I am very excited for tomorrow. I am taking my seventh grade Ancient Civilizations classes to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of Science in Boston. We have spent a few days preparing for the field trip. Funny thing, when I first started talking about the trip, some of the students thought I said Dead Sea Squirrels. We had a wonderful time! It was a very interesting trip. The scrolls were smaller then I expected.
0 Comments
Today in Social Studies we were talking about the Pilgrims. I found a great short clip on www.history.com . It is called Deconstructing the Mayflower. It was about two and a half minutes long and grabs your attention. Check it out. http://www.history.com/topics/mayflower/videos#deconstructing-history-mayflower Well here it is Tuesday evening. I have laundry that need to be done, the dishwasher needs to be emptied, yet here I sit on my computer looking for lesson ideas to incorporate into my lessons. I found a few cute ideas. The first was found on the teachingchannel.com . This is a website with short videos of expert teachers using excellent strategies to teach their students. The idea was called Putting your 2cents in. Basically the gist of the idea is that all the students had two pennies. They were encouraged to talk and participate in the discussion, by throwing their 2 cents in literally. Once they have thrown in their money and have given their thoughts to the discussion, students need to wait until others have had a chance to talk and share. This ensures that all students have a voice in class.
Check out the teaching channel for more great ideas! Today in my 8th grade history class we had an exploration simulation activity. I think that it went very well and the students leaned why there was exploration. The class was divided into four groups and each group was given a packet of natural resources. The resources for each group were different. Using the resources they had to follow directions to make sure they had the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter met. Many groups found out that they had many natural resources, just ones that were not useful to them. The groups quickly learned that they had to trade with other countries for survival. There were some groups that tried to take over the other "counties" and take their supplies. At the end of the simulation the students had to reflect on the activity and make connections to exploration. Many of the students demonstrated a deep understanding through their writing and were able to articulate what happened in the simulation, and draw conclusions about exploration,
The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.- Thomas A. Edison
I am very proud of myself. I have kept up with the paper work and correcting. I have been staying after school for about an hour or so to correct and clean up. i am working on some anchor charts to support my classroom teaching
My goal was to blog at the end of every class this year. My first week of school is over and I have already not met my goal. Well there are 177 days to go. That being said, the school year is off to a great start. I have four great classes. Since I have looped with my eighth graders I really only have two classes of seventh grade to learn names. Hopefully I will know their names before Thanksgiving break! One of my co-workers brought to my attention an interesting website for keeping track of student behaviors both positive and negative. It is called classdojo.com . I signed up for a free account. It is user friendly and very cute. The teacher is able to customize the behaviors that they want to keep track of. Parents and students are able to log on at home and monitor their progress in class. As a teacher you are also able to print reports to bring to student meetings or send home to parents. If you are computer savvy and want an engaging, interactive student management tool to use, classdojo.com is the way to go. Check out the site with the link below. www.classdojo.com Teacher orientation day today. First day for the students tomorrow. My team and I had a productive day. We set up letters to send home, worked on a schedule just for the first day to take care of housekeeping issues such as handing out agendas and assigning lockers with our homerooms. Plans are all set for the week, my class is organized with the exception of the supply cabinet, and copies are made. I feel organized. Hopefully I will stay organized.
I was just perusing the teaching channel.org and found an interesting video that connects to the article I read yesterday on using film in class. In this video the teacher is working on an extended writing assignment using a film. I the lesson was easy to follow. Students worked collaboaratively to write a review of the movie The Others staring Nicole Kidman. Once again my mind is whirling. I am thinking of uses for my Social Studies classroom. I read an interesting article on using film in the classroom put out by Education Week. It talked about how English Teachers use film to teach students critical thinking skills. I thought to myself that using film in the Social Studies Classroom is a useful tool. This is a great time to look how film is used in the Social Studies classroom, and start to think about how to use film as another method to bring the common core into the classroom. |
Students will: | The teacher will: |
Assign a section of text for a pair of students to read. Instruct one student to read aloud to his partner 3-4 paragraphs. Once the first student is done reading the second student is instructed to orally summarize what his or her partenr read aloud. Both students then jot down the information in two column note format. The main idea is on the left hand side and the supporting details are listed on the right. Instruct the students to continue reading, this time switching roles. Continue this strategy until the assigned section of text is completed. The students can then use their notes to write a brief summary of the reading or particpate in a whole class discussion.
visual_literacy2.pdf | |
File Size: | 68 kb |
File Type: |
Author
I am an empty-nester with two boys, a husband and a passion for writing, creating and teaching. I teach 7th and 8th grade Social Studies in Massachusetts. I am a self proclaimed history geek and proud of it! In my spare time ( Spare time, ha ha that's a joke! ) I enjoy photography, reading and hanging out with my family.
Archives
February 2022
August 2021
June 2021
June 2020
May 2020
March 2020
August 2019
January 2019
August 2018
July 2018
February 2018
August 2017
February 2017
December 2016
November 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
May 2016
March 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
April 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013