A Teacher Field Trip About World War II and The Raft

I think summer is the perfect time for teachers to scope out potential field trips for their students.  We have traveled a lot recently with my daughter's softball playing, and I've taken the opportunity to take in the local area and see what I can add to enhance my classroom.  I had an opportunity this summer to meet up with one of my favorite clip artists, Scott, from Messare Clips and Design at the Pensacola Naval Base.  I was so excited for this meet up, not only because Scott is an amazing graphic artist, but also because I will be teaching social studies again this year, and I wanted to learn more, and find ways to make my curriculum more authentic for my students.

 We went through the museum and learned a lot about the Blue Angels fighting squad. Scott, a pilot himself, was the perfect companion, and I found a lot of useful information for some nonfiction texts

I'm working on.  I also took a ton pictures to use in PowerPoints.

The naval air museum is FREE to get into. I think I may look into bringing my class there on a field trip. They have American planes from WWI and WWII as well as Japanese and German planes. 

Check out this Japanese flag!

I loved taking pictures of all of the propaganda posters.

I use these a lot when I get into my social studies units. This year I'm going to try and teach my argumentative writing unit at the same time so I can do some cross curricular writing that is meaningful.  Then when it is Dr. Seuss/Read Across America week I'll use them again.  Did you know that Seuss created posters for the United States during the war? This is a great way to participate in Read Across America activities with upper grades.

Something else I thought was pretty cool was a display about The Raft.

Apparently I group of three naval airmen were stranded in the Pacific for 34 days in only a small inflatable life raft!  The museum has the actual raft on display.  It was amazing to see how small it was, and I could not imagine living a month on it with two other people with no food, no water, and no shelter from the sun.  These men actually collected the rain water in the crevices to drink and   When the men were rescued they had their memoirs written and published in a book.  The Raft, by Robert Trumbull was first published in 1942, and is told from Harold Dixon, (one of the three airmen's) point of view.

As I was reading the information, the wheels in my head were spinning,  Think of the possibilities this saga has for the classroom!  Measure out an 8 x 4 foot raft, and imagine being able to only live in THAT space with two other people.. oh and you can't all stand up, the raft might tip!  Determine what a typical amount of water consumed is, compared to what the men would drink.  Lots of possibilities!

This book is currently in my Audible queue for the next car trip we take.  Interested in learning more about Audible?  Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks
I use Audible all the time in my commute to work.  I usually listen to nonfiction or education/school related books on my way to work, and fiction or something else on the way home.  Right now you can sign up for a free month of audible and get TWO books for free!

You can also check out The Raft by clicking on the picture ( it will take you to Amazon)

   

I am definitely going to share it with my class.

Do you take summer time teacher field trips?  I would love to hear where you have gone and what you have seen!  Leave a comment below to help me find my next destination!

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Studying the Great Depression: Books and a Poster Project

My Smarties have just finished a quick study of The Great Depression.  I wanted to have them work on their publishing skills a little, so I assigned them a poster to review the concept.  Thankfully Jennifer Findley, who blogs at Teaching To Inspire in 5th at came through for me with a rubric Freebie.  She made my life super easy, and it is just what I needed.  My students really loved doing this project.  I loved doing a gallery walk through my classroom when all of the posters were finished.  Each poster was unique.  I love their creativity!
Here are just a few of them.  I hope they can inspire you!

I love the way this student made her poster interactive.  She drew pictures of the 5 criteria we used:  The Stock Market, Hoovervilles, The Dust Bowl, Failing Banks, and People losing their jobs and wrote about each underneath.  I appreciate that she took the extra time to draw her own illustrations for the project.

This poster is similar to the one above, but the student used photographs from the era.  Again, he made the poster interactive.  I guess all of our notebook work is rubbing off on them!

This last poster was unique as well.  I love how my Smartie color-coordinated her writing and pictures so as we did our gallery walk students could discuss the connections.  It made a really appealing presentation.

I also tried to incorporate some of the books written for the time period.  One of the most famous is Out of the Dust.

