The Tsunami in Japan. How Can You Teach Your Students?

Everyone knows how devastating the tsunami was that hit Japan. Many students have many questions about what it was, why it happened, and what will happen next. Teachers from around the world have been asking themselves how they can address this horrible tragedy with their students. The New York Times has created a website that provides valuable ideas such as Understanding the Basics, Mapping the Destruction, Timeline, Following the Story, and Putting a Human Face on the Disaster, along with many more that cross the curriculums. Additionally, they have created a link to a blog where teachers can share their ideas and lessons with each other on this and many other Social Studies related topics. This is another website that I would highly recommend everyone take a look at, especially those of us preparing for our teaching career.

You can find the link at:

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/20-ways-to-teach-about-the-disaster-in-japan-across-the-curriculum/

Fun Geography Website for Kids

Geography isn't just about maps. But, it is very important for students today to learn about the world they live in. We all remember the days of being given a black and white map and being asked to color code the map, draw in rivers and bodies of water and other land formations. This website, from the Utah Education Network, which includes links to many different websites such as Nova, BBC, and National Geographic, makes learning geography interactive and three dimensional. I highly recommend you take a look at the links available. Students can learn about latitude and longitude, countries and capitals, symbols and keys, scale and many more topics. There are quizzes and other interactive activities to allow students to learn about geography and mapping skills in a much more interesting way than with colored pencils. Here is the link:

http://www.uen.org/3-6interactives/social_studies.shtml

Which Decade is the Best?

A few weeks ago, our E325 Social Studies Methods class participated in a really fun project involving the different decades of the 20th century. Students worked in groups to research their assigned decade and then later share the information they learned with classmates and other exhibit goers. Students were encouraged to dress in the fashion of the decade, play music that was popular during that time, and have artifacts from the period they researched. While researching, we interested in major historical events, fads, music, authors, s

candals, people, and fashion. This activity was a lot of fun and I truly believed we all learned quite a bit about

many of the decades. Some groups had food samples while others did a popular dance from their decade. In the end, people were asked to vote on

which decade was the best one to live in and the 1920's won.

This type of activity is highly engaging for most students. It teaches them so much more than worksheets and text books ever could. They become a part of the information they are learning and it becomes meaningful, authentic learning. This type of activity would be great for a 5th or 6th grade classroom, and possibly even 7th or 8th.

Pink and Say

Looking for a way to educate your students about the Civil War that relates to them as young people? Pink and Say is a picture book that takes place during the Civil War. One of the lead characters, Sheldon Curtis, is a 15 year old boy who starts out the story laying wounded in a Georgia field from fighting in the war. He is found by an African American boy, Pinkus Aylee, a Union soldier who carries Sheldon, also known as Say, back to his home where he and his mother, Moe Moe Bay, nurse him back to health. While the boys live together they learn many things about one another. They learn that they are very different but very much the same and this is what brings them together as friends. Later on in the story as the war continues, Pink’s mother is killed and Pink is hung, but Say lives on to tell the story of their friendship and the War. This is a true story of an interracial friend ship that takes place during the Civil War. This is a great way to discuss the time, culture, friendships, the Civil War and more. If we as educators want our students to learn and retain what we teach them about our history, then we need to make it relevant. By using this story we are able to put this time period into their perspective. Much better than reading to them about the Civil War from a text book.

700- year old Chinese Mummy

When we think of mummies the first thing that comes to mind are the Egyptians. The earliest Egyptians buried their dead in small pits in the desert. Because the sand was dry and hot the bodies became dehydrated like a mummy. Later the Egyptians buried their dead in coffins to protect them from becoming eaten from desert animals. This caused a problem for the Egyptians because the bodies now started to decay. This is when, over many centuries, that the ancient Egyptians developed a method of preserving bodies so they would stay life like. This is what we know today as mummification.

Although we have always known this ritual to be Egyptian, five mummies have been discovered between 1979 and 2008 in China. The mummy in the picture above was discovered during a road expansion project near the city of Taizhou, in China’s Jiangsu Province. This mummy was complete with her face, hair and even her eyelashes. This is a very interesting discovery that allows us as teachers to expand the knowledge of different types of cultures to our students. We continue to learn new things about the world and its people and that knowledge should be spread to future generations.

