You can’t teach it all

So, I’ve been thinking about social studies and history. I am the co-chair of the PreK-12 social studies/history department at my school. One of the issues we are always coming up against is the fact that history is not getting any shorter, in fact it’s getting longer every day. We can’t teach it all in [...]

Trying out something I learned over the summer

So, I’ve been thinking about the strategies that I learned in my 2 days of reading PD at the end of the school year last year. One of the strategies that our facilitator shared with us was having students take mind map type notes as they read in social studies. Although our facilitator talked about [...]

I stole this idea.

So, I’ve been thinking about this great idea I found on WhatEdSaid’s blog. It’s ok, she won’t mind. She even said so on her initial post. Anyway, here’s how she ended her post: But how about planning a one day ‘conference’ on a theme that’s relevant to everyone? Or a grade level ‘conference’ day as [...]

A Big Idea and Some Big Questions

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about creating a digital museum for ancient history with my 5th graders next year. I know, there is still plenty of time left in this year. But, something this big needs time to develop. I am part of a group at my school that is working together to understand [...]

It’s all Fun and Games

So, I’ve been thinking about what do on the day before spring break when there will be a few too many people absent to do something new and a few too many people present to just do fluff all day. I planned my formal assessments for the day before the last day since I actually [...]