Social Studies comes to an end...... for now!

If you would have asked me at the beginning of the semester what I thought about Social Studies I would probably have said that it was one of those boring subjects I had to take in elementary school.  After having this Social Studies class this semester I have seen this subject in a whole new light. 

In America today Social Studies is becoming a thing of the past.  Why would we want to leave out information that has led to our country being what it is today?  I feel as a teacher that it is my duty to create a classroom that incorporates as much social studies into every lesson as possible.  I also do not want to teach just from the text.  This term I have learned many techniques such as living history museum, role playing, and story paths as great interactive lessons to get students engaged into the class. I feel the more involved in a subject a student is the more knowledge they will take in.

I also want to have a culturally responsive classroom.  I want my students to know about each other’s backgrounds.  I want students to be aware of what is going on around the world.   I also feel that students have the right to be taught what is correct, not what we are told to teach.  This is where my critical voice comes in.  As an educator, if I feel that my students are not getting the correct information, then it is my duty to speak up.  I do not want to lose my job my first year as a teacher but I also do not want my students to lose out on their education. My solution would be to teach what I am told but incorporate more into the lessons.  I also want to know what my students want to learn about.  If you cannot get student interested teach something they are curious about. What better way to grab their attention!

The most memorable activity that I participated in this semester would have to be when we used balloons.  We were all given a balloon and wrote something that people typical believed but was incorrect.  An example is “people who work at McDonald’s are not stupid”. After everyone presented their balloons we all popped them.  In one moment we were able to change 17 different misconceptions about people.  What a great activity this could be in a classroom.  This does not just relate to social studies it relates to life. I want my students to be able to look past each other’s differences and see how the many different cultures that encompass our country and their community. 

In the end when I think about Social Studies today, in my classroom it is just as important as reading, math, and science. Our students deserve a balanced education; this will lead them to be well balanced human beings.  They will be the people who lead our country in the future.  We are the people to teach them what they should learn.

Social Studies in America

This weekend we were given an article to read about how Social Studies is being left out of our students curriculum.  We are creating a society of dumb civilians. We no longer have students who are proud or knowledgable about this country.  We as educator need to fight for the rights of our students to be educated properly.  Yes math and reading is vital but social studies is needed for our student to become well rounded people !!!

Living history museum

Next week we are going to do an activity called Living Museum. Everyone has to pick an important person in history and act like them.  I have chosen to be Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to be seated on the supreme court. She was elected in 1981, the next female supreme court justice was not apointed until 1993.  I am anxious for Monday's class to see how our museum unfolds. 

Book Talks

This week in social studies we all had a to give a book talk.  Earlier on in the semester we all had to choose a chapter book to read during the semester.  I chose to read Esperanza Rising.  I really enjoyed this book. The story was easy to read and follow.  This would be a great multicultural book for middle school students.  Through the book talk session I able to preview many other books wich I can use in my future classroom.  I am not a big reader, however I enjoyed being pushed outside of my box.  In order to be a good teachers I need to be aware of what books are out there for my students to read.  I also need to know what books my students should not read! 

Story path shines

This week in social studies we worked on a storypath.  We spent one day learning about Mount
Everest and the many different positive and negative aspects of the expeditions that occur there.  On the second day we all created our own character and created a climbing scenario.  We created the mountain, camps, supplies, climbers and the skyline.  This was a neat way to give everyone the ability to create themselves into a character for the story.  We were able to choose between climber or sherpa.  After we designed our characters we designed posters to represent our purpose for being on the mountain.  There were many reasons such as money, thrill, livelyhood, and cleaning crew.  This will be a great activity for students in the classroom.  This allowed us to have a more hands on learning experiance which all students need more of.  I plan on implementing storypaths into my curriculum.  :)

Photo Diaries

This past week we went over photo diaries in class.  We all had to take pictures and relate them to our teaching strategies in social studies.  At first I though this was going to be a horrible assignment because you had to think outside the box. I am not typically the kind of person who thinks outside the box, so I was a litttle nervous.  However I loved the assignment.  I really enjoyed having to think of ways to express myself through pictures.  It was also really enjoyable to see how others in my class expressed themselves.  I can see how using a photo diary could work well in a classroom setting.  Having your students work together to create such a project could be a great way to teach social studies or other subjects.  I hope to find ways to icnorporate this into my classrroom.  Only if I survive block first!!!

Geocaching!

This week in class we learned about geocaching.  This is a website that tracks where people place items in random places. You can find all of these places by using GPS.  This is a great tool for a classroom to show how to use latitude and longitude.  It is amazing to learn how many different locations this cache is located in. We located one on ETSU campus and found it difficult to find. It was really well hidden! I can see how so many people find this addicitng.  I plan to do some geocaching myself this summer when I finally have some free time.  You can check it out at http://www.geocaching.com/.

Fall Break

I am a little behind so it's time to catch up with the past few weeks.  This week has been pretty crazy.  A storm raged through town and made a mess. School was closed for a while and pretty much everyone did not come to class on Monday. OOps. Etsu had a hard time letting people know when classes resumed. This storm made me realize how lucky we are to live in this region of the country.  We typically don't get tornadoes, hurricanes or any kind of natural disasters. The mountains seem to protect us from the enviroment.

This week during social studies we built a city.  Not just any city, a box city.  This activity was a lot of fun.  We started of by deciding what buildings were needed and what are city and roads would be named. Then we all chose a building and built them from random boxes.  This activity will work for any grade level.  You can add more detail for older grades and simplify it for younger grades. This lesson is perfect for geography but can easily be used in all other subject areas.  Definitly try it some time!

Learning through acting

This past week in our social studies class we talked about the Boston masacre and the Boston Tea Party.  We did not read over chapter pages or listen to a lecture on power point.  We seperated our class into two groups and each group got a script for one of the two events.  This was a blast!!  I was able to see how acting out history can be such a great way to learn in the classroom.  Everyone had a great time and we were able to understand how people felt in the situation by acting out.  I certainly feel that I was able to learn more in that one class than I did reading my history book in school.   I hope to be able to incorporate this form of learning in my classroom next year. I want my students to learn and have fun at the same time. :)

Critical Voice

For our social studies class this week we read an article about having a critical voice.  If you are in a postion of an educator you must have your own critical voice.  This article talked about how many new teachers go into a school and simply do as they are told.  I did not go to school for this many years to simply do as I am told.  I went to school because I want to be a part of the change.  I am not going to sit back and allow my students to not recieve the best available education because certain things are not in the curriculum. I hope that anyone thinking about going into the education field make sure that they are aware of their own critical voice before stepping foot in a classroom.  

Interactive classroom

This week during our social studies class we participated in a group activity.  There were a few roles for students to become: king, tax collector, parliment, and peasants.  The purpose of the activity was to show students how the tax system worked and how they did not get a say in the process. This was a fun activity that everyone enjoyed and all were able to participate.  The more interactive you make your classroom the more engaged your students will be.

Welcome to Blogspot

This is my first of many posts to come.  I am someone who is not on the computer all the time so this is going to take getting some used to.  I hope throughout this term I will be able to share some great ideas for future teachers.