Every year looks a little different. I teach my class based off of the wants and needs of my students. The following are a few projects I'm excited for your student to participate in, but remember there is a lot of room for flexibility! Everything is tentative to change in the spur of the moment!
6th Grade World History:
-Mythopoly: During our Ancient Greece unit, the students will group up to create a board game based off of a Greek myth. Students will be asked to consider the relevant characters, what the moral the myth is, and how to best tell the story through game play. At the end of the unit, we'll have a game day where all the students play each other's games.
7th Grade World Geography:
-From There to Here: As students start to study the culture from different regions around the world, they will be asked to create a "museum exhibit" featuring stories of different immigrants in the community. For this project, students will research the causes and effects of immigration, interview a community member who has immigrated into the United States, and re-tell that person’s story with photographs, art, food, flags, and other artifacts related to their immigrant’s journey.
-Travelocity: As we continue to explore the world around us, your student will be asked to take on the role of a travel agent and create a brochure for a place of their choosing. What makes this place special? What would you want potential tourists to do on their sightseeing tours? What about its history makes this place the way it is now?
8th Grade US History:
-Pin it to Win it: Before there were profile filters for Facebook and Snapchat, how did Americans share with their friends which candidate they would be supporting in the upcoming election? Using historical documents, students will examine past presidential campaigns and run their own campaign using social media.
-City Walking Tour: Similar to a walking tour at a museum, students will create mini podcasts for community members to follow along for different landmarks in the city. Students will get to explore the local history of our city, while learning to communicate in new modalities.
Reflections:
We will have four types of reflections this year: written reflections, video reflections, poetry reflections, and domino reflections. The first three are exactly what you think. A domino reflection on the other hand, will allow students to visualize how one event leads to another. Social Studies is all about causes and effects, how everything has an impact. Students will be given a set of wooden blocks to find the continuity of events. Each "domino" will have an event written that leads to the event on the following domino. Afterwards, we'll line up the dominos and see how the first block triggers a series of events in history.