Mapping with Circuit Boards: Guest Post Aspire to Inspire

Hi, fellow Inspirers! I'm Kristen from Aspire to Inspire. One of the big milestones in 5th grade social studies classes is learning the names, locations, and capitals of the 50 United States. In my classes, this learning goal was spread out over many months with students learning and testing over one region of states at a time. They took a final test of all states and capitals in the spring. For many students, this was their first experience taking ownership of a significant learning goal on their own. To help them prepare, students used textbook maps to label and color blank regional maps. We then brainstormed mnemonic devices based on different learning styles to help learn the information. We also spent a few days a month as a class practicing the locations and capitals using a blank map on the SmartBoard.

Even with all the strategies presented in my class, however, the most innovative, hands-on tool that students used to learn states and capitals came from science class of all places: circuit boards.  The (literally) brilliant idea to combine the study of electricity and geography using homemade circuit boards was presented to me by our 5th-grade team's science teacher. The basic idea is for students create a circuit board on which they complete electrical circuits by correctly touching wires to a state and its corresponding capital. Each state and capital is connected by a foil conductor strip, and the energy source is a 9-volt battery.

The idea of playing with electricity may sound a little frightening, but this activity is completely safe and is easy for upper elementary students to complete!

Prior Knowledge

On the social studies end of this, students will need to have been introduced to at least one region of states and capitals. On the science end, students will need to have a knowledge of circuits and electricity.

Supplies
file folder
blank map of states with list of corresponding state capitals (We used regional maps for this project.)
scissors
hole punch
aluminum foil
transparent or masking tape
electronics wire
small light bulb with holder
9-volt battery 
battery cap with electronics wires

Easy-to-find classroom supplies

Create the Circuit Board

First, punch one hole in each state on the map. Then, punch one hole next to each of the state capitals. I did a soft fold-over of the map and capitals and put the paper about halfway in the hole punch before punching so that I could get a full circle-shaped hole and not bend the paper too noticeably.

You'll need to decide to punch the hole either on the exact location of the capital or somewhere in the middle of the state. In some regions, some capitals are very close together, which could be problematic when attaching the conductor foil. 

Next, turn to the backside of the map and capitals. Cut thin strips of foil long enough to connect the holes from the states to the holes next to the capitals. For each state and capital, line up the foil strip so that the state hole and its capital hole are covered with foil. Then, use the tape to adhere the foil strip. Cover the entire strip of foil with tape. Continue until all states and capitals have foil trails that are taped to the page.

IMPORTANT:

*Start with the states and capitals that have the least distance between them. Tape those foil trails down first.

*It is important that the foil strips do not directly touch one another so make sure they are completely covered in tape.

*Make sure the foil strip does not cover any part of the holes belonging to other states or capitals.

All taped down and ready to go

When all foil has been attached, adhere the map and capitals list to the file folder. You should only see the foil-covered holes.

Ready to test my knowledge of states and capitals!

Assemble the Battery and Bulb Wires

First, attach a battery cap to the top of the 9-volt battery, which will be the source of the electricity. Attach one of the cap's wires to one of the bulb terminals. Attach a small piece of electronics wire to the other bulb terminal. Make sure that the two "loose" ends of wire are stripped back enough so that the wires will easily make contact with the foil surfaces.

You may be able to create a more stable battery apparatus with available lab equipment. You could even use something other than a light like a buzzer.

Completing the Circuit

To complete the circuit, students will take one end of the wire that extends from the battery and touch it to the foil-filled hole of one of the states on the map. Then, the students will touch the other end of the electronics wire that extends from the bulb to the foil-filled hole next to the state's capital on the list. If the state and capital combination is the correct, the circuit will be complete, and the small bulb will light up. If it is incorrect, the bulb will not light up. 

Got it!

Sorry, try again!

