Revamping Regions

As I {previously shared}, I'm in charge of social studies long range plans.

I thought I'd just be able to reuse what I made last year, but after I looked at it again with fresh eyes, I decided that I needed to just start over. 

I wanted to focus more on the landforms of each state so students could see how regions were geographically similar.  I wanted to include vocabulary that they'd hear in the FOSS Landforms Kit (which is being taught in humanities).  I wanted to be more consistent with each state including the same information (images of state flag, state quarter, state seal) and the same basic layout.

This, unfortunately, is a massive undertaking but all the fifth grade classes are not only using it, but enjoying it as well. 

Last night, many, many hours after my contract time ended, I finished the introduction and Intermountain region powerpoint.  Coming in at 119 slides, it took quite a while to upload to Dropbox and TpT.  I designed it to be a ten day unit, with the first being an overview of what defines a region and how they're created.  The next eight days focus on the eight states in the Intermountain region, with one day at the end for a test.  I zoomed in on Yellowstone National Park, so that could be a day within itself.   

You can snag it {here}.

I designed the lessons to be about 15-20 minutes per day, since that's all we seem able to squeeze into our schedules.

This weekend I'll jump into the West Region with an additional topics on volcanoes, the Northern Lights, and tectonic plates.  From there, I think the Great Plains and the Midwest will be the next two regions, followed by the South, New England, and Mid Atlantic.  After all the states are covered, we'll be working on Native American Indians, Exploration, Plymouth, Colonial Times, the American Revolution, and the foundation of our government.  The year will end with a civics and government unit.

Hopefully this year (lucky #7) will feel like the last year that I have to keep reinventing the wheel and working so hard to create curriculum for my students.  There will always be tweaks and trying new things, but I feel like a first year teacher all over again.  It's a little rough this year.  But at least it's Friday!

Social Studies Long Range Planning

We are sharing our planning responsibilities as a grade level this year and I get to take the charge on the social studies (government, civics, geography, and economics) plans.

This is how I feel:

My undergraduate focus wasn't education, it was pre-law.  However, you can't major in pre-law, so it was Political Science with a minor in Global Studies and certificates in Civic Education as well as Philosophy, Politics, and Law.  However, I didn't end up in law school and thank goodness for that!

I do hold a master's degree (and thirty additional credits) in education, so I have a pretty good idea what to do in the classroom.  (Seven years' worth of experience helps too!)

I'm excited to get to synthesize my extensive background knowledge into a cohesive, scaffolded introduction to the social sciences.

We are starting with {What is Geography?} and the {5 themes of geography} before we move into different types of maps, including this {sort}.  From there, we'll dive into regions utilizing Mystery Skype and the map.

You know, the map:

After that we'll move into Native American Indian Research Projects and have them write a fiction story based on their research.  They'll create diaries as a member of a Native American Indian tribe.  This will tentatively be happening as our culminating writing project in November, thus integrating social studies and writing.

From there, we'll review colonial history before moving into branches of government.  I plan to embed economics into each region (in addition to land forms to pre-teach the FOSS kit they'll be doing in humanities).

I hope to have all of this fun wrapped up around winter break, but know I have a much larger window if needed.  I know GATE is focusing on multiple perspectives in history this year with a focus on the colonial period, so that's exciting to have that built in extension for my students.

As I finalize products and plans, they'll be available on TpT!  Stay tuned :)

Tech Tip: Silence is Golden

We finished our FOSS kit last week and due to testing, I had two days after the assessment with my final science group.

(We departmentalized the science kits, so I taught the FOSS landforms kit to each of the four 5th grade classes.)

We tried a new strategy with our video streaming.  We watched "Thar She Blows", a short video clip from Discovery Ed on the eruption of Mt. Saint Helen's.  

The first time we watched, I had the students just watch for content.  The second time, they wrote down the crucial vocabulary words they heard.  After the second viewing, we made a list on the board:

The third time we watched, I turned off the sound.  Yes, we watched the video without sound.  The purpose was to allow the students to "be the expert" and narrate the video, using the vocabulary words.  They did a pretty good job with being the volcano expert.

I'll definitely be using this silence is golden trick again!

Movin' Mountains

In science we are just finishing up learning about types of maps before we move on to how landforms change over time with stream tables.

We talked about cartographers and surveyors (since I'm dating one, I've got lots of background knowledge!).  They made a map of the playground and I modeled making one of our classroom:

They collaboratively sketched out the features of the room and then their homework was to make an aerial map of their bedroom or favorite room.  Not all the students completed the task but the ones who did were so excited to share with their neighbors the next day.

I showed them my map of my bedroom and they were fascinated.  It was kind of adorable, considering all that was on my map was a bed and dresser.  They're just super observant and curious little ones, which is a wonderful thing.  (Sometimes they remind me of Littlest One in Lois Lowry's Gossamer but only a few of them get the literary reference).

From there, we moved into making topographic maps by tracing the different layers of a foam mountain:

This is investigation 4 in the FOSS Landforms kit, but I teach the kit out of order (such a rebel!).  

Tuesday we'll talk about contour lines, contour intervals and elevation when they make their keys.  I just love how excited they get about geography and landforms.  It's important to be excited about this great planet of ours!