But have you heard of The Gardener? This is a sweet book about a young girl who goes to live with her uncle in the big city.  She brings with her a suitcase full of seeds, and changes the hearts of the people in the neighborhood.  I also love this book because there is a series of letters that Lydia Grace Finch writes home, so it is a great companion book for letter writing if you are cross curricular.  The book is very short, and meant for younger children, but it was quick for me to use with a group of students who are struggling readers.

I would love to add to my collection of literature for this time period. If you know of any other books, I'd love to hear from you!

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World War I: Learning about Militarism

Last Friday was a half day for my Smarties.  We had professional development in the afternoon, so in the morning, my teammate and I switched around our team schedule and had our students play a game to learn about militarism.
We've been learning about the MAIN causes of World War I.  When we teach this, we use the acronym MAIN:  Militarism, Alliances Imperialism, and Nationalism.
We found a great game that showed our students how the different Allies built up their forces.
Students each cut out the game board and pieces so they could take it home and play in the afternoon.  We paired everyone up and gave them about 40 minutes to delve into it.  It was a great way to spend our short day!

I'm looking for a few picture books to help teach World War 1 and World War II.  I'd love to hear any suggestions you have.  Thanks!

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Teaching the Industrial Revolution with Primary and Secondary Sources

We spent a few days recently learning about the Industrial Revolution.  My Smarties are going to be taking a final exam in social studies, which is based on a DBQ, so I wanted them to have a little practice with primary and secondary documents.
Have you seen this picture of Addie?

This famous photograph is by Lewis Hine.

I started by putting Addie's picture up on an anchor chart, and giving my students a similar copy for their interactive notebooks.  For homework, I asked them to make observations about the picture, and write them down in the notebook.

The next day, we discussed what we observed, and I wrote their observations in BLUE marker on the anchor chart.  Any observations that they didn't have were added to the notebook.  There was a great discussion about the inferences they could make about young Addie, and of course I made them back it up with at least two pieces of text evidence, either from the actual photograph or from what we had read in our text book.  

Then, we read an article:  Searching for Addie The Story behind a Famous Photograph by Elizabeth Winthrop.  After reading and discussing the article, we added information from this secondary source in GREEN on the anchor chart.  We had a great discussion about the information you can gather and how it is different based on whether it is a document, photograph, primary or secondary source.

Finally, we started our DBQ on the positive and negative effects of the Industrial Revolution.  I went over each document and question with my students before providing them the TDEC organizer for writing.  I love the insightful comments they were making when they had to look closely at a second photograph from Lewis Hine.  Kudos to my Smarties!

Hang in there, we can almost see Friday!

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Sparking Student Motivation: Black Death Plague Simulation

My teammate and I found a fantastic way to keep our students motivated during our half day before Spring Break:  a PLAGUE SIMULATION!

We just finished studying the Middle Ages, and we knew that this would be an incredible lab experience for our students.  I try to make my classes as interactive as possible.  I only have my students for a 42 minute period, and I don't want them to be bored while they are with me.  Usually we use our interactive notebook for social studies lessons, but I always try to add in some sort of extended project with each unit.  I was so excited to actually find a simulation that would get my students up and moving during class!

I found the idea for our Black Death Simulation {HERE}.   I didn't create this simulation, it was made for S.C.O.R.E. Science.  (Schools-Online-Resources for Educators).  It is really simple to create.  Maps, Trade and Pilgrimage Routes, Directions etc.  are all included.  FOR FREE!!!  You just simply buy white, red and pinto beans, dice, and bags.  You could also use bingo chips if you have a bunch of them in the same color.  You need space for 25 city stations so I grabbed mouse pads from a few friends classroom to keep the dice noise down to a minimum.  That 's a great trick BTW if you don't have containers, and students are working in groups with dice.  Rolling on a mouse pad eliminates flying LOUD dice.