Social studies can be a love-it or hate-it class for many students. As a social studies teacher, it can be a challenge to come up with meaningful hands-on learning activities. Being able to partner with my teaching team to develop cross-curricular ideas like this offers students some new and creative ways to take charge of their own learning. The beauty of this activity is that it can be modified for any subject matter that uses matching. It may provide students with a different view of a subject and how it connects to other subjects. It also may build their confidence and interest in subject areas in which they struggle or show little interest. (I'm no science whiz so if I was able to create something like this and have it work, I'd feel like a science superstar.) Overall, this activity really "lit up" both the science and social studies classrooms!

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Read Like a Historian

Right now, I am so thankful that my internet is working! Here in Maryland, we are covered in some lovely ice! Today, my school was closed but I had no phone, internet, or cable. So much for a fun day off! I did, however, get caught up on some reading and grading. I wonder if any of you are in the same situation? Are there any East Coasters out there???

Today, I want to share a resource with you that I stumbled upon on the web. I teach social studies and I am very focused on having students read like historians as outlined in the CCSS. Students spend time reading about history from multiple accounts and form their own opinions of the material being studied. One way I do this is by having students read about an event in their text books, then read a "Time for Kids" book, and view a video/read an article about the topic. The students really enjoy gathering information across texts and synthesizing it into a presentation to share with the class. To help students better understand history and the importance of using multiple resources, I found this resource:

If you scroll down the page from the link above, you will find FREE posters to hang in your classroom on this topic. I glued mine onto brightly colored paper and laminated them. I refer to them often in order to remind students that they should be reading like historians. These are mine:

My students have been working on presentations after researching Pontiac's Rebellion as part of our Revolutionary War Unit. They could choose a song, poem, speech, poster, or PowerPoint. Here are some examples of what they created:

Needless to say, I was impressed at their creativity and synthesis of the information they had researched. They had truly "read like historians" and had to decide if they would've joined Chief Pontiac or not.

I hope you enjoy the resources I found as much as I did! I spent quite a bit of time on that website gathering ideas for my ELA and social studies classes!  Let's chat again soon!

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Classroom Resources for Martin Luther King Jr.

My class is focusing on biographies right now and I've compiled resources over the years on my blog for Martin Luther King. I hope you find something useful to use in your own classroom.

My newest find is an online MLK reader.

The following links are from my past blog posts

MLK Birthplace Virtual Tour

MLK Timeline and Famous Quotes

The King and His Dream Video and Song

National Geographic Kids Video on MLK

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Guest Post: Collaboration Cuties, How to Use Mentor Texts

Hey there!!  This is Amanda from Collaboration Cuties and I am so excited to be guest blogging here today!!

Today, I wanted to share with you how we use mentor texts in our classroom!  If you follow our blog at all, you know that we loooooove mentor texts!  We have a linky each week devoted to it!  If you haven't stopped by to see all of the amazing texts linked up, start HERE  (after reading this post!) to check out what we've been up to!!  Be warned!!!  I had to switch to an Amazon Prime account after we started this linky because there were so many great texts linked up that I HAD TO HAVE RIGHT THEN!  ;O)

Okay, so on with using mentor texts...I  know that a lot of upper elementary teachers are departmentalized, so it may be that this particular book isn't something you might use, but you will get the general feel for how you could use any mentor text, no matter the subject area you teach in!

The book I want to tell you about is called Roanoke, The Lost Colony by Jane Yolen.  Jane Yolen is definitely one of my favorite authors because she is amazing at writing historical fiction!

We are just getting started with our unit in Social Studies on the Thirteen Colonies, and I am launching it with this book.  Here is the description from Amazon:

In 1587 John White was chosen by Sir Walter Raleigh to lead a new colony at Roanoke off the Atlantic coast. After bringing many men, women, and children to the new land, White went back to England to gather supplies for the long winter. But when he finally returned to the fort almost three years later, he found that all of the colonists had vanished. The only signs of life left were the letters CRO carved into a tree and the word CROATOAN carved into one of the fort's posts. Some people think that the Spanish army captured the colonists; some people think that the local native people murdered them; others think that the colonists went off to live with the native people and start a new life. Still others think that the colonists tried to sail home to England and were lost at sea. No one knows for sure. 

