Picture this – 40 thoughtful 5th graders read an excerpt of, observe artwork, and listen to commentaries on Arizona’s Anti-Immigration Senate Bill 1070 and compare the results of this piece of legislation to issues in immigration and civil rights throughout US History. Imagine, now, their shock when these 10 and 11-year-olds realize that civil rights [...]
Just a quick note of thanks to NCSS 2012 for a wonderful learning experience here in Seattle. Being chosen as the Elementary Social Studies Teacher of the Year has been one of the most rewarding and inspiring experiences in my 23 years as an educator. Thank you to all of the teachers and educators who [...]
On the 11th anniversary of September 11th, our UTES 5th graders learned about themselves and the world while becoming thoughtful citizens with a heart for service learning and social justice. When 10-year-olds discuss history, they need to be able to put it in context with their lives. Since most of them were born just before [...]
It’s summertime and, as all teachers know, it’s PD time as well. I am excited and honored to get to return to Tyler ISD and share more ways that social studies can be integrated into language arts. I am updating my presentation to include the cool technology and performance strategies we piloted this year at UTES. As always, the kids are the stars and I’m the director of their learning.
Last week our UTES Little Longhorn 4th and 5th graders were the first elementary school students to see the documentary movie on energy, Switch, by Dr. Scott Tinker. http://www.switchenergyproject.com/screenings.html. This was a terrific culmination of 5th grade science and social studies units on energy and natural resources, and economics driven by supply and demand. Not only [...]
Thanks to the our Dell Technology grant, and a host of technology experts who have shared their expertise, our fifth graders are officially Techies. Projects that our Little Longhorn students are working on include: Digital stories using their own Bio-Poems, Power Point Presentations on Energy sources for science, Apps4Good educational games for younger classes here [...]
We have just finished and produced our first formal debates in 5th grade, 2012. We held our first Loyalists v. Patriots debate on Thursday, April 5th with my homeroom group. It all started out very polite, and the students appeared uncharacteristically shy and reserved. Well, that didn’t last long. As you will see, both [...]
We talk and talk about coming to the PEACE table with problems and solutions so after our Occupy Wall Street studies, my fifth graders wrote letters to President Obama about their concerns and offered possible solutions. Here is the content of a few letters and a link to some photos from my recent trip to Washington, [...]
This past week, in collaboration with our UTES librarian and some amazing volunteer lawyers, we had an eye-opening class discussion about prejudice. This was the perfect segue from our Constitutional Rights unit into our Civil Rights lessons. After a week of learning about primary and secondary sources, the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement, and [...]