Geography

Each time I hear the word geography, I think of a particular incident that happened to me that totally embarassed me when I was younger. This incident reminds me just how important understanding geography and knowing where you are in this world is.

For my 8th grade field trip, we took a trip to Washington D.C.. About 2 days into the trip, I made a comment in front of a bunch of people about how I thought it was supposed to rain all the time in Washington. My teacher told me that that was the state of Washingon. I thought I was in the state of Washingon. For the rest of the trip, until I got home to ask my parents, I had no idea where I was. I couldn't my finger on a map anywhere to guess where I was. I think it was really sad for someone my age at the time to not atleast know where Washington D. C. was.

My Biography

I loved the "My Life Biography" book we created in class. This would be a great activity to do during the first week in class. Some children are shy at the beginning of school so this would be a great way to introduce everyone and allow every student to get to know a little about eachother. You could use the book in many ways. It could be used as a timeline or even geogrphy, having students draw places they have been to. Students would love this activity and I also think parents would like to help and become more involved with this activity.

Books

Athough Eve Bunting's book So far from the Sea is a really sad book, I still enjoyed hearing it in class. Books are such a great way to retell history. They are a good way to get students wanting to know or learn more about history. I recently asked my 13 year old nephew what he thought about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and he replied asking  me what that was. I think it's really sad.

Since starting this class, I have been looking for different book for my classroom library that I hope to have when I begin teaching. I hope I can have a wide variety of history books. I really hope if I have them readily available that I will be able to spark enough interest on the topic that they will want to read them.

historical events

I had to find an important historical event from the 1980's. I thought this activity wa fun. After researching and choosing my event, I was curious and started looking at important events starting from 1900. I found and learned about a lot of occurrences that I did not know happened. I also was surprised at events I had forgotten. I created a time line from 1900-2010 of what I thought was the most important events to happen. I think this would be a great activity to spark historical interests in students.

Sing and Dance

I really thought the activities we had done focused around Paul Revere's painting were fun. These activities such as singing and dancing are great ways for children to learn while having fun. These activities also greatly help retain subject materials learned.