When I use the term mentor text, I am talking about a text that will be used for more than one reading or lesson.  Usually, if I truly wanted to use a book as a mentor text, I try to use it over a week long period.

In planning to use this book, here are the lessons I would use with it.  Since each of us has different amounts of time for our language arts block or social studies block (or whichever subject you teach), I will just number the lessons since we would all have to do it at our own pace that works within our classroom.  :O)

Lesson 1

First off, I would read the book in social studies.  I am using this as a launch for the unit, so I want to make that social studies connection.  I would not read the vocabulary yet...that comes in lesson 2.

While reading the book, I would have my students fill out a FQR chart.  I could type out one for them, but since we use interactive notebooks, I would have them complete this in their journals.

The purpose of a FQR chart is to engage students with the text and get them thinking and questioning what they are reading (or hearing read).  They write down facts in the left column, questions they have about the fact in the middle, and if they find a response in the text, they can fill in the response column, or, they may have to make an inference.  Here is an example we might write while we are reading the text.

Now, this text has some great features to it.

From Roanoke, The Lost Colony

Each set of pages has a "sticky note" with vocabulary words on it from the passage.  It also has facts on the spiral bound page (like the one on the left) that gives even more information.

So...

Lesson 2

Vocabulary-  There is a lot of great vocabulary highlighted in this book (and she put it on sticky notes, which I love about her!).  So, I would read the book again, but focus on the vocabulary words.  We would complete a vocabulary chart in our reading notebooks using these words.  

We've used a chart as simple as this (yes, I know it's not very cute...)   ;O)

Or, one like this, which you can get in our TpT store for free by clicking on the picture.

Depending on which organizer I used, I may have them inference what the word means, or I may just read the sentence it is in and have them use context clues BEFORE reading the definition on the sticky notes to check their thinking.  I would also take the time to point out how Jane Yolen inserted the definitions cleverly throughout instead of at the end in a glossary.

Lesson 3

We are working on informational writing right now and I would ask students to go back into their rough draft, and decide how they want to highlight key vocabulary.  Some may have already highlighted them, while others may be making a glossary.  Now, they have another option to try in their own writing!

Lesson 4

Close reading- Here, we would do a close reading of this page in the text.  This is the first page.  I would photocopy this (since one page is allowed to be copied from the book) and we would paste it into our journals.

First off, there is quite a bit of vocabulary here that is not defined in the book.  We would discuss this.  Then, we would discuss cause and effect, highlighting causes in one color and the effects in a different color.  

Some of the sentences state events that could be a cause and an effect.  We would write those in our journals as both, showing their relationships.  For example, the passage says that the native people were infected with European diseases.  Well, the colonists coming to their land caused this.  But, since they were infected with the diseases, the effect (that isn't stated) is that many of the native people died.  We would add this in our reading journals.

There are several pages in this text that could be used for this skill.  A few pages after this first page, there is another passage with less information.  This would be a great passage to use to differentiate in small groups with a lower reading group.

Lesson 5

Writing-  I would have them write in their writing journals about what they think happened at Roanoke and to use evidence from the text, and what we had been learning, to support their thinking.  At the end of the book, there are theories that Jane Yolen shares about what may have happened.  Also, with writing, I would have them write about whether they think John White made a good decision to bring colonists with them and then to leave them, using evidence to back up their thinking.  

There is also a timeline, so this is a great text feature to share with students.  They can easily make a timeline as we start our colonies unit and continually add to it as we go along in social studies!

Other Activities:

We use mentor sentences in our classroom to teach grammar within writing.  If I were to choose a sentence from this book (which was really hard!) I'd choose this sentence:

On August 18, White's daughter Eleanor gave birth to Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America.