A Social Studies Website for Kids

Kids.gov, a safe place where kids can create, share and learn. This is a great website for students from grades K-8. Not only does this site have great resources for kids to learn about history and social studies but it also has a lot of information available for educators as well. There is a list of links for teachers to visit that help with making social studies fun for you and your students. There are even suggestions for integrating social studies with all other subjects. This site has a lot of educational facts for students who are interested in a specific social studies topic or if they are doing a research project. There are also fun things that are social studies related such as educational games. I would recommend this site for teachers to use to get ideas about teaching social studies as well as integrating it with other subjects. I would also suggest that teachers use it in the classroom as an educational tool or provide it to their students as a research tool. If you get a chance check it out!

http://www.kids.gov/k_5/k_5_social.shtml

Creating a Classroom Community?

This morning on the Today Show, we saw a very disturbing piece on a classroom in Florida. From within this class, a six year old girl with a peanut allergy is at the center of a controversy over student rights. Some parents of the children in this class are up in arms because they feel their children's rights are being stepped on in order to accommodate a little girl with a deadly peanut allergy. Students are being asked to wash their hands several times a day and wash their mouths after lunch. Is this really such a huge imposition to ensure a little girls safety? Also, the children are not allowed to bring snacks and food into the classroom that have nuts in them or were produced in a plant where nuts are handled. Again, are there not at least 100 different snack options for children that do not involve nuts?

Parents complaints are that their child's education time is being used to wash hands and faces. Isn't this something we should be doing multiple times a day to prevent illness anyway? One parent added the time spent on this task to be 30 minutes a day, 2 1/2 hours a week and 80 hours per school year. While this may seem like a lot, it truly is not anything different than any other classroom in America. If teachers did not take time to ask children to wash their hands after restroom breaks, lunch and recess, the children would be missing a whole lot more school because they have caught a virus. While we think this is an extremely petty issue for parents to take up by picketing, we think the worst injustice is the message they are sending to their own children.

By refusing to send their kids to school, by picketing outside of the school, and essentially ostracizing this poor little girl, these parents are teaching their children intolerance. Because someone is more fragile, or needs more help, or can't be sure they can stay alive without the help an cooperation of her classmates, that someone should not be allowed to be in your classroom. Is this the message we want to send to our children?

We hope in our classroom, we can create a sense of community among the students. We want to instill the idea that we need to help each other, look out for each other, and care about each other. Not only does this help to create an environment that is conducive to learning, but it also helps to mold compassionate human beings.

Just food for thought.

Trade Fair

Our E325 class held a Trade Fair in class a few weeks ago. Students were asked to bring in an item or items they thought would be good to trade with fellow classmates for some of their wares. Students brought everything from home created baked goods to purchased candy and arts and crafts. Our class found that this was an activity that created authentic learning and could be used in an upper elementary classroom. The activity was engaging and creative and could be used to teach about many aspects of economics including supply and demand. This activity would also be effective for teaching students about what trade was like and how it worked in the Colonial Period.

Before partaking in this kind of activity, a teacher should be prepared and do some research not only on the time period being taught, but on the students themselves. The teacher needs to be certain that every student will have at least one item to trade on the day of the event. There should be rules about what can and cannot be brought to trade. A spending limit should also be in place so that the items brought in are similar in value. It may be a good idea for the teacher to have a few backup items stashed away to help out students who may not have an item to trade. Also, for such an event, the teacher may need to call on parents to provide some manpower abnd supervision, as it can be a little chaotic with 25-30 students bartering with each other and shopping the stands. Lastly, teachers should plan an ample amount of time for this activity. Students may trade 3-4 times before they settle on the item they will be taking home that day. I would suggest at last an hour for the average sized class.

Time for Kids

During my field experience in a fourth grade classroom last week, the teacher used Time for Kids Magazine as a social studies lesson. The students were very excited about the lesson and seemed to be engaged and interested in the topics and issues being discussed. Time for Kids is designed to encourage reading and writing and is easily integrated with other content areas such as social studies and science. The magazine comes out weekly and comes in four different reading levels (Grades k-1, Grade 2, Grades 3-4, and Grades 5-6). You can subscribe to the magazine online and the cost is roughly $4 per student for the entire year. You can visit the website for more information at: http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/

Artifacts

Using a project that involves artifacts is a very effective way to make connections for students between history, culture, and people. Our E325 class participated in a project that involved each student bringing in five artifacts from home that would represent their beliefs, values and family. We were asked to consider, if scientists unearthed these artifacts 100 years from now, would they explain who you were and what you believed in. Here is a picture of the artifacts collected from the 17 students in our class:

After a brief discussion, we found that using artifacts help create meaning for students by:

• generating questions


• asking and answering questions


• collaboration


• higher level thinking


• inquiry and investigation


• understanding student interests.

This is a great example of how you can make social studies relevant to your students by involving them personally and connecting it to your content.