Students are assigned a pilgrimage or trade route.  They "travel" to each city on the list and roll a die.  The number represents the number of nights you spend in that city.  You pull that same number of beans out of the bag.  If you grab a red or pinto bean you have contracted the plague or cholera.  You then travel to next two cities infected those bags with the plague or cholera before you die.  As a culmination, students write a post card home explaining their trade route, and when and where they contracted the plague.  They also label a class map of where they were infected and where they died.  Then we have an opportunity to analyze the data.  Hello!  Math and Social Studies!!!

My students HAD A BLAST trying to escape the plague as they traveled from city to city.  Take a look at a few of our pictures below.  Our principal even joined in.  Unfortunately, he contracted the plague, but he managed to spread it to a few more cities before dying!

Stop over at visit Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching to find out about a ton of ways teachers are motivating their students! Spring Break here I come!

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A Peek at My SHORT Week! Terrible Tudors, Figurative Language, and Math Review

Happy Sunday all!  I'm doing a quick link up with Jennifer over at Mrs. Laffin's Laughings  for a Peek at My Week Party!

We have a short week.  Only two and a half days until Spring Break... We... can... make... it!
I'm spending a little time tying up some loose ends before we leave because when we get back we have our HUGE THREE DAY #thisteacherisstressed Math Assessment.
So here goes:

I am finishing up a unit on the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation.  My Smarties have loved learning about the feudal system, Magna Carta, Da Vinci and Martin Luther.  I'm reviewing with a little Middle Ages Bingo tomorrow and showing them this funny video about Henry VIII and using this Terrible Tudors video.  My class LOVES these!

Next, I'll be finishing up my Geometry unit by teaching volume.  We'll be finding the volume of a few rectangular prisms using food boxes.  I teach a surface area lab using this, but it will have to wait until after our assessment.  We just don't have enough time!

Next I'll be reviewing for our assessment using Task Cards.  I'm concentrating on Algebra and Ratios because those have the biggest emphasis for our test.  I'm using Algebra Multiple Choice Task Cards, Algebra Wacky Wordies, Ratio and Rate Multiple Choice Task Cards, and Wacky Wordies Ratios and Rates.  I'll be adding in Integers and Rational Number review after break.

Last, I'll be doing a little fun review practice with figurative language using my Spring Figurative Language Pack while we finish up our Biography Writing.

If you head over to my Facebook Page you can Pin It to Win It.  I'll be picking a winner a little later this afternoon when we get home from soccer.  Just like my page and follow the directions on the Pin It to Win It post.  If you are already following, did you know that Facebook may not be showing all of your liked pages anymore?  If you go to my page {COFFEE CUPS AND LESSON PLANS} and hover over the LIKED button a drop down menu appears where you can GET NOTIFICATIONS.  If you select this then you won't miss any posts.  I'm starting to do more flash freebie notifications there, so you don't want to miss out.  Plus you can ONLY enter the Pin It to Win It through Facebook.

Have an awesome week!  Get out and enjoy the sunshine!

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Sparking Student Motivation: Meeting an Author!

A few weeks back our district had the pleasure of bringing author, Marc Aronson, to visit our sixth and seventh graders.  Mr. Aronson is nonfiction author and lecturer at Rutgers University.  He came in to speak with our sixth graders about Stonehenge and the seventh grade about the Revolution.  I'll admit, at first I was skeptical.  Nonfiction author?   In a middle school?  Ut oh!  Would he keep the students attention?  BINGO my friends!  He was AMAZING!

He had them from the moment they walked in.. included them in the conversation and presented them with slides of documentation to make them QUESTION history!  My students were totally engaged.  They created theories, they were engaged, and they were disappointed when our time was up!  Aronson did an amazing job of pushing critical thinking with 12 year olds.  So much so, that as we continued our study of ancient Rome back in our classroom, my students mimicked his critical thinking in conversation about the Coliseum and Roman expansion of the empire.  I would call that a serious spark in learning motivation!
Mr. Aronson was also able to visit our 9th grade at the junior high, and a group of select 8th graders who had done a project after reading his book:  Sugar Changed the World

My daughter was one of the fortunate 8th graders to listen to him speak.  Even at that crazy 14 -15 year old age, these kids were totally motivated, because Mr. Aronson didn't lecture!  He engaged students.  The slides he brought probed students to answer questions, make inferences, and back up their conclusions!  Hello!  REAL WORLD thinking here people!