I would choose this sentence to work on the following grammar skills:  capitalization, dates, possessive noun, commas.

(For more about how we use mentor sentences, you can go to our post HERE.)

Fact and opinion- Students could discuss facts and opinions with this text (what did Jane Yolen include that were facts and what may have been her opinions) or have them create their own fact and opinion game using facts from the story.  On cards, they could write facts and then their own opinions and have classmates play the game, sorting by facts and opinions.

There are really so many things that you can do with just one book...I could go on and on...but I won't because I don't want to overwhelm you!!  :O)  This is just a topic that I LOVE!!

Hopefully you found something in this post that you could use! If you have any questions, please let us know!  Thank you so much to All Things Upper Elementary for hosting us!

Stop by and see us sometime!!

Amanda

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Bring History to Life For Your Students...and Integrate Reading into Social Studies!

If you recognize the first part of the title of this post, you most likely already know about an AMAZING resource called DocTeach. I have been using this resource for some time, and I feel like I have just barely scratched the surface! Like many of you, I have been teaching an integrated curriculum for many, many years. I have always believed that you teach science and social studies concepts at the same time you teach reading skills. You magically find more time in your day! For example (and I will be brief because this isn't the point of my post), my daily schedule my last year in the classroom allowed me to teach small reading groups and centers for an hour and 40 minutes, 75 minutes of math, 50 minutes of grammar and writing, and 50 minutes of science/social studies. Granted I was lucky because my lunch, recess, and specials all backed up to each other so I had minimal wasted transition time. My admin really wanted to lessen the 10-15 minute loss between grade level things such as recess and specials, so every grade level was fortunate enough to have their lunch, recess, and specials during one chunk of time.

Notice the one thing missing from my schedule? Whole group reading......not that I didn't teach whole group reading, because I did. While I firmly believe in meeting with small reading groups EVERY single day, even in the upper grades (small reading groups shouldn't just be a primary grades kind of thing, and it shouldn't be a "meet with each group once a week" kind of thing, either), I also believe that sometimes you have to meet whole group. I don't want to teach a main idea mini-lesson to each of my groups when I can teach it to the whole class for 15 minutes and be done with it (well, not "done" with it because we do practice that skill in our small groups and that is when I differentiate). But one year, a L.O.N.G. time ago, I realized that many teachers pushed science and social studies to the side because they weren't as "important" as reading, writing, and math. And I do think there are some teachers who still think this, and it is understandable because while science and social studies may be tested on an end of the year state exam, we all know that more emphasis is put on that reading and math score. But I knew, in my heart, that for some children, science and social studies is what they look forward to the most every day. I couldn't take it away from them. Enter integration of reading into the content areas. Something the Common Core encourages teachers to do. Which I love. And I hope more teachers are doing this today than yesterday. If you aren't integrating yet, you aren't sure how to, you are trying but can't quite seem to get it down, or you are but you need some fresh ideas, then keep reading!

I could write forever about how to integrate reading into the content areas, but for this post I will focus on social studies. So, now let's get back to my point of this post. There is this amazing resource called DocTeach. If you haven't checked it out before, I highly suggest you sit down this weekend if you have time, and just browse the site. Like I said earlier, I have been using it for a while, but I feel like there is still so much more I could be doing with it. Using authentic historical documents for teaching social studies isn't a new idea, but it is an idea that can be hard to implement because you have to find those historical documents. And then of course you have to write up the lesson you are going to teach using the authentic document, and then figure out the activity and follow-up.....here is where DocsTeach is such a helpful resource. For starters, this site has thousands of historical documents that are easy to search for using parameters. Second, it has already-made lessons to use with specific documents. Third, you can build your own lessons!

