Disclaimer: Most of my future blog posts will be in the form of video blogs or "vlogs." The posts will still be accompanied by images and text, but I believe my videos will have more potential to help my readers ultimately increase student engagement in their classrooms.
Kicking off with a Class Constitution
We kicked off the school year with a unit on the foundations of U.S. government. Although we will still be learning about historical events that led up to the formation of our government, building this foundation early on is critical. One benefit of starting the school year with understanding a complex system like government and a need for the Constitution is having students create their own Class Constitution.
Modernizing Primary Source "Lingo"
One of the most difficult parts of teaching U.S. History is getting students excited about primary source documents. Documents like the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution, and Bill of Rights all played a pivotal role in our nation’s history. It is no secret that most adults even struggle with making sense of the language used in these documents. Teaching students to read, comprehend, and paraphrase the language can be even more difficult. It is for this reason I decided to create the Preamble Soundscape project.What is a soundscape? A soundscape uses relevant music and sound effects to back a narrative or story. I learned about soundscapes at the Apple Distinguished Educators Institute in Berlin, Germany this past summer. The session I attended at this magical event was put on by Apple’s Senior Product Manager of Garage Band (the ultimate application for creating soundscapes). I can not describe how incredible this session was in words, but Apple has recently published a this multi-touch book on implementing Garage Band into the classroom. The book outlines the most efficient way to integrate soundscapes into your lessons.
Check out my students' finished Spundscapes of the Preamble below:
Reporting Live: The Bill of Rights
Once the students developed a deep understanding of the Constitution they began asking questions about individual rights. This provided the perfect opportunity to launch a multimedia project that would give students a collaborative learning experience on the Bill of Rights!
Tweet us @5thGradeU or @MrDulberger to see the final Bill of Rights/ Amendments projects!