Happy Tuesday! It has been an intense start to the week. Today at school he had over a third of our staff out. That meant nineteen subs. That is a lot of people wandering around in the morning looking for their classroom. It is also a lot of people that don't know how dismissal works which can make things pretty interesting.
My day in the classroom was a different story. We were really productive and even finished out math assessment. My students rocked it, as I knew they would!
Now onto the main event... European Explorers.
I love the timing of this unit this year because Leif Erickson Day is tomorrow and Columbus Day is next Monday. It doesn't always work out this well, but it makes me smile when it does. We started out yesterday with our PowerPoint on European Explorers.
My students decided what was important for them to know and recorded the information in their European Explorer Fold-Ups. To help them out a bit I used the same clip art in both products so that they were able to make that connection in addition to the name. It really helps with some of my struggling readers.
Taking notes usually takes a couple of days and since we end our day with Texas History I try to make Friday a bit more active and creative. This Friday we will be putting ourselves in the shoes of an European Explorer. We will start by talking about what it would be like to be so far away from home and everything you know. Then we will talk about what the explorers might have seen and what kind of effect it had on them. Finally, we will talk about what would be the really important parts of their journey that their families would want to know about.
The whole idea behind this is for students to write a postcard from the point of view of an explorer in Texas back to their family in Europe. I have students select a specific explorer and write about details particular to their journey. After they have written their message and addressed their postcard they are able to turn it over and illustrate it with an image from their trip.
These activities are a great way to start out your study of European Explorers. Next week's Texas History Tuesday will be on the next step for Explorers as well!
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