Let's say you are currently teaching about the Civil War and you are also teaching the reading skill of differing point of views. You can use the "Comparing Civil War Recruitment Posters" lesson. This lesson includes 2 posters used during the Civil War to recruit African-Americans into either the Union Army or the Confederate Army. Students can compare and contrast the perspectives regarding the role of African-Americans during the Civil War. You just did double-duty of teaching your reading skill and social studies skill at the same time. Woo-hoo!

I am the type of teacher that likes to make my own lessons. However, the lessons on this site are awesome! For each lesson, you get the author of the historical document, an image of the document you can show on a projector or Smart Board (or if your school is a BYOT school, students can pull it up on their devices), the historical era, the reading skill, the historical thinking skill (for the above activity it is "historical analysis and interpretation"), Bloom's Taxonomy level, a synopsis of the lesson, AND author's notes which usually include higher-level questions to ask before/while/during reading of the historical documents (so for all you Close Reading fans out there, you can do a Close Reading of the historical documents, too!). Even I know that if I were to create a lesson like this, it would take me a LONG time. This is such a time-saver! And the best part is it really is a great activity! I am telling you, when I found this site, it was like hitting a gold mine or winning the lottery. Here is a screen shot of the above activity.

photo credit: www.DocsTeach.org 

And if ALL that weren't enough, if you create a free account, you can actually modify the lesson including blacking out part of the document, to make it fit your needs. So if you like the lesson, but feel like it needs something more, you can tweak it. It will then be saved in your account.

Let's say you would rather start from scratch, you can create your own lesson, too. You can choose which historical thinking skill you want and it will narrow down the tools that would be best to use (i.e. sequencing, finding details, compare/contrast). This is a great option for those of you who know a lot about your social studies topics and feel comfortable creating your own integrated lessons from a specific historical document.

photo credit: www.DocsTeach.org 

If you are even more adventurous, you might want to check out the National Archives Digital Vaults. I am fairly new to this site and have yet to use this site to create a lesson, but it is pretty cool how you narrow down what you are searching for. If you feel comfortable with just selecting a historical document and creating your own lesson, this site would be great for you. 

photo credit: www.digitalvault.org

I hope I have given you either some starting points or some fresh ideas for integrating reading into social studies. If you already use one of these sites, I would love to hear how you incorporate them or what you think about them! I also love nothing more than helping teachers figure out how to integrate reading into the content areas, so if you would like help, tips, or suggestions, I would be MORE than happy to help you! I loved (and miss) my time as an instructional coach, so I would LOVE to help out! You can leave a comment below with your email, or you can email me at hleblanc@2brainyapples.com. 

Thanks for letting me share one of my favorites with you all!

Heather

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September 11th Read Aloud

I recently added the book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein to my classroom collection.
It tells the true story of the Frenchman, Philippe Petit's, tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974.  The theme of perseverance is a great point of discussion after reading this book. As I was preparing my lesson, I located this wonderful craftivity over at The Best Childrens' Book.org.
Students work on goal setting, as Philippe Petit did with his tightrope feat.

Here's my rendition of the craftivity:

Other just as useful resources for The Man Who Walked Between the Towers can be found over at Scholastic. Resources include lessons on analyzing the character traits of Philippe Petit.

Will you be doing lessons to honor September 11th? I'd love you to share your ideas.

~Denise

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Interactive Bulletin/White Boards

Every student teacher's dream is to have his/her own classroom and spend hours...days...weeks during the summer setting it up.  Desk arrangements, putting names on almost EVERYTHING, and making those cutesy bulletin boards sound like a blast!  The day before the students enter, the room is perfect, spotless, silent.  Then......they come.

This was me right out of student teaching 5 years ago.  I thought everything in my room needed to look perfect and attractive.  I slowly learned, that I needed every inch...no centimeter of space available to foster learning.  Now, those adorable bulletin board packages from all the teacher supply stores brightened up my room, but I noticed a few things.  Most of the time, the text was too small for the students to see.  They also took up a lot of space on the walls.  Most importantly, the students rarely used them.

