Five for Friday - 4/11/14

It's been longer than I intended, but I'm back, and I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching to share five things from the past week.

My little guy turned two on Saturday! It's hard to believe time is flying by so fast. (This explains my absence around here...I was one busy mama working on birthday party decorations and my first homemade birthday cake...Last year, my mom came up to help, but this year, she couldn't make it, so I was on my own.)

 

Monday, we started Probability Stations. We haven't quite finished yet because our week has been broken up a little, but my kiddos are loving them! There are six stations in all, dice, playing cards, spinners, number tiles, colored cubes, and (everyone's favorite) trash can toss. My students are getting some much needed practice with thinking critically about probability! If you're interested, you can grab a copy of the stations (complete with printable manipulatives) in my TPT store.

  

 

Meanwhile, we are working on a March Madness themed research project. Students are researching the teams who played and calculating data, probability, and player statistics. Each pair will be making a Prezi presentation to present their work next week. I can't wait to see what they come up with! They have been so excited to get to use our new laptops this week with all of the projects we have going!

In Social Studies, we watched a few sections of a great mini-series from The History Channel. If you're teaching the Revolutionary War, this DVD is perfect. The majority of my students were really engaged. It definitely helped them visualize the areas we've been talking about and the lifestyle that the Colonists had. I bought the entire mini-series on DVD for $10 on Amazon. So far, it's been completely appropriate for fifth graders, but I'm watching them all before I show them in class, just in case!

I am SOOO glad to be able to say that I am OFF of Grad School for the next 6 weeks! I have been taking an accelerated master's program for a solid year now, with no breaks. This teacher and mama badly needs some time to slow down and focus on things I enjoy instead of always working on grad school! I'm hoping to blog more, work on some TPT ideas, and of course, spend some quality time with the little man!

Well, that's it for me! Pop over to Doodlebugs to see what everyone else has been up to this week!

Web Wednesday: Online Gaming for US History

The downside to being in full time grad school is obvious - It's a *ton* of work! On top of the ton of work that teaching is by itself!

There is a definite upside though. My concentration is on Digital Teaching and Learning, which means that about half of my assignments have me scouring the Internet for resources that can be used in the classroom! That gave me an idea: I should SHARE all of these resources with you! And so, Web Wednesday is born! My plan is to post one new website, game, or web 2.0 tool every Wednesday that I am incorporating into my teaching.

So without further ado...

This week's find is one I'm really excited about for teaching US History. Our Social Studies standards cover US history from Native Americans to the Civil War. That makes this AMAZING online game perfect for my class! We all know that our students *love* video games, and anytime there is a way to incorporate gaming into my instruction, I get excited about it. At 5th grade, it's sometimes tough to find games that have true educational value and are still fun and engaging for students. I think this one fits the bill!

Mission-US (www.mission-us.org) is a multimedia game that immerses students in historical events. Students take on the role of a child or teen living in a specific time in history. In these roles, students are challenged with a variety of tasks that their character would have needed to complete. They are exposed to elements of daily life in the time period, and witness historical events "firsthand" as their character. You do have to register, but everything is completely FREE!

There is a wealth of information on their Educators page about how each mission applies to your standards, how to incorporate the games in class, and overviews of each specific part of the games. Additionally, there are enrichment activities and writing prompts to enhance the impact of these games in your classroom. There are currently three missions, with plans to add more this summer.

Mission 1 is perfect for my students right now, so it's the one I have focused my attention on. This mission is set in and around Boston in 1770 and follows 14-year-old Nathaniel as he leaves his family home to become an apprentice for a notable printer in Boston. Students learn about Loyalists and Patriots, the Sons of Liberty, and the Boston Massacre. From their teacher's guide:

"As Nat, students playing the Mission will be charged with a number of tasks while working to gain the apprenticeship. From selling advertisements to merchants, to confronting soldiers patrolling the wharves, to learning pro-Patriot songs to play on his pennywhistle, Nat’s activities will introduce the player to the full strata of colonial society and the growing tensions within it. Students will also examine primary source documents from the period as they work to gain Mr. Edes’s respect, and interact with historical figures such as Phillis Wheatley and Paul Revere.

