Travel Video Project-update

Hey there! If you can’t visit Paris or Greece, why not bring it to you? That was what we decided to do last month with our travel videos. This was a great activity to tie in our unit on geography, but there were so many cross-curricular opportunities here with language arts, technology, and social studies.

I just wanted to post a quick update on the project now that they are up and published. Click here to find the project guideline and rubric.

We’ve been putting the finishing touches on our videos and editing them for publishing. Unfortunately, I’m not a whiz with video editing or iMovie so I wasn’t able to give as much assistance and instruction as I would have liked, but I think we did ok. I was more interested in how they would compile and present their research than anything else, and in that respect, I think they did pretty well. Here are a couple of our videos if you want to check them out.

Here's the example video I created from last summer's trip to Greece.

Nhu's travel video on Espana!!!

Minh Chi's France video.

Taboo- Geography Edition

Looking for a fun way to review science or social studies concepts? Students seem bored or uninterested in lessons at the end of a unit? Fret not my fellow teacher friends, a solution is here. The answer- PLAY A GAME! I can’t stress enough how much more my students seem to retain when they are forced to know it in a friendly competition among classmates. Sweeten the deal with reward points, a free homework pass for the winning team, or their name on the superstar wall… it’s a winner for sure.

This week’s review came from a game we used to play when I was growing up and is still fun as heck to play- Taboo. If you’re not familiar with this game, here’s how it’s played:

During their turn, each player is forced to describe a word or phrase to their team without using certain words. For example, you have to get your team to guess the word “circle”, but you can’t say shape, round, sphere, or square. This is such a great exercise for second language learners because it forces them to really think about what words to use. Plus, it’s an incredibly funny sight to watch as your students struggle to find the words they needJ

If you have time at the end of a lesson, you should give this one a try- it’s a riot!

Here’s a copy of the cards I made for our geography review, but any word or phrase will work.  

Travel Video Project

This week, we are wrapping up our geography theme and tying up all the loose ends for the semester before our break. Although I am BEYOND excited for a little reprieve, it still feels like there are a thousand things left to do. I suppose that’s all part of teaching though… constantly in a state of playing catch-up. Anyway, before we go, I wanted to share our big theme project with you all and brag a little bit about what rockstars my kiddos are. It seems like whatever assignments I give them, they just take off and run with it. It’s truly amazing what they are capable of.

I created this slideshow on www.sliderocket.com to walk them through the project guidelines and inserted a short travel video to give them an example of what I was looking for. Basically, I wanted them to make a short, informative yet entertaining travel video showcasing what they thought were the best things to see and do in their chosen country. We used iMovie to create the videos, but this project could easily be done on Movie Maker and adapted for a larger class by dividing them into groups. They seemed to really enjoy putting their videos together and, hey, they even learned some human and physical geography in the process! Once we get them published and downloaded, I will post a couple of them here. Hope you’re having a great week.



Interactive World Map

Holy Moly, where do the weeks go? Sorry I’ve been missing for a while. We’ve jumped in head-first into our geography theme unit and I haven’t had time to catch my breath. Speaking of geography, here’s a little somethin’ that I’m doing with the kiddos this month as a homework/taskboard tie in with the theme.

I drew up this large world map on a sheet of butcher paper, making sure to not include anything except the outline of the continents. Then, I created these little daily geography activities and put them in an envelope ranging from drawing and labeling countries to locating mountain ranges to writing a journal entry from an early explorer’s perspective…the possibilities are virtually endless for this theme. Anyway, every day the kids choose one activity from the envelope to complete either for homework or during task board time. Then, we discuss our findings as a class and a couple of them transfer it from their homework onto the big map and color it in. At the end of the week, we have a short online quiz through edmodo over the content that they learned. It’s been pretty successful so far and they seem to be retaining most of what they’re learning, so I’m happy.

In addition, we've been working on a couple of interesting geography projects and gearing up for our math day competition at the end of the month. Needless to say things have been busy. Here are a few pictures of our interactive map board and the activity sheet I created if you’d like to try it in your class. Happy almost Friday, everyone!

New Year, new theme... geography

I don’t know about you, but the holiday break was just what I needed after the busy first semester. I’m feeling rejuvenated and ready to take on the new year and was even lucky enough to spend the holidays with my mom. How can you beat that?

Anyway, today was my first day back and I got straight to work on the plan for the new theme unit on geography. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this theme because I’ve always been fascinated by the people and places around me. I love how diverse our planet is and I can’t wait to get my kids excited about geography. When I was deciding which direction to take this unit, I thought it would be best to go deeper into certain areas rather than trying to cover too much in such a short time. If you’re like me, you have a tendency to get overwhelmed at the possibilities and areas within a subject area… It’s completely normal.

Here’s what we’re doing for our geography unit:

Written Travel Guide

-          Write a Lonely Planet travel guide that is informative and entertaining including the following:

·         Country or region

·         Geography

·         Climate

·         Language

·         Population

·         Culture

·         Tradition

·         Currency

·         Festivals

·         Important information

 

Create a Video, Skit, or Puppet Show

·         Script is written, rehearsed, and presented to class

·         Costumes, props, or visual aids are made

·         Content must showcase something unique to a specific culture

 

Teach an art lesson to the class

·         Choose a famous artist, art piece, or time period

·         Research the culture or history

·         Re-create it

·         Plan and teach an art lesson about it to the class





Here's a copy of my Understanding By Design Lesson for this unit. Feel free to copy or adapt for your own class.