We the People of Social Studies with Rebecca Lawson

So, we just taught our last lesson and I have a bittersweet feeling about it. I think overall our lesson went fairly well, but I would definitely change somethings given the chance. This lesson was our cooperative lesson. None of us have ever taught a cooperative lesson before and it took some Our group chose to have each group of students research a different historical figure from our lesson (Sacagawea, Lewis, Clark, Jefferson, and Adams). Then as a group, the students had to work together to create a campaign poster that included facts about their candidate, a slogan, and negative comment to use against their rival. To ensure that the group ran smoothly, each student was assigned a role. The students could be a note taker, a facilitator, a presenter, or a helper. We assigned the roles before we got there to save some time. To ensure that all student would be individually accountable for contributing to the group, we had all of the students sign a contract. The student did have some

Inquiry Day! "Imagine your room, all of the stuff in it. Now imagine how much more stuff you could fit in it if you were to double in size!" This is how our group of Social Studies Super Stars introduce the concept of the Louisiana Purchase, which was one of the greatest land deals of all time. In doubling the size of the U.S., President Jefferson wanted to learn what was out there. He hired the explores Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to lead an expedition through the Louisana Territory. To help them along their way, Louis and Clark hired Sacagawea, a Shoshone Native American woman to be their guide. To bring our students along on their journey, we had a Voki of Meriwether Lewis. The Voki was meant to say that something went wrong in time and he and his partner Clark, never went on their expedition. Something went wrong when we tried to play the Voki for the class. I am not sure if the volume was not working, or the video itself was not working. I had to improvise in th

Our First Day As Social Studies Teachers! February 22, George Washington's birthday, my group of Social Studies Super Star began to teach the 5th-grade class about the United States as a Young Nation. In 1789 Washington became the first president of the USA by a unanimous vote in the electoral college. Practically every person in the US wanted Washington to lead us as our first president except for Washington himself. As we taught the class these interesting facts, we implemented several strategies to help the students remember key vocabulary. I made sure that everytime a vocabulary word came up, I would either have the students say it with me or repeat it after me in a choral response. This was a great way to get the students to start internalizing this new vocabulary. After every two slides, we asked the students to answer check for understanding questions that were based on the information they had just learned. Our group also made sure to get an answer from each group around