Summer Book Purchases

A few weeks ago I was at the Eric Carle Picture Book Museum in Amherst Massachusetts (AKA the BEST gift shop/bookstore ever).  I can never get out of there without buying at least a few new books.

This year I walked out with signed copies of two books I can't WAIT to use for our regions unit, both by Diane Siebert.

The first is Sierra.

The second is Heartland.  Both have beautiful illustrations and lovely, poetic text with great details!  They're just begging to be a mentor text!

 

I have Mojave already, so I'm excited to add more to my collection.

I added Mississippi to my wishlist!

Another great one for your consideration is Tour America: A Journey through Poems and Art, perfect for a regions study!

O, Canada!

We're gearing up for a brand new Social Studies unit on.... Canada!  That's right!  I've never taught (or learned much, for that matter) about our neighbors to the north, but with the help of my colleagues, I'm starting to get excited for this unit.

To get you in the spirit of Canadian national pride, I thought I would share this lovely video of "Oh, Canada" along with all the sights and sounds.  Enjoy!

Western Treasure Hunt

Did I tell you how much my student teacher rocks?  Well, she does.  A lot.  She has been so professional, dedicated, and creative.  It's so fun to watch her grow and take on each challenge I throw her way. 

Like this one.

Sweet student teacher (henceforth SST) created a rockin' treasure hunt to help my students learn about the western region of the United States.  The premise was they had to find No Beard the Pirate's treasure in the West by following clues around the school.

Not only was it fun an exciting, but they learned a ton! 

 

Here are some pics of the hunt in progress.  I loved that she had everyone dress in their team colors!

 

The Green Team Working on their first clue



 

Blue Team is almost ready to look for clue #2!

One of the stops included our school secretary showing the students how to hula!  And SST provided leis as a souvenir of their stop before getting another clue.

Our secretary went above and beyond by dressing up and playing hula music in her office! It was the total highlight!

At the end, the clues led right back to our own classroom where No Beard's (chocolate) gold treasure was waiting! 


The Pink Team tells one fact they learned before getting their gold!


 

I am so grateful to SST for working so hard on this lesson and can't WAIT to use it again next year!



Tacky Tourist Day

 Happy Tacky Tourist day!  To wrap up our study of the Southeast, we're celebrating with a day of dress up!  Each student was asked to think about tourist destinations in the SE and to dress like their visiting that location.

We also had props available for students who wanted them.

These pics will be the front cover of a scrapbook we're making about the southeast region.

Check out some great examples of costumes below, including yours truly as a hiker on the Appalachian Trail.  And my sweet student teacher from the Grand Ole Opry!

While we did our classwork, we listened to a soundtrack of Southeast songs, including "Georgia on my Mind," "Calling Baton Rouge," "Walking in Memphis," "Sweet Home Alabama," "My Old Kentucky Home," and "Good Old Rocky Top."

Thanks to Mrs. Hall at Fabulous in Fourth for sharing this great idea!

History Class Take-Aways

This week ATP and I, along with some other colleagues, took an American History class.  The class was very lecture-heavy with content much deeper than we would share with 5th graders.  But there were some take-aways I want to remember to incorporate into future teaching.

The focus of the course was on ecological and geographical connections to history.  (Fancy, eh?)

Day one focused on the demise of the buffalo (yup...5 hours).  The presenter's argument was that much more of it was already in motion before the white hunter/settler.

I particularly liked this infographic that was shared.  I think it's a great way to show students the deep impact that the decline of the buffalo had on the culture of the Plains indians.

 

On day two, we started with a presentation on ArcGIS software.  GIS stands for Geographic Information System. 

 

The software has been purchased by the state of Ohio for K-12 classrooms, but is still in the roll-out phase.  There are lots of potential uses for our newly geographic-focused curriculum, especially in allowing students to make inferences about different thematic maps and what they reveal about the city/region.  Check out some of the data available here and some examples of maps below.

 

 

 

 

The software is limited right now by the fact that students have to have a unique account linked by email.  Also, right now all the free accounts are public, so make sure to remind students not to mark their own homes.

 



Disclaimer: a LOT of this seems very complicated and to my untrained eye.  I would prefer to use Google Maps/Earth for most of the same type of lessons.  I'm sure if you really get into the ArcGIS software there is a lot more depth, but I'm not sure I'm totally ready to dive in.

 

One feature I am eager to try is the newly developed addition of Story Maps.  Basically, they are animated maps that cover an event, from the Moore tornado to the Battle of Gettysburg.  I want to remember to look into this more this school year.

 

Since then the take aways have been minimal, but we did take a walking tour of downtown Hamilton to learn about the Flood of 1913.  I'm not sure if there is enough history in our school district to actually do this, but as AC (awesome colleague) shared, it would be an interesting project to have students create more of a "virtual" walking tour of some sort.  AC's idea was to create a larger "walking tour" of a region.  This could also be incorporated locally with the impact of European exploration. Perhaps a walking tour of nearby English, Spanish, or French architecture? 

 

Overall, I'm thankful for the credit hours and the few nuggets of ideas, but mostly, it was a good week to catch up with colleagues before heading back into our classrooms.