During the Mission, students will play through several “days” of Nat’s apprenticeship, ranging from February 21, 1770 to March 6, 1770.  Each day in Nat’s life focuses on different elements of the growing tensions between the colonists and the Crown...Regardless of which paths students choose, Nat witnesses the Boston Massacre on the night of March 5, 1770. In the aftermath of the Massacre, Nat will be forced to make decisions about where his allegiances lie.  Ultimately, it will be up to the player to determine whether or not Nat continues his apprenticeship and joins the Patriot cause in Boston, runs away to sea, or remains loyal to the Crown."

Mission 2 follows a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky on her journey to escape slavery to Ohio. They discover that life in the North is still dangerous and very difficult for escaped slaves. Students learn about the Fugitive Slave Act.

In Mission 3, students become a Northern Cheyenne boy during the time of Westward Expansion. Topics covered include the conflict between the US government and the Northern Cheyennes, the forced relocation of Native Americans, the Battle of Little Bighorn, and more.

I am really excited about getting to use this site with my students when we get back from Spring Break! I hope you find ways to use it in your classrooms too!

FREEBIE ALERT

***If you're still reading and you're teaching the American Revolution, head over to my Facebook Page today for a flash freebie that you can use with your Revolution unit! Click on the Fan Freebies button at the top to grab your copy. It'll only be free until tomorrow morning, so get it quick!***

Five for Fraturday: Testing Week Fun!

My school is officially D.O.N.E. with standardized testing!!! Our testing comes super early in the year, but it's so nice that it's over and I can just teach for the next three months! Since my kiddos worked so hard all morning, we spent most of our afternoons relaxing. (I did squeeze in one educational actvity, though!)

Here are five things from my week:

  

As a last minute review before testing, we made human timelines of the events leading up to the revolution. I typed full page signs for enough events to split my students into even groups. Each group had 5 minutes to put themselves in chronological order - without speaking! This was amazingly tough for them to accomplish, but fun for me to watch all of their facial expressions and frantic pointing. They were having a little trouble, so I gave them 2 minutes to look at the timelines we had created in their notebooks (You can get it in my TPT store HERE). Again, they weren't allowed to talk. I found that this made everyone work at it, instead of relying on the natural leaders to do all the work. Once the 2 minutes were up, they were allowed to try one more time to get in order in their groups. After looking over the timeline, they did MUCH better! Here are my winners - they were the first group to line up in the correct order.

  

  

If you have to cover up everything useful on your walls, you might as well at least cover it with some testing encouragement! My students decorated bulletin board paper with motivational sayings, and I added one more special one the morning before the test.

 

We finished our baseball theme with some "Game Day" promises. Each student looked through our playbook of testing strategies and chose one they struggle with to promise to work on this week.

In keeping with the baseball theme we did last week, I sent baseballs home to the parents (one for each day of testing), and asked them to write encouraging notes on them for their students. I added a new note every morning, and by the end of the week, their desks were covered with encouragement! I only had a couple of parents not return the notes, and I just wrote notes for those kids myself.

We spent most of our afternoons doing art projects from the fabulous Jen Runde's blog. Her "I am" project was my absolute favorite. The kids loved getting to color the entire page and then write with sharpies over it. I loved getting them to brag about themselves a little bit. We all know fifth graders are right on the edge of the years of zero self-confidence, so I loved this way to get them thinking positively about themselves. I'm going to get them laminated next week and let them take them home after a few weeks in the hallway. (And apparently I forgot to take pictures of them, so I'll take some next week to share!)

Well, that's it for my week. Hope you all are relaxing and having a wonderful weekend! I'm off to start my very first Project Life album! (I'm sure I'll post about it soon!)