Geography: Teaching The Seasons

Teaching the seasons to six year olds can be challenging, but making it fun for them will make it a lot easier on me as their teacher. For my geography lesson I wanted to get the students asking themselves how to tell the seasons apart, so I started by reading books that detailed the characteristics of each season:

After reading these books, the students would discuss the differences between the seasons and the identifying characteristics of each one. Then they would take paper and crayons outside.

Under supervision and in pairs, because let's face it they're six and dangerous on their own, they would look around the school grounds for evidence of which season it was. When they found something they thought fit the season, they would draw it on their papers to present and turn in later.

This isn't a very complicated lesson, even though going outside with Kindergarteners is quite complex, but it does demonstrate to the students how the seasons are different and how we identify which season it is.

Teachers.net has a great lesson plan on this topic that incorporates technology and would be a great follow-up to this lesson.

Beyond Civics: Teaching Dragonfly Pond

After attempting the Dragonfly Pond activity in class, I was skeptical about ever actually using it as a teacher. However, when I found out that so many of the third grade standards discuss communities and civics, I begrudgingly took a second look at the idea. That's when I truly saw the genius of it.

As I said before, this activity can go far beyond just learning about what a community is and how to be a productive citizen. A well integrated unit could potentially cover every content area. For my three lessons, I integrated language arts by having them write persuasive letters, slogans, and reflections; I included art by having the students create posters and of course the buildings for the community.

In a longer unit, students could decide where in the world their community was and analyze the soil types that would be found in their community (Science standard 3.2.2), make buildings that are different 3D shapes (Math standard 3.G.1), estimate the length of different roads in their community (Math standards 3.M.2, 3 & DA.2), hold a trade fair where each student has a booth that represents their building in the community (Math standard 3.M.4), and much more.

This activity also fosters collaboration between students, since it is impossible to build the community without compromise and whole group decision making. These are obviously third grade standards, but with a little thought this activity could be used in almost any grade.

My first lesson consisted of a simple discussion of the different types of communities and what establishments would be in each. This was the resulting list:

The students were very excited to use the knowledge they already had about different communities to come up with buildings. They had just finished learning about public services, so those were eagerly included in the list.

After writing persuasive letters to their classmates about which community should be built and a nearly unanimous vote, the class chose to build a city.

My second lesson in this unit incorporated Earth Day and how the students would improve their community so that it would be more ecologically responsible.

The students wrote slogans to encourage others to participate in Earth Day and drew posters to spread the word.

                                                              

My final lesson for this unit was to have the students actually build the city. They were so excited to finally build it they nearly jumped out of their own skin, and once they had their materials it was chaos. The students worked individually for almost an hour on their respective buildings and they came out looking really amazing.

I could not have been prouder of the students' work and how their city turned out. It was an amazing thing for me to see, the students working together to decide where each building should be placed, as well as thinking up ideas as to what they were missing and how their city could be improved.

 Overall, I think the unit was an amazing success. I had the students write reflections about how they thought the city could be improved and if the citizen's would be able to survive if the city were real. They had a little bit of a hard time answering these questions, but I chalk that up more to lack of time than anything else.

To create virtual cities as practice for this lesson or an extension afterwards, MyMiniCity, CityCreator, and MillionaireCity are great resources. As an introduction to the different types of cities, I added Eduplace has a great interactive map for students to play with and learn about what buildings are found in which communities.

Historical Artifacts

Most often it takes a little more than reading out of a textbook for students to really connect with whatever content their learning. Luckily, in social studies we teachers have quite a few options that can help us bring history to life.

For our historical artifacts assignment in class, I decided to show third grade students what some of the Native Americans in Indiana were like. I brought in pictures of where each tribe of Native Americans lived, what their homes and communities looked like, and a painting depicting their fight against the European settlers.

I think these are incredibly important for students to see in order to make this subject more real to them. Many students don't have any sort of background knowledge of Native Americans, so giving them visuals really help them to understand their culture better.

There are many great resources on this topic; Connor Prairie has an interesting site with tons of pictures to show students.

My Life in a Shoebox

This activity was one of my favorites this semester. I'm going to be honest and say, yes, I do very much like talking about myself; the shoebox activity gave me the perfect opportunity to do just that. The biggest problem was figuring out the five things that were most important to me, the five things I'd want to take with me if I only had a shoebox in which to carry my possessions.

 I love to read, so I'd have to have at least one book with me. I chose Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because it is one of my all-time favorite books. I could read and reread my self-annotated version for the rest of my life.

 This is what I used to call my "Teddy Bear Blankie" (yeah, I was a really creative toddler). It's been with me for as long as I can remember. If I had to uproot myself and leave most of my possessions behind, I would definitely want this to comfort me.

 I'm a writer, and I hate taking notes on the computer or my phone, so I have a ton of random pieces of paper covered in scribbles. I'd need this with me, along with at least a few clean notebooks.

 This is the FedEx Kinkos receipt from when I printed and bound the first short novel I wrote and actually finished. Though this wouldn't really be something I'd need with me, it's very important to me. You can't even see the ink anymore because it's been in my wallet for six years, but it's a reminder of a day I'll never forget.

This is a picture of me and my grandfather on my thirteen birthday. It's the last picture I have of him because he died five days later. This picture reminds me of who I used to be since after he died it seemed like everything started to change.









To go along with this activity, the Bureau of Land Management has a Pack Your Wagon lesson, and Edsitement has a cool lesson on imagining traveling the Oregon Trail.

Trade Fair

Every since I was given the idea using a trade fair to teach students about money I have desperately wanted to actually be able to do one. I truly believe that this lesson, like the Dragonfly Pond lesson, has the potential to authentically assess students on a myriad of skills. The trade fair that we had in our class was to demonstrate how trade would have worked in the past, I think that it could go far beyond that.

I wrote a lesson plan for third grade that gave students the opportunity to both trade the way fur traders did in the Midwest and then think about how that trade would be different if they had had actual money instead of just trading goods.

This is a great idea in my opinion, but I still think that the lesson can go farther. Teaching the barter system is one way to incorporate social studies, but another would be to have students dress up as different types of traders, from European settlers and Native Americans to Romans and even Mesopotamia. Whatever culture the students are exploring that has a barter system could be used in a trade fair similar to the one we had in class.

And instead of just trading items without any rules as to what each is worth, student could devise as system of trade, figuring out how much of one thing is worth how much of something else. If you introduce coin or paper money into the equation, that integrates many math standards across multiple grades. Having students write out receipts or persuasive signage brings in writing and language arts.

The History Channel has an excellent video on the fur trade to give students background, and Fair Trade Research Nation has many great ideas for different kinds of trade fairs to have in the classroom.

Civics and Community: Dragonfly Pond Activity

Civics was always a difficult concept for me to get a true grasp on as a child because it's not necessarily something that young children usually get to participate in or see first hand. Therefore, I was very happy to start the Dragonfly Pond activity in class.

This activity is so great in my opinion because of it's versatility. Building a community out of cardboard boxes and paper doesn't sound like much, but when taught the correct way can integrate so much more than just art.

To be honest, in class this activity meant very little to me because of the circumstances and confusion involved when we started it. However, once I took a good look at it and worked with it to create a short unit for my third grade class, it took on a whole new life. I'll be writing more about that unit later.

Our Dragonfly Pond Community

For more information on teaching civics, visit the National Constitution Center.