Adding the Arts

Its important to add arts into students learning. Student need an outlet to express themselves that they might not get to do anywhere else. This should let the students let out emotions. This can be an easy task if you know how to do it. It can also help further the discussion of a concept. I love the idea of doing a play. Plays can help students really look at a book further then just reading it. This get the students thinking. When doing the play if the teacher stops them and ask how their character is feeling or whats going to happen next can really open up the students eyes. This will drive the disussion into deeper thoughts and feelings. Arts can be many different things, music,drama, drawing, painting, any way that expresses something. The arts I feel really open up the doors for learning.

Decades Project

I never thought that researching different aspects of a decade could be so fun. I have been getting so excited mostly for dressing up like the 60's but also looking at what everyone else wears. I got to research the entertainment aspect of the 60's. I looked at the music, movies, tv, and books. The thing I found really interesting is that most of the entertainment that was popular back then is still popular today. I can remember watching tv shows like Gilligan Island, The Adams family, and the the classics. The music I still enjoy today like many others. The Beatles, The Supremes and The Temptations to name a few of the many I love. These all might be classics but they have stood the test of time. I had no clue that most of those where from the 60's but im happy i know that know. This makes me what to look at other decades. It's a great way to get students excited to learn about a time in our history and to make connections. This will get students engaged and excited to learn.

Last Lesson of Block 3-Paperclip Measuring

My last lesson in block 3 was in math. Math is not my favorite subject let alone to teach it. However I was very pleased with out it turned out. The lesson was on measuring to the nearest inch and half inch. I had the students do an activity with me where we measured paperclips in inches and centimeters. The students were very interested and actually took me by surprise.The students usually have a tough time in math but today they were focused and involved in the lesson.They were so focused I was a little nervous if they were understanding it, but once I saw their workbook pages, that they worked on with a partner, I was able to see that they indeed understand the material. I did some one-on-one time with a few students that needed extra help. With that extra help they seemed to all at least get the basic understanding of how to measure. I really feel that hands on activities are the key to get students involved and focused on the material.

Lesson On {Wants and Needs}

I got to do a fun lesson on wants and needs this last week. It was one of the most effective lessons I did with my class. They loved the class activity.

First I reviewed what are wants and needs, how are they different, are there things that depend on situations, how to make choices, what is better to buy first, savings. After the review, I showed pictures of items that they might buy and they were supposed to tell me if it was a want or need and then I would stick, with magnets, the item in the right column. This created a lot of discussions. It got the students engaged, asking questions, doing deeper thinking. I was very pleased with how the students did. After the activity the student went back to their desk to do similar activity by themselves.

I was so pleased with how the students did. I will be for sure doing this lesson again :)

Salt Dough Maps

Salt dough maps can be a great way to study your state or country with a hands on activity. These maps can expand on geographic awareness.

Things you can look at after making the maps.
Trade
- how the land of a place can effect how countries or states import and export.
-Compare countries and how they interact with each other.
Topographical information
-location
-landforms
-water
Culture
-human interaction
-environment interaction
How to read a map
How countries change over time
-land
-government
-war
-politics

Students can put together powerpoints alone with their maps to assess and apply their learning. This also gives the other insight onto many other places as well as the one they researched.

Remaking Famous Art Works

Its good for students to see how much work and the techniques famous artist used. They can still have the liberties to create their own work. Students use the techniques that the artist used that you are studying however give the students the freedom to express themselves through their own art. This will bring understanding of the art but still give the students a creative outlet for themselves.

My version of "A Starry Night"

Developing Empathy Through an IMovie

Sometime for young people it is hard to have empathy for the people that lived through an event and what their experience were. They don't understand the people behind the stories, hardships people endured, or the emotions felt. Through pictures, clips, music, sounds bites students can start to understand what it is that people went through. Textbooks are a great tool to get a general start to the story, names, dates, places, however for people to understand what it was really like and how much others have gone through their needs to be a connection. Building this connection can come from comparing similar stories from the past to the present or having the students do an activity that makes them think more. Having actual pictures, music from the time, and even interviews of people that where there can also help students to begin to feel what it was like at that time in history. History isn't just names and dates its feeling and emotions. Creating your own educational IMovie can help bring history to life for these students. The movies we created in class brought out a lot of emotions for us even if we had seen those images a million times before. It puts you there in those peoples mind set and how would it feel if that was me on a ship at Pearl Harbor, or watching the first plane take off, or if i had been in NYC during 9/11 instead of my classroom in Rural Delphi, In. Even though I was alive and experienced 9/11 the movie that my classmates made brought it all back and it brought out more understanding of what really happened now that i'm older watching these things happen. Some times it takes time to young people to have empathy but as teachers we need to be able to help that process along and finding tools that can do this.