Learning Strategies/ Social Studies

Well, this is my last blog. I have to say this class has been such a great experience for me. I will be leaving this class much a much different view about the Social Studies.

 I really dreaded having to take this class. Social Studies was always my worst subject in school. I did not have a good attitude about it and did not do well. Even as an adult, I feel like I am pretty dumb when it comes to Social Studies. I always felt like I didn't even know the basics. I don't want to blame my teachers, but I am. =)  Every Social Studies teacher I had, taught solely from the text book. We would round robin read, look vocabulary words up in the back of the book, answer the 3 question at the end of every chapter, and take a test. It was HORRIBLE! I have learned from this class that is is very important to engage students as they learn. Make it fun to learn. Make children fun to learn. We have learned so many different fun and engaging strategies on how to teach the aspects of Social Studies. I really enjoyed this class. My views on the Social Studies have greatly changed. I would love to teach the Social Studies to children one day =) .

United States Constitution

I loved the United States Constitution activity that we did in class. Each of us having parts to research and draw really helped me learn what a lot of the Constitution means. Having a different person tell about what each section meant also helped me to remember. I most definitely think this activity would be great to teach in a primary grade classroom. This strategy of teaching this lesson could be applied to teaching many state standards. I always stressed over trying to learn things like the Constitution because, I felt like there was just always too much to learn and overwhelmed me. I found it hard to comprehend the material. I can remember much more of the Constitution by using this strategy in class Monday.

Geocaching

I thought I had a idea of what geocaching was but had no clue. I never knew that so many people went on hunts like this. I am glad I finally went on one in class. I found this to be very fun. When I was a child, I would always hide something from my brother and make him find it using my directions of counting steps. I just told my daughter about geocaching, and she is already wanting to go. I hope to get to go some this summer.
Geocaching makes me want to hide my Easter eggs like this :)

Box City

I really enjoyed making our box city in class. It was sad to have to take it down. I think it would be nice to have enough room in a classroom to leave the box city up for a while. There are so many things that can be taught using the box city. Teachers can integrate almost evey subject and cover many state standards. The box city could also be used in higher grades learning concepts such as governance. I can not wait till I get to use this activity in my classroom.