We the People of Social Studies with Rebecca Lawson

Artifact Bags are an amazing way to help history come to life for children. The excitement of unwrapping a mystery item can be a very exciting way to engage the students. For my artifact bag, I choose to include four items. The items I had included were a British Pound, a painting of Henry Clay in Congress, a copy of the Star Spangled Banner flag, and a set of Mardi Gras Beads. So, do you have any ideas about the time period these items represent? I challenge you to try and find the connection and then continue reading. After all of your exploration, did you come to the conclusion that these items represent the War of 1812? Let me explain each artifact to make sure you see the connection. The first item, the British Pound represented the British breaking the Free Trade Agreement by not allowing the US to trade with France by going so far as to capture US sailors. Artifact number two, the painting of Henry Clay, represented the group of people that Henry Clay lead called the War

Do you remember learning about geography in school? Maybe you used maps or globs to explore the different features of our world. Today, students can experience 3D models using Google Earth to explore locations on the other side of the globe in seconds! Teaching a lesson with Google Earth is definitely something that I would love to us in my classroom one day. I would give the students latitude and longitude coordinates to explore like a scavenger hunt. One of my favorite parts of Geography was learning about latitude and longitude in sixth grade. My teacher was the faculty adviser for the LEGO robotics club and the tech crew, so he was well versed in technology. To learn latitude and longitude, my teacher had us play a more interactive form of Battle Ship. He gave everyone a large map with latitude and longitude lines on it that we would mark in several spots to represent our bases. Once everyone had marked their bases, we would take turns calling out coordinates to try and hit one of

Yet again we have reached the end of a fieldwork cycle. This is always a bittersweet moment to reach. Our class of fifth graders was very intelligent and engaging to work with. I will miss them now that we are done, but I am proud of what we accomplished. Overall, I think my group's direct instruction was our best lesson. Our inquiry had a few "hick-ups" that could be improved with a little more practice and planning, especially when it comes to knowing where the students are going to move to their next station. Our cooperative learning lesson was a great experience as well. This was the first time I had taught a cooperative lesson. In class today we talked about what makes a cooperative lesson more than just group work. Group work is something that everyone has experienced in school at one point or another in their school career. Most people hear group project and they freat because people don't pull thier own weight and someone ends up doing it all. In a cooporative

To help understand the benefit of cooperative and interactive learning, I watched a video on eClass that model poor cooperation and positive cooperation. In part 1 of the video, the president of the mock company demanded that the name of the product be "stars so bright bracelets". She would not take any feedback from the other people in the mock company who wanted to name them "friendly bracelets". The other members of the mock company also shot down the president's idea of naming them "stars so bright bracelets", call it a "stupid" idea. The president told the other members that it is what the president says goes. In this part, several people voiced their opinions, but they were very disrespectful when addressing their colleagues, which is not appropriate when collaborating with others. In part 2 of the video, the other members of the mock company gave their opinions on what color they thought the logo should be. One said rainbow, one said