States Project

Tourist: Someone who is traveling for fun.

Have your students become tourists for a week. Assign small groups a state to study. You could combine this with other teaching such as the 13 colonies or Lewis and Clark since you won't have 50 groups of students in your class. Or if you are in a big school make it a grade level project and have all of your grade level doing it at once that way all of the states are studied. Give students a rubric so that they know what they are looking for when researching. Things could include date of entry into the United States, state bird, flower, flag, major tourist attractions, famous people born there, etc.

If time permits, allows students to request visitor information from each state. Usually they will send packets of information to tourists. See if you can connect with a school in each of the states and ask that they would send you information about what they like to do in their free time there on a postcard from their city.

This can be combined with math as well. Have students decide on where in that state they would like to stay for a 3 day vacation and figure out how much it would cost including hotel, travel, meals, and local attractions.

After giving students plenty of time in class to do the project set it up in the gym and invite the rest of the school to come and travel around the country. This is another great way to get parents involved in education!

Decades Project

Decade: A Period of ten years.

What a great way to learn about history! This project was easy to pull together and allowed all of us to really learn a lot. Complete the project by assigning groups of students a decade in American history. Have them research about pop culture, clothing, news events and interesting facts that happened. Have students create posters with the information, bring in artifacts, and dress according to their decade. Students can also learn dances or bring in food that was famous of the time.

Assessment can be done in two ways or a combination of both. Give students a rubric so that they know what they are expected to gain from their research and on the day of presentations check off the rubric. You could also do interviews with students as you walk around and see their displays. This can be set up in your school gym or lunchroom and invite the other students to come and check it out.

You will need to make sure that students have opportunities to do research at school and to work on putting together their posters. Also make sure that you have clothing for students who are unable to find some. This would be a great opportunity to get parents involved, too!

3 Cups of Tea: Young Readers Edition

One man's journey to change the world... one child at a time.

This is the inspirational story of Greg Mortenson's journey to build a school in Pakistan. There are several things that can be taught with a unit on this book. Geography is the obvious thing but there is so much more. Using this book is a great way to open up discussions about Muslim culture. One misconception that gets squashed is that women should not be educated. In village after village, Greg finds that the tribe leaders are longing for schools so that they can educate the girls.

The end of the book has a question and answer section with Greg's daughter. Among other things, she talks about the Pennies for Peace program. This program offers students a way to make a difference in Pakistan. The website actually has a full curriculum that teachers can use. http://www.penniesforpeace.org/

Trade Fair

Barter: To trade by exchanging one commodity for another.

Looking for ways to teach kids about the economy? Why not have a trade fair! This can be done many ways. You can have students bring in "garage sale" items from home (with parents permission) or give them time to make items in class. They can create artwork or crafts to trade or bring food or items from home.

This lesson can be linked to many social studies standards. You can easily talk about supply and demand as well as needs and wants. A trade fair can also be used when studying colonial America since this was the way early Americans got their supplies.

Picturing the Neighborhood

Neighborhood: An area with distinctive characteristics. The people who live near one another in a particular area.

There are several things that can be learned by having students bring in pictures of their neighborhoods. Students can discuss the things that are similar and different about the area where they live. This will also provide the teacher with a good opportunity to teach some vocabulary. Possible words to discuss include: neighborhood, cul-de-sac, intersection, street, road, lane, apartment, and duplex. Using students own pictures will allow them to feel connected to the activities. This can be extended by having students write stories about their neighborhoods using some of the vocabulary that you have introduced.