” We listened to 4 books about two very good friends, wrote about our favorite Frog and Toad story, and practiced letter writing by writing 3 Frog and Toad letters. We read “A Lost Button” and did an activity with that story with K-5.

We continued our letter writing the next week by writing 2 letters to our classmates and mailing them via Class Mail. After reading “Flat Stanley,” we mailed Flat Fred/Freida letters to someone who does not live with us! After visiting for a week,  they wrote back telling us what Flat Fred/Freida  did and saw. We are sharing our letters with our classmates as soon as the letters come in.

January 27th was our 100th Day of School! We celebrated with activities, refreshments, and goody bags! Many thanks to Mrs. Dianne Lee for baking our cake. We ate every bit of it!  For several years, Lowe’s Pharmacy has blown up 100 balloons for us! The children enjoyed weaving through all the ribbons in our hallway!

By Laura Phillips 31 Jan, 2020
Our elementary grades celebrated 100 days of school earlier this week! They each had special activities throughout the day as well as end it with some celebration and cake!
By Laura Phillips 13 Dec, 2019

We have had a great month! The students are making great progress learning sight words and sounding out simple words. We made Christmas ornaments and decorated our tree.

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