We were so thrilled after he left because he wrote an article for the School Library Journal periodical and he mentioned our school!  You can check that our {HERE} if you are interested in learning more about the Library and Common Core.  He also has a great website {HERE} where you learn more about bringing nonfiction to students.

I'd say bringing a "REAL LIVE AUTHOR" to school sparked learning in my classroom, so I'm linking up with Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching today!  

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Ancient Greek Myths Informational Text Posters

We are just finishing up our social studies unit on ancient Greece.  One of the best parts about this unit was the 7 days we spent studying ancient Greek mythology.  My students ate this project up because they got a chance to use the school's Ipads for research.  Any time I can grab the Ipad cart it will be on my agenda in the future. I was amazed at the collaborative learning that went on with this!  Each student in my class chose a Greek god, goddess or creature related to mythology.  They had to read a myth about the person, find out how he/she became a mythological creature, and learn about the symbol relating to the god.  I was amazed by how much they helped each other!  As we were working I loved hearing pockets of students share information as they realized that their topic overlapped someone elses.  Hello!  Middle School Smarties collaborting on a school related topic?  HOLLA
After we gathered our information we organized web pages for each god or goddess.

Each student created a template for the web page providing a summary of a myth containing the character, information about how the god, goddess or creature was related to others, and then an informative paragraph about the symbol.  My teammate found the posters from Really Good Stuff.  They are Show What You Know about Informational Text posters.  You can find them {here} if you are interested.  This post is not affiliated with Really Good Stuff, the poster is something we ordered with grant money and felt Greek mythology was a good way to use them.  

I read a new (to me) picture book while my smarties were searching for information. It's called Persephone and the Pomegranate by Kris Waldherr.   The book I read is this:

photo from Amazon

I was already familiar with the myth, but not this version.  The illustrations are beautiful! Unfortunately, the book is out of print, so I am very grateful that our library has a copy of it.  I know I'll be on the hunt for it at library sales to add to my personal collection.  I'm continuing our study of myths in Language Arts by reading The Lightning Thief.  Most of my smarties are familiar with the novel, but I am going to push them to dig deeper with evidence.  Stop back over the next few weeks and see how it is panning out for us!

Do you study ancient Greece?  I'd love to hear what you do with mythology.

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Thursday Throw Down: It's All Greek to Me

Today I'm linking up with one of my blogging buddy's Erin at I'm Lovin Lit to share how I used my interactive notebooks in Social Studies.

Some of you may know that I am new to teaching Social Studies this year.  My school has 17,  sixth grade teachers.  Everyone teaches one 80 minute ELA block and three sections of a core course (Math, Science, Social Studies).  One of the teams obviously cannot be a team of 3.  WOOHOOO! That's me this year.  I have to teach 80 minutes of ELA, 2 math classes, and one social studies class.  We teach Ancient Civilizations in 6th grade, so my smarties and I have been wandering around the middle east for a few months.  We did a huge project on Ancient Egypt in November.  You can read about it in 4 parts starting {HERE}.  Now I'm on to Ancient Greece.  We used our interactive social studies notebooks to review two important city states: Athens, and Greece.  I always find my lessons go better when my students use their notebooks.

After reading about Athens in our social studies book we created two pocket files.  I used templates from Erin's Interactive Foldables.  We wrote down information gathered based on the Essential Question:  What made Athens an important city-state?  We did the same for Sparta.  I also brought in resource books for my smarties to add extra information that they had found.

Another source that I used to make the lesson more interactive was a video from Horrible Histories:  It's called Wife Swap: Athens/Sparta.  The BBC does a great job of showing the differences between these two city-states.  Check it out below.  It is a MUST for anyone teaching Ancient Greece.  My sixth graders thought it was pretty hysterical.

