Thanksgiving

Yesterday, we all sat down and celebrated Thanksgiving with our families.  Until this semester I have had that picturesque idea of the Native Americans and the Pilgrims sitting down and celebrating Thanksgiving like all my past teachers have told me.  This semester, however, I was challenged to question those things the textbook teach and those lessons taught over and over that might be wrong.  I feel that this social studies class has helped me so much to be able to truly research and understand what I being taught.  Like Dr. Meier said on Monday, "History is his or her story."

Book Talk

This past Wednesday was our classes book talk.  I enjoyed listening to everyone's book talk.  It seems like everyone had a book that related to social studies and most made me really interested to read their book.  My book was called "Ben and Me."  It is a book about Benjamin Franklin through the eyes of his good friend, companion, and mouse Amos.  It was a very fun book to read.  While it is a fiction book, it is a very useful book to teach students about the life of a famous historical figure.  I enjoyed reading it and look forward to being able to use it and maybe some of the others' books inside a classroom.

Story Path

This coming Wednesday we are going to have a story path activity that goes along with Mount Everest and what we talked about today.  I did not know all the facts we learned today about how many have climbed successfully, how many have died, the cost, and other facts we discussed today.  I am very excited for Wednesday to take part in the story path and learn exactly what they are and how to use them inside the classroom!!

Placement Lesson

Today I finally taught a lesson to students and saw it carried out from beginning to end! It was wonderful. Of course that are many things I would have done differently if I knew yesterday what I now know. My lesson was a Social Studies lesson about the three branches of government at the national level. The students were partnered up and read from the textbook for the first 15 to 20 minutes. Then we watched a School House Rock video, Three Ring Circle. It went perfect with the lesson. Next we had a class discussion on what was read and the video. Then we did a word sort within each pair, places roles and people under the right branch. The students listened a lot better then I would have thought they would which definitely helped! I am thankful that it is over now and I know that getting in front of the students is not horrible and I can do it! I am also glad that I got to do a hands on Social Studies lesson cause the class does not get to see Social Studies being as hands on as Science or Math is in the classroom.