Final Thoughts for the Semester

I loved the round table discussion we had in our class on Wednesday. It highlighted the important aspects I want to have when organizing my thoughts on teaching social studies. I believe that with an educated group of people sharing their thoughts about social studies makes everyone’s’ interest grow. I know this semester has made my interest in social studies spike up. I believe Social Studies is important in the classroom. I know that if I get a kindergarten classroom I will teach the importance of being a good citizen and give responsibilities to my students for the classroom. I think a lot of teachers think that just because there is not a text book for a subject, like social studies in kindergarten, then they do not need to teach it.

I believe it is important to have good resources when teaching. I know most of the time I can rely on the internet for a resource but when that fails hopefully I will have a teacher support base that I can rely on. I love the blog idea and keeping links on it.

I also want to have my students “uncover” things in history. I want them to be active in their learning and participate by doing and not sitting. I hope to organize a classroom of students that are interested and excited about learning social studies. Therefore, by having the students explore social studies rather than having them sit and listen to their text book on CD it will spark an interest in it.  I want an active learning environment when I teach all of my subjects but I know I have to be realistic and know that there will have to be worksheets, and reading. However, there is not a reason that worksheets cannot be fun or turned into an activity. I really liked performing skits, making charts, the living history museum, and box city. These are all great activities to use when teaching social studies.

I would like to have a tourist model of multicultural education but go deeper into it. I want to have my students explore different cultures and learn things about different countries. The reason I say tourist is because I want to make it where the students “visit” different countries. I want to be able to see different music, art, geography, etc of other places besides those that they are familiar with. This is something I have a strong interest in because I am not fully confident when talking about other countries so it would be exciting for me to be a part of their learning experience while learning with the students.

I know I have to teach the content and have my student understand history, geography, and other content area in social studies but I want my classroom to be active. I want the students to jump into their learning. I do not want to be a boring social studies teacher….I refuse to be!

MAP!!

For those of you who liked my Amelia Earhart poster with the huge map on it here is the link! This website is great for creating large maps! I was extremely happy to find it because I thought I was going to have to draw one out :(
http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm

I will also post the link on my favorite links as well as facebook.
This is a great website to keep if you ever need to print a large map to have you students write on.

Living History Museum

The living history museum is something I would definitely use in an upper elementary classroom! This was so much fun researching and making the poster board! I did not realize that I knew as much about Amelia Earhart until I started talking! Although my costume could have been a little better, I do believe my presentation covered important facts about her life. If I used this in an elementary classroom, I believe I would try to provide a small portion of the costume (making the classroom museum a more equal environment...someone's costume would not be "better" than another's).

This is just another great idea to add to my teacher keepsake box!!!

Thanksgiving and Elementary Textbooks

Hmmm...what to teach and what not to teach? I am very surprised at the facts I read about Thanksgiving. I am even more surprised that I am just now finding out about this, at the age of 23. I don't understand how elementary schools can continue to teach material without it being true facts.
I also taught my lesson on the Mayflower Compact to a fourth grade classroom. These students were full of questions about the Pilgrims and all that, but my part was to cover the compact. I was still shocked that the Mayflower and the Pilgrims first Thanksgiving meal was not what I learned back in fourth grade. I observed my mentor teacher talking to the students about Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and the students were taught about everyone getting along and having a huge meal together. Did this really happen? Were the Pilgrims the first people to settle in the Americas? I am really confused and can't wait to read more about this historical event to answer my questions and more that I am sure will arise.

Social Studies Lesson

I taught my lesson in my field placement on Friday. It was a Social Studies lesson based on the Mayflower Compact.  I did not know that I could come up with activities and games to play with the Mayflower Compact, but I did. I made games for the vocabulary, like majority rules. I made note cards with questions on them . For example, the classroom will be painted one color red or blue? The students that answered in the majority got to stay standing and the rest of the class had to sit down. The students LOVED this! They wanted to play again :) I also went over the Mayflower Compact, I created on in a student friendly text and we compared it to the "real" one. This lesson was observed by my professor and I got so much positive feedback! I am so happy that I could create a lesson that the students enjoyed!

