This week in History class the students made their own review videos as a class! Each student was assigned a keyword and created a visual to accompany the meaning and significance of each keyword or person. Then, they created a two line "rap" to tell the viewer what the keyword meant. I asked them to line up chronologically so I could move through the words in a timeline (it was on the Roaring Twenties) and I filmed them. This way they can remember the rhyme for the test and I can check the video (as a formative assessment) to see if they understood the term. It was fun! They were super proud of themselves. Check it out below!
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Oh it's been a long couple of weeks! I'm sorry for missing my posts last week - I was super sick. I am much better though now after two steroid shots and an almost complete round of antibiotics.
We've done some interesting things in History class lately! My students finished their facebook projects. Here are a few examples of their websites: http://willisleblanc.weebly.com/henry-ford.html, http://ecalivingdead.weebly.com/index.html, http://historicpeople.weebly.com/index.html. They were super proud of themselves! We also did stop motions to depict the Battle of San Juan Hill with the Rough Riders. That was fun for the boys to be able to bring their army men and legos to school. Yes, they are seventeen and still have army men and legos at home. Speaking of legos...we have been talking about Roman cities lately in world history and my class created a lego miniature Roman city complete with aqueducts, roads, a senate, a coliseum and a Christian church. They had fun with that and it helped them be able to understand the engineering advancements that the Romans made throughout the time of their empire. Hope you enjoy! Kathleen
This summer I participated in my first ever blog party, #Made4Math hosted by @druinok and @pamjwilson. I have had so much fun connecting with other teachers, seeing their classrooms, and sharing ideas. I am truly inspired each week as I read through the many posts from incredible teachers around the globe! Kathleen and I were talking about the amount of energy that snaps across the internet to infuse enthusiasm into classrooms everywhere just when teachers connect. So, of course, we want to host a blog party of our own! Our focus, Dollar Tree PD, was inspired by a quick trip to the local Dollar Tree with a group of teachers, in which we all spent less than $8 and left the store with a plethora of items intended for classroom use. We were amazed that we all spent so little, but left with items intended to have a BIG impact on our students. How will it work??? Well, every Thursday, we will post (and, hopefully, you will too!) a thrifty classroom idea with items found for around a dollar. The posts can focus on items for classroom management, decorations, curriculum idea, or really anything you related to school! Create a blog post and post pictures (feel free to snag the linky party logo). After you have created your post, fill out the electronic submission form and tweet the link with the hashtag #$TreePD. If your creation was inspired by something you saw online, then, of course, give props to the author:) When does it start??? Well, Thursday, in keeping with Kathleen’s awesome idea of “Thrifty Thursday”! We’ve already been scouting the aisles and have seen several items we are eager to use in our classes. If Thursday is not good for you, then, post when you can, add your link to the submission form, and tweet #$TreePD. Why do this??? Well, we think there is power in numbers and while we may look at a flyswatter and think, “hmmm…I’m glad I don’t have flies”, we realize others recognize its’ hidden potential to be transformed into a game to use to review. We hope to share the creative use of inexpensive items to impact student learning everywhere! What to do??? Hit the local discount stores and start re-imagining. We can’t wait to see what you find!!! We've decided to revamp Thrifty Thursdays. I'm a couponaholic and I thought it would be helpful for teachers to see where they could save money or get deals on supplies for the classroom. These posts haven't been super popular so we are trying something different!
Thrifty Thursdays are now going to be about ideas for classroom activities from dollar store items! We'll start a linky party and hopefully you'll post on your own blogs about your dollar store finds too! We are calling it "Dollar Tree PD." We are so excited! My first dollar tree find is an idea that was brought to our attention by a fabulous co-teacher, Alex May. She found sticky hands at the dollar tree and used them to do review games in your classrom. She puts review questions on cards and the students slap at a card and then answers it as a review. You can also use it with math problems to get students to slap the correct answer to a problem or slap the correct answer to a true/false question in a liberal arts class. The options are endless! Thanks Alex for the idea! By, Kathleen Photo Credit In our last unit we talked about Ellis Island and the millions of immigrants that came through Ellis Island searching for a better life. In order to teach the emotions felt of those coming in, we had a role playing activity.
First, I gave each student a post-it note with a name of someone who was on a ship manifest coming into the harbor using www.ellisisland.org. Usually I would try to find passengers who had the same last name to denote a family travelling together. The students would have random post-it notes and have to find their family based on their last name The post-it would also tell them where they were sailing from and how old they were. Then, I would have them walk outside into the heat and put on a blindfold to depict the idea of having to travel to a place they had never been to with strangers. I packed them into my "ship" and enlisted other students to periodically spray them with water (with a tiny spray bottle), sway them as a ship or rub a teddy bear (a rat) on their legs or arms. I also had a few students making barfing noises. When I finally told them their voyage was over and they had made it to Ellis Island, they had to stand in line in the heat outside (in Louisiana) and I spoke to them in Spanish (I am a former Spanish teacher) in order to show them what it was like coming in to a foreign land and not knowing the language. Then, they had a "medical exam" to see if they could enter the country and they had to go through a background check to see if they were on a criminal list. This was a throat and cough check - no touching! There's a reason I became a teacher and not a doctor, ha! If they did not pass, they were sent home with or without their "family." When they finally got into the cool classroom, I'd have the poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus playing with a picture of the Statue of Liberty on the screen. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" The magnitude of being able to come into the United States hit them and they were able to have some empathy with those who traveled so long and went through so much to be able to come into this country and hope for a better life. When the whole role-play was over, I asked them to write a letter back home to their family telling them what it was like to come through Ellis Island (every detail!). They then created a voice recording (either using the voice recorder or with the video camera on their phone) of their letter and were directed to use the same emotion they felt when they were able to come into the classroom after their "ordeal." They then emailed the recording to me and I made QR codes for a statue of liberty poster in my room after I uploaded them t. This,...they won't forget soon! Click here for the rubric I used for their letters. I wish I had taken pictures but I was the family organizer, barf planner, ship captain, medical examiner, Spanish speaker etc etc! by Kathleen While we hosted Back 2 School Night during the school year, we actually started prepping for it in the summer. From Kathleen's brochure to Cindy's polka dot printables, it is less stressful to print and fold these before school even starts!
Vistaprint offers 250 free business cards! They also offer premium cards for $9.99. The ideas for uses of these cards in the classroom are endless! You could use them for a homework pass or a way to Plus, I am always secretly jealous of those corporate people who have business cards to hand out. You could hand out your own to parents to have a card with your email address for their fridge! Check it out!
While the World Watched is free on Amazon today for kindles. I absolutely adore this book and Carolyn Maull McKinstry does an amazing job telling her story of surviving the Birmingham bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. I love how she fearlessly discusses how she fought for the Civil Rights Movement - it's a great book for students to hear the story from a firs
My students researched megaliths last week. It was fun talking about the different ideas as to why the megaliths were formed and where they came from. My principal walked by and suggested aliens!However....the most fun thing was that they created them out of rice krispie treats! I'm always watching those cake decorating shows and I figured...hey! If they can make just about anything for a cake out of rice krispie treats...so can we! They were able to create a modern version of the megalith and answer various questions to present to the class. One group created Stonehenge and the other group created Ale's stones. They had a rubric to guide them so I could grade them objectively. It was fun!
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