Salt Dough Countries

It's always a lot of fun to do hands-on activities with students, especially when it helps them learn! This project was a creative way to learn about different countries. We worked in groups, and each group chose a country to study. My group chose Italy. We had to research our country and answer questions on a worksheet to find out what was important or notable there. After we did our research, we got to use salt dough to mold things that represented our country!

My group wanted a well rounded representation of Italy, so we included a 3-D mold of the country itself, a lot harder to do than you would think. We also had the leaning tower of Pisa, Mount Vesuvius, and of course, pizza and spaghetti.

This would be a great activity to do with elementary school students, but I would recommend focusing on one continent or region so the class isn't all over the globe, and also you should make the salt dough yourself and provide any other supplies they might need.

Neighborhoods

One activity that we did this semester was to take pictures of our neighborhood, what we see when we walk out our front door and what our house looks like. Then everyone brought their pictures to class and we posted them up on the wall. We all got to look at the pictures and think about what the atmosphere might be like there . This was yet another activity where we got a look inside our classmates to see where they are from and what they see everyday.

After we discussed what we saw in the pictures, what was similar and what was different, we chose one picture that caught our eye and wrote a poem about it. Just a simple two line couplet that described what we saw in the picture or what we saw in our neighborhood. It was a great activity to get to know my fellow classmates!

Check out these other teacher blogs!!

Here are links to a few other great blogs that I have found from other future teachers :)

http://missraysblog7.blogspot.com/
http://blancaalvarado.blogspot.com/
http://misslovansblog.blogspot.com/
http://misskwilliamsblog.blogspot.com/
http://block2socialstudiesblog.blogspot.com/

Trade Fair

A trade fair is a great way to get students involved in class. Creating real life situations that happened in history helps make history real for students.
In our class, each student brought in something that they made, like food or a craft, or some things from around the house that they just didn't need anymore. I chose to bring some things in that could be useful to a future teacher. I bought a few sets of addition and subtraction flash cards and mini dry erase boards. I also brought some children's books that I had around my house.

If you are planning to do a trade fair with your students, you have to make sure that you spend some time going over the rules of a trade fair. Obviously with grade school students, you need to tell them that they have to ask their parent's permission before they bring anything to school. They also need to use manners and be polite to the other students even if they don't want to trade for what they have.
A trade fair can be a great experience, but there is a lot of planning that needs to be done before you can do it. It is also really important to know your class well and know if they would be able to handle the freedom of doing an activity like this.

Decades Project

Our set up with food, music, and lots of pictures!

1970's Dressed as the Schoolhouse Rock crew

The Decades Project is a great one to do toward the end of the year when kids want to be active and have summer to enjoy. This is a project that takes a lot of work from both teacher and student, but it is a great way to learn!

My group chose the 1970's because we thought it was a fun decade with a lot of culture and diversity. It wasn't hard at all to find information on the 1970's. We, of course, had to dress up for our decade, but being college students, we weren't prepared to spend a lot of money on a costume. Since Schoolhouse Rock first started airing in the 1970's, we decided we could easily dress as characters from the cartoons and not only was it fun, it was also educational! Schoolhouse Rock was used in the classroom all the time during the 70's and even now some teachers make use of the fun songs. We had a great time and spent only a few dollars each to make our outfits.

Five Artifacts Project

For the five artifacts project, each member of the class brought in five objects that are special to them or in some way represent them. The five objects I chose were; an old picture book of Alice in Wonderland that belonged to my mom, my manual film camera, a small woven giraffe, a pink dinosaur my cousin gave me when I was born, and a ring that I bought while I was in Spain. These items are special to me because I have has most of them for a long time, and even the ones I bought more recently mean a lot to me because they represent big parts of my life. I was very proud to get my own film camera, take pictures and develop them myself, and traveling to Spain was huge to me because it's the only time I've left the continent.

Not only did I learn a lot about myself and what I value as I selected these items, but I also learned a great deal about my classmates because I had to opportunity to see what they value. We had a lot of similarities in the class. Since we are all becoming teachers, we value a lot of the same things. However, there is also a great deal of diversity in our class and it was a great experience to see that.

This can be an awesome learning experience for young students because they cannot always see beyond their own world to identify similarities and differences in their classmates. This will give them the chance to see what they have in common with the other people in the class and you also get a peek inside someone else's world.