When we return from our winter break we will be learning a little more about the people of Ancient Greece, mythology, and the Olympics.  I will also be beginning a review in ELA of Greek root words.

I would love to hear what others do to teach Ancient Civilizations.  Drop me a line and share your ideas!

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Ancient Egypt Part 4: Make an Incredible Project with items you can find at home!

Are you getting tired of all of my posts about Ancient Egypt?  This is the last one, I promise.  Or at least I think I promise.  I wanted to share with you a student's project that I thought was just amazing this year.  One of the things that sent me over the top about it was the fact that almost the entire project was created from things she found in her home!  I believe the only purchased item was a can of  gold spray paint!
My girl "J"'s research topic was the Egyptian sarcophagus.  For those of you who are not familiar, the sarcophagus, it is the casket used to bury the Egyptian king.  Usually it is highly adorned in gold and lapis to show the riches of the pharaoh and securely bring him into the afterlife.
"J's" is a beautiful example.

I numbered the picture above to make it easier to explain:

First off, the entire sarcophagus is a stroller box.  J's mom is due any day now with twins!

1) Paper plates!  "J" spray painted them gold and then attached them with a glue gun

2) To make a 3D effect of the crook and staff, "J" used a broken coat hanger.  They wrapped it in paper and then spray painted.

3) These smaller round circles... coffee filters! Bam! 

4)  All the blue which was supposed to represent lapis... NAIL POLISH!  

Holla!  That is one creative girl in my room!  

I love it!

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Sparking Student Motivation Summarizing and Video Fun: Ancient Egypt Part 3

What!  More than one blog post in a week!  I know... I know... I can hardly believe it myself!  I'm really trying to sit down and do some reflection about this blog, and I'm resolving to spend a little more time here, even if that means writing and scheduling some of my posts ahead of time.
Today I'm linking up with one of my BBBs, Joanne at Head over Heels for Teaching.  Joanne is fabulous people!  I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting her in the summer, and her positive energy has helped me out many times!

If you've managed to read my posts this week, I've been blogging about the Ancient Egyptian tomb that my smarties put together.  If you are interested, you can read Part One and Part Two.

One of the things I loved about this project came at the end.  We had been practicing a lot of informational reading and writing skills throughout the unit.  Some of them we were teaching in ELA, and others in our social studies class.  We focused a lot on one sentence summaries when we were reading books about the subject. During that reading time I would pair my students with other smarties that were studying the same topic for the research portion.  This gave them a chance to make connections with other people who had similar topics.  It was a great way to reinforce key conversation skills.  At the end though, for  the last piece, I mixed it up a bit.  I had students pair up with anyone of their choice.  Naturally, they gravitated back to their buddies, but that didn't matter.  The challenge I gave them was to create a summary paragraph that connected their two topics.  WOW!  I got some amazing, powerful  paragraphs.  My students had to think about connections that weren't obvious. It was mind blowing to watch what they came up with:

   

One pair of students had to summarize how the Nile River connected to mathematics.  They wrote about how the Egyptians were responsible for creating a calendar similar to the one we use today, and they used it to mark the flood patterns of the Nile.  I know that doesn't sound like much, but they were into it because they could work with a friend! They also had to come up with pictures and create a collage that complimented the paragraph.  <I love that I could use the paper tablets I bought on clearance at Walmart for 3.00 for this project!>

Here is another example.  In this one, one student had Egyptian medicine, and the other had agriculture.  They wrote about how the Egyptians actually had to learn to grow and cultivate plants that had medicinal value!  Holy Moly Batman!  That's critical thinking!   Take that NYS ELA assessments!

Here is another picture of the projects on the wall.  Our benchmarks for social studies are above them.

Finally, to keep them motivated, I showed them some silly Egyptian videos along the way.

Have you see this one?  It is The Bangles Walk Like an Egyptian put to Michael Jackson's Remember the Time video:

and I have to save the best for last... there can't be Ancient Egypt without Steve Martin!

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