I slowly learned that I needed to take charge and get my students engaged in and interacting with these displays.  Goodbye hundreds of dollars spent on borders.  Hello engaged students.

The following three examples are from the year I taught fifth grade.  My students loved these  boards and were always referring and adding to them.

This board was actually next to my desk and because I lacked bulletin or white board space, was taped to the wall.  I included some posters about the Civil War with the Essential Understanding questions above them.  We referred to these Essential Understandings throughout the unit and related each lesson to one of them.  This board stayed up for the whole unit.  Students would constantly take yellow post-its with questions they had.  I would try my best to find the answers to these questions and covered them in upcoming lessons.  The students also used blue post-its to record information they learned and found interesting.  

This next picture is of a closet I converted to a white board...because again....no useable space.   The white board is actually from Really Good Stuff and came in a large roll with an adhesive back.  With this board, I used it as a review to reinforce the equation for finding the size of interior angles in regular polygons.  After learning how and why this formula works, I created this chart on my closet.  I started off by writing town the names and number of sides for a few polygons.  Every day I would add a couple more.  At first, I had students arguing over who got to write it.  Then I just began to draw names at random.

The last example I have for you goes back to the Civil War.  During the unit, I dedicated half of my main white board to this word wall.  As we heard a significant word that related to the Civil War, students wrote it down under the corresponding letter.  At the end of the unit, I had the students create ABCs of the Civil War books.  They were able to reference this board to help them and on each page were required to write the word, describe why it is significant, and draw a picture.  Please disregard the bar graph and the "Easiest Books List" that the students created.  This was for a school-wide reading program and my class wanted to be the only class where everyone read each selected book.  :-)

Well, you can clearly see that my room was probably not the most attractive that year, and with me being so organized, was difficult to spend my days in.  Many times I look back to pictures of my first classroom where everything was perfect, but I am proud at how my fifth graders took responsibility of their own learning.

Do you use interactive boards in your classroom?  What have you found to be successful?

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Meet Amy Alvis

Let me start by saying that I am so excited to be a part of this wonderful group of teachers that are a part of this blog. In just the short time that we have been conversing, I have come to the conclusion that they all need to teach at my school! How fun would that be?!? And now....my introduction.

Hello, my name is Amy Alvis. I am a 5th and 6th grade teacher in the largest school district in Indiana. I am currently in my 17th year of teaching (Wow, has it really been that long!). I've taught grades 5-8 during my career. I started out in a middle school and then our district moved the 6th grade to the elementary and I've been there ever since. We are a small school in a large district and we only have one 5th and one 6th grade class. We are semi-departmentalized. I teach math, science, and social studies and the other teacher does all the reading, writing, and grammar. I've been a science trainer for the district for the past two years and a math trainer for the last year.

I would love for you to visit me on my blog: Math, Science, Social Studies....Oh, my!

I want to invite you to follow my Pinterest boards. For those of you that teach 5th and 6th grade math, I have boards dedicated to each of the common core standards. You can find my boards HERE.
I want to pass on a couple of FREEBIES to you.  I have been doing math journals for the past 5 years with my students. I recently added science and social studies notebooks as well.  I needed a way for my students to distinguish between each of their journals/notebooks so I created some labels.  You can use the links below to find them in my TpT store.

Math Journal Labels

Social Studies Notebook - US History

Social Studies Notebook - World History

As a former middle school math teacher, my first LOVE is mathematics. I want to share one of the math games I created for my math centers.  It is an Integer Review Game. The students practice adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, ordering and comparing integers. As well as evaluating expressions and interpreting integers. To see more about the game, click on the picture below.

I created this game because it is so hard to find center activities for 6th graders.  I hope to create many more in the future.  If you like the game, follow my TpT store to be notified when I have created more.

I look forward to sharing my classroom ideas with all of you!

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In honor of our new venture, I am offering 10% off my entire TpT store for today only.

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