Midterms

Its midterm time here in Tennessee!


After the 100 question test, followed by 4 short answer writing prompts and a 5 paragraph essay ... I say it's time for my kiddos to have a break! 


Have a great 2 weeks off, and I will see you in January!

***HAPPY HOLIDAYS***




 

Keep Calm

US History Timeline

I have a large wall at the back of my classroom. For the past 6 years I have stared at that wall trying to figure out what to put on it. There are a few posters, but with such a big space it looked a little silly.
At the beginning of the year I decided I wanted to utilize the space as a review for my students. We have an EOC exam from the state each May. When we start reviewing for it in May, I have found that a lot of my students have completely forgotten what we discussed in August through April.  I wanted to change that.

Brainstorming

I created a HUGE US History Timeline.

For each chapter we cover, I create some type of visual (something we used in class during the instruction) they can look at to remind them of what we talked about. I gave my students a learning style inventory at the beginning of the year, and a large number of my students are visual learners. This is a way to target that learning style. My hope is that looking at the review everyday all year, the material will stay fresh in their minds.
This week we are reviewing for their Midterms.
The timeline has proven to be very helpful (I THINK)! It is a teaching tool I can reference as we are discussing the different chapters we have covered. We will see how they do on the exams next week, but I think the visual will help trigger the discussions we had in class.

1920's Projects

My students spent the past 2 weeks creating websites on the 1920s. They were able to choose any topic of interest to them. I had some who picked the normal 1920′s topics like jazz music and the flappers. I also had a few research fun topics like bubble gum and pez in the 1920s.

The websites turned out great. I was impressed with the work that was completed.

We used Google Docs to complete this assignment. I went in and created a class webpage, then shared the site with the class so they had access to edit the page. Students told me their topics the day before we started working with the computers. I was able to set up all the pages (topics) to the webpage before they started working.

Students had to use 3 resources, one of those had to be a book source. They also had to include a primary source document on their website. This could include a quote from or about the person they were researching, a newspaper article or magazine from the time; really anything from the 1920s! This proved to be one of the challenges of the research, but many were able to find a primary source to include.

When planning this project, I was debating on how I wanted students to present their research to their classmates. I wanted everyone to see/ learn about the different topics. I decided to do a webquest. As a requirement for this project, I had the students include 5 questions at the bottom of their site that anyone could answer, based solely on the information they included.

The day after the projects were due, I had the students log back into the website and visit at least 5 other student’s webpages. I wish they would have had more time to look at all of them, but that wasn’t possible in one class period. I allowed them to choose which 5 they wanted to look at/ answer. They just had to complete the 5 questions from 5 different sites (25 questions total).

I wish I could link to all the sites so you can see them, but they are protected websites and you must have a log in to see them. If you have feedback, or questions, please let me know!