EVEREST

Well.....I'm not going to climb Everest anytime soon but I do find it extremely interesting! I really enjoyed Monday's class on all the facts and stories about people who climbed or atleast atempted. I am going to read that book Into Thin Air and would also like to see the movie. This is on my to do list :)

Social Studies Thoughts

WOW! What we have learned in this class so far! I love all the ideas we have been taught by Dr. Meier to use with our future students.I have enjoyed the process of expanding my own knowledge on social studies. This is a great class and very beneficial to anyone that is going into elementary education.
I want to find links that have something to do with each thing we have done in class to keep it organized and can easily find it :)

Geocaching

Okay learning that my GPS can do something cooler than leading me to my destination is awesome! So my husband and I went to Charleston, SC over Halloween weekend and we tried to Geocach. It was a little hard and we never found any but we tried!
I really want to get one of those dog tag things and use it in my classroom. I love the idea of tracking something on a map. I may have to start local but I would like think it would make it out of TN!

Block CITY!

I LOVE BLOCK CITY! I really can not wait to be a teacher just to use this in my classroom. You could really use this with any age group. I would like to expand on what we did in class and use more businesses and maybe some houses.

This is a great idea to get kids actively involved in learning about maps!

Social Studies in the Classroom

Flat Stanley...I have never read the book but the students in my field placement have and they love it. I am not sure if it has anything to do with social studies but I know that my mentor teacher turns it into a social studies lesson. It is really creative and any teacher could do it with a popular book. My mentor teacher takes Flat Stanley with her whenever she takes a vacation. There is also an aid in the classroom and she just got back from a cruise to Mexico and Flat Stanley went with her. Now what they do is take pictures of him at various places and write captions about the place. Flat Stanley brought back treat bags from Mexico for all the students. They discuss the items in the bag and the place Flat Stanley visited. I love this for my future classroom!

Critical Voice

My biggest shock in this article is the paragraph about John and Jenni. It sounds like John is a little insecure about his teaching style and does not want the kids to fail at the upcoming test. I guess John's view of teaching social studies is feeding the facts....no fun allowed! But can you blame him?
I understand the fear though, especially if you feel like your job is on the line. I feel like I have a strong voice for what I believe but I would like to see myself in a sticky situation dealing with test scores and my job...I doubt I would be voicing my opinion if I thought I would lose my job.

Words Can NOT Describe...But I Will Try

This weekend was WOW what a weekend. I am currently working on my Integrated Lesson Plan. My group picked Diary of a Worm and my job is connecting Social Studies and Math to the book. This is fun. I like doing projects like this. Please teachers assign projects not test! I'm sure everyone agrees.
Finishing the assessment with my child was difficult considering he can not read but I am still suppost to do something with him. So in my D2L question I addressed my conserns. Now I am trying to understand the response I got on my question??? Blah!
Taking the Praxis this weekend was a NIGHTMARE! I left at 2:00!! Why you may ask. Well considering I was allowed to wear my jacket in the first session but couldn't in the second made me extremely angry as some of you may have seen. So this took up so much time. They, the proctors, whispered to each other and decided that jackets are not allowed but the air conditioner on high is. So I can't wear my jacket because I may have a camera in my hood. No I do not want to video tape the Praxis test with a camera in my jacket hood and yes you can search my jacket, oh wait, you would rather me be extremely uncomfortable and cold during a test that is the BIGGEST deal in my life right now.Oh Okay Praxis proctors! THANKS! So I took off the jacket and shoved it under my desk...I was MAD.
I picked my book for the Social Studies read. I was excited, so I went to Barnes and Noble to buy it. They didn't have, so I went to the ETSU library and they didn't have it. I searched all the area libraries and no one had it. So I ordered it online through Barnes and Noble. Just another thing that didn't go my way.
I also finished the reading Black Ants and Buddhism. I love all the connections the teacher made and how she expanded on everything she did. This is great. I used the meditation exercise several times this weekend :) I'm not joking.
Last but not least. I went to the doctor on Friday and heard my tiny little lime's heartbeat and WOW! It's amazing. So during this whole stressful weekend I just kept telling my little cricket that mommy is doing all this crazy hard work for you! (side notes: bump.com told me that my baby is the size of a lime this week, and my husband and I call it baby cricket)

I'm Blogging!

So here I am! I am really excited about posting, but nothing is going on yet. All I am doing is watching Big Brother and thinking about what I want my midnight snack to be. Maybe something exciting will happen later or tomorrow?! By the way, the blogs are looking good guys! :)