Welcome back to a new year at Trinity! I am so excited to work with you and your students this year. I am teaching both religion and social studies for grades 6, 7, and 8. On the first day of class, you child will receive a contract/syllabus with the topics we will study, my grading policies, my contact information, and expectations. Those should be signed by both you and your child and returned the next day. Now for the specific subject area updates.
6th Social Studies
Sixth grade social studies will be starting off with studying the time period before written records, called prehistory. This will go into theories of how early humans lived and migrated throughout the earth. We will tie in certain lessons with what we are covering in religion class.
6th Religion
In religion, we will also be starting at the very beginning of time with our study of Genesis, beginning with Creation. As I wrote above, this will tie in with social studies as we study how people lived, as well as the geography of the ancient world.
7th Social Studies
Seventh grade will begin the year studying the early cultures of North and South America. Then, we will review political systems and cultural influences from Europe, Asia, and Africa. This whole chapter will go over what has shaped our political systems and American values/culture.
7th Religion
The very first unit in religion this year asks the question, “Who is God?” We will study a number of Bible stories from the Old and New Testament that show the characteristics of God.
8th Social Studies
This week we will be picking up right where we left off in June. We will start with studying the events right before the Civil War, and then the split of the nation and the battles that ensued. The main theme of this unit is the fact that slavery was the driving force of the Civil War, and the first lesson will establish this as we study the series of failed compromises that were supposed to settle the issue of slavery spreading to the western states and territories.
8th Religion
Much like 6th grade, we will also be starting from the book of Genesis and we will work our way forward. We will focus primarily on the descendants of Adam and Eve that were chosen by God to carry the blessing and promise of a Savior. The students will learn that these people were far from perfect, but God still used them in a mighty way to accomplish His will.