Living History Museum

Today in Social Studies we did part 1 of the Living History Museum. I met several interesting people such as Henry Ford, Annie Oakley, and Bob Dylan.  I enjoyed the Living History Museum because I was able to learn about people from history in a different kind of learning experience.  There were a few people at the museum that I had never heard of or knew what they did in history. I think young children would really enjoy doing this in the classroom.  I am excited about Wednesday because I get to learn about more interesting people from history and I also get to dress up and be Susan B. Anthony.

Book Talks

Last, Wednesday in class we did BookTalks.  The book I chose to read was a book from the Dear America Series called The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow The Diary of Sara Nita, a Navajo Indian- New Mexico 1863.  The book was written by Ann Turner and published in 1999.  I really enjoyed reading this book because it gave me a sense of what the Indians went through during this horrible period.  

 

The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow is about Sara Nita, a 12 year old Navajo Indian, who lived during the removal of the Indians from their land by the United States government in 1864.  Sara Nita’s granddaughter, who is also named Sara Nita is writing down her grandmother’s story in her diary because her grandmother wanted her to hear and write down her story to remember what her people went through.  This book gives you an excellent sense of what the Native Americans of all ages had to deal with during the Indian removal with a 400 mile walk in the middle of winter in harsh terrain to Fort Sumner in New Mexico.  During this journey, Sara and her sister lose her parents when they are kidnapped from there home and throughout the story, you are seeing how much they want to find there parents.  But do they ever find them when they get to the fort?  You will have to read this excellent book to find out! 

I think this book would be wonderful for fifth or sixth grade students.  The standards met from this book were:

6.1.spi5 identify difference between various cultural groups (i.e., European, Eurasian, India, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, African, Native American).

5.1.01 Understand the diversity of human cultures.

a.  Explain how some immigrants preserved their traditional culture and created a new American culture.

b.  Explain governmental efforts to restrict Immigrants entering into the United States.

5.0.03  Recognize the contributions of individuals and people of various ethnic,racial, religious, and socioeconomic groups of the development of civilizations.

b.  Describe how language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations service as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture. 

I enjoyed listening to every one's book talk because it showed me how you can use chapter books to incorporate Social Studies into the classroom.

On the other hand, everyone have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Think-Aloud Reading

On Monday in Social Studies class, we talked about strategies to involve think-alouds while students are reading books about history, cultures, or anything that involves Social Studies.  I find think-alouds difficult to do since you normally do not write down what you think.  Think alouds are basically reading out loud and showing the "thinking" process. In class, we learn some wonderful examples of teachers using think-alouds in the classroom.  Most students do not ever learn how to think-aloud, which is why teachers need to make it an important strategy to teach in the classroom.  Students can make connections while they read through text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world.  Think-alouds take a lot of practice, but it is something worth-while to do in the classroom because you are incorporating Social Studies with reading. 

Storypath

This week in Social Studies class we did an awesome activity with Mt Everest.  On Monday we learn all about Mt. Everest, which I thought was very interesting.  I had never been interesting in climbing and learning about the process of climbing a mountain until Mrs. Meier's shared some very interesting facts with us about Mt. Everest.  I find it so fascinating that people have climbed this mountain numerous times.  For example, the Sherpa's live at Mt. Everest and help people like me climb the mountain.  Below is some beautiful pictures of Mt. Everest that I found.

On Wednesday in class, we continued learning about Mt. Everest by doing a storypath.  I found this excellent  definition on storypath on   http://fac-staff.seattleu.edu/mmcguire/web/. 

Storypath offers both a structure for organizing the social studies curriculum and an instructional strategy for teaching. The structure is a familiar one: the story. The strategy is grounded in a belief that children learn best when they are active participants in their own learning, and places students’ own efforts to understand at the center of the educational enterprise. Together, the structure and the teaching strategy ensure that students feel strongly motivated and have meaningful and memorable learning experiences.

When doing a storypath, you have to make sure the students know the background of the subject/topic.  So on Monday in class, Mrs. Meier's gave the class all the knowledge that we needed to know to make our storypath.  I found this activity fun, because you get to put yourself into the shoes of someone else for a little while.  Below is the final result of the storypath that we did.

I definitely plan on incorporating storypath into my class one day!!!

Photo Diary

On Monday in Social Studies class, everyone presented their photo diary.  I really enjoyed seeing every one's photo diary.  I find it so neat, how a picture can describe how we are going to teach social studies.  A lot of my classmates had very good ideas.  They are going to be great teachers one day!!  A photo diary is a good way to incorporate creativity in the classroom.  Below I have shared some of my pictures from my photo diary.

Have a good day,

Ashton

This picture represents that I want to mix all the diversities in my classroom.

This picture represents that I want to integrate all subjects into my classroom.

This pictures represents that the textbook is NOT the only resource in teaching Social Studies.