Counting History by Tens

As adults our class learned a lot from this project. Imagine what could be in the classroom! Growing up we often remembered reading from textbook with the majority of our history lessons. The idea behind the decades project allows students to co-construct knowledge. Less background knowledge would be brought into this process, but instead as students research they share their understanding with each other.
Our class really enjoyed the project, even dressing the part was fun.

50's

60's

70's

80's

90's






Even if we didn't live in one of these decades we were still able to relive them. It was great talking to family and friends about their memories from back in the day and make connections with important event of the time with important people in our lives today.

More ideas, but they are worth it!

WHERE TEACHERS BUY, SELL AND SHARE ORIGINAL TEACHING RESOURCES    

Okay this looks like a site worth joining to find ideas. It is free to join, but yes you pay to purchase the teachers ideas. What a great way to get credit and help other teachers find lessons that have worked. It's a way to give teachers who have original working ideas credit for their work as opposed to big corporations who haven't taught a day in their life....

This is a great Blog!

Mrs. Cooley is a first grade teacher with some really great ideas.  An these aliens are only a small part of it!

Literature: More than just a opportunity to ehance students comprehension.

Books that light fires for reading in students and they are just the beginning of a series, so you have the opportunity to open a door to their interests in written form. These books give students options for hours of entertainment other than television and video games. And for the students who are really interested in films can get a taste of both of these stories on the big screen.

The Borrowers

This book really opens our eyes to opportunities to use our imagination. I remember building little homes for my beanie babies when I was in 3rd grade for fun. Had this been an assignment I would have been so engaged in the details of a book like The Borrowers with a classroom assignment that required us to construct a scene from the story.

The Lightning Thief

I could see my future students making connections early on with the story's young characters and the Greek mythology open's doors for engaging history lessons. The main character, Percy, might also give students with home lives that are less than ideal someone to relate to without having to ask those students to talk about difficult topics.

Resources

What teacher isn't looking for that next great idea? Here are some places to start when building up a collection of a variety of directions to take your lessons in.

• Who doesn't love a good set of examples for Anchor Charts?

• One challege in all grade levels is finding exciting ways for ELL students to learn language that is engaging. I feel like I could use some of these suggestion daily for ten minutes (with the whole class) and it would make a difference.

• You can never go wrong with the reasources on PBS teachers. Check it out! They tons of lesson plan ideas, and it's a great place to start.

Henry who?

In our history class we got to know an important explorer from England, named Henry Hudson. He went on four different voyages to find the Northwest Passage, but his crew returned without him from the last voyage. The traveling conditions were very brutal and this was toll taking on the crews. Despite having a lot of experience from his prior trips in search of the passage, it is believed that his crew lost faith in him. Hudson, his son, and other sick and dying crew members we put into a small boat as the remaining crew sailed back to England.

After gaining some background knowledge about Hudson, our class proceeded to role play being the crew on those final days before leaving behind our captain. We were all dealt cards for our current condition on the ship. I “had” a dislocated shoulder our first round, 2 we pronounced dead, and we only had 4 healthy members left in our crew.  On our second round of I ended up with frost bite on both feet, we had another death, and not one crew member was healthy.

Our “conditions” led to a series of topics to discuss. What would I still be able do to help the crew? Should the crew be required to do the manual labor for me? What were the conditions like that would leave my feet frost bitten? Understanding that a fire couldn’t be started on board to keep us warm was a new thought let alone not having any form of heating.  

This started to help us understand why Hudson and the sick were left behind. The crew was doing what they had to in hopes of survival.

Hudson and his son, with the sick crew members as they are left behind.

Trade Fair

I was very exciting for this in-class activity. The purpose of the trade fair was to use a tangible experience to help us understand how people of the past would exchange goods and services. The trade fair was an authentic experience that gave us a better understanding about supply and demand.

One thing that was interesting to see was which person would have the “coveted” item that everyone would want to trade for. Being that we were all in the class studying to be teachers, Elizabeth’s framed set of quotes was IT. It was very cute and crafty, not to mention she has beautiful handwriting, just a great homemade product.

Sadly I wasn’t “rich” enough with goods to trade for it, but I still made out well.

This activity was linked back to how the Indians and settlers, and how trading may have been for them.  We discussed how emotions and friendships could have been effected by trades, and how for some, vital products could have been close to impossible to buy if they did not have a good or service that was needed.

We also talked about some of the complications a teacher might experience with this activity. A few concerns were about the monetary value of items students might bring in and how friendships could affect the trade process.  This could be related right back to how the settlers and Indians felt but it important as a teacher to keep the classroom environment safe. One way to overcome this problems could be to have time and supplies available for the students to make their products to trade.