My America and Dear America Series {Must Read Mentor Text}

I'm happy to be linking up with Collaboration Cuties for another great round of mentor texts. This week is all about Social Studies. 

Instead of just sharing one book today I thought I'd share two similar series that I have found my students really enjoy: My America and Dear America. 

These books are written as young girls' diaries during various time periods throughout history. The diary format makes them easy to read aloud when there is a few extra minutes during class. I really like the historical connections in the books and have been very impressed with all those I've read so far. 

A few years ago I read My Brother's Keeper: Virginia's Civil War Diary  aloud to my class while we were studying the Civil War. It was a very engaging way to extend the history and get some extra practice talking about the "sides" of the war and the different issues. My students were very interested in the book! 

The book was also the perfect way to study the Historical Fiction genre. Since we were studying the Civil War in history we were able to pick out the historical events from the fiction pieces. I think it really deepened my students' understanding of Historical Fiction. 

I always recommend these books to my students who are interested in Historical Fiction and to those who seem to be particularly taken with a specific period in history. 

I just learned that Dear America has been relaunched with a fresh look and I discovered a pretty neat feature on it on the Scholastic website. It is certainly something worth checking out! Click on the picture if you'd like to see more - there are scrapbooks for each main character with crafts and recipes. 

Wow! Writing this post has certainly been informative! I also just learned about another spin off of this series for boys called My Name is America and all written from a boy's perspective. I've never heard of these books before so now I'm going to be adding some of those to my cart! This could be bad - adding books to my own cart before I even read any of the other posts from the week!?!

Have you ever used any of these series in your classroom? What'd you think?

Henry's Freedom Box {Social Studies Mentor Text}

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable Memorial Day Weekend! I'm linking up with Amanda and Stacia from Collaboration Cuties for their fabulous Mentor Text linky. This week it is all about Social Studies texts, so go on over and share your favorite book! 

Today I'm going to share Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine. This book tells the true story of Henry "Box" Brown, a slave who escaped on the Underground Railroad by mailing himself to freedom. 

My students are always mesmerized by this book. Its one of those where you can hear a pin drop while I'm reading, until I come to some injustice and everyone gasps and says, "They can't do that!" The book does an excellent job conveying the horrible realities of slavery and one man's desperate attempt at freedom. 

I always like reading this book during our discussion of the Underground Railroad because my kiddos always think it is a real railroad and this is a great example of how the UR really worked! 

Do you use this book in your classroom? What are some other favorites for teaching about the Underground Railroad? 

Guide Word Sandwiches, Goodies, and Keep Calm {Five for Friday}

Happy Friday! Only 20 more days to go until summer break!!! woo hoo Its time to link up with Doodlebugs Teaching for another great Five for Friday! Here are 5 random things from my week.

1. We had a cute little treat in our mailboxes every day this week - adorable! Our principal also got lunch for us today...yummy! 

2. This week in Social Studies the kids worked together to come up with skits to review important Virginians from the 20th century. I couldn't really get a picture of them in action, but them pretending to play tennis like Arthur Ashe was adorable!  

3. We've been making sandwiches in reading class - guide word sandwiches! When it comes time to answer standardized questions about which entry word belongs on which dictionary page I teach my kiddos to make a sandwich. The first guide word is the top piece of bread, the entry word is the cheese, and the last guide word is the bottom piece of bread. Then we work on ABC order. The word that is first in ABC order gets a 1 beside of it and so on. A good sandwich stacks up to be 1,2,3 and anything else is rotten and gets thrown out! A teaching buddy of mine showed me this trick and it has been such a big help to my kiddos! 

4. I finally finished the clipboard tub!! I love it and we've already been putting it to use the classroom. Its so much nicer than the big thing I had them all stacked thrown in before.

5. A few weeks back Tanga had a big sale on teacher t-shirts and I ordered one that said Keep Calm and Teach On. When I wore it this week the kids loved it and were coming up with their own "Keep Calm" sayings. Here is the sign one of my students made for me because we have been doing test prep and I say reread a 1,000,000 times a day!!! Made my day....LOL 

Click on over and join me on Facebook! I'm loving all the little "extras" that everyone is sharing on there! 

Magnetic Review

It's almost Friday! Just one more day..I think I can...I think I can! I thought I'd share another quick idea we've been using for Social Studies review these past few weeks. 

As we are reviewing I like to make sure students have a grasp on the sequence of events in social studies and which century events happened in. Our state standards don't require kids to memorize a lot of dates, but they are often asked to put events in chronological order. Over the years I've discovered that is easier said than done! The kids really seem to get the Revolutionary War and Civil War all mixed up so this year I decided to try something new.

I typed up people and events from all our studies of Virginia, laminated them, and added a magnet to the back. Then I showed the kiddos how to use it and turned them loose in groups of 3-4. 

We used the front of two filling cabinets to begin with because Wal Mart was out of 9x13 cookie sheets. This also caused me to go into a panic and frantically search every store I went in for cheap cookie sheets. Luckily, a few weeks ago they came back in stock at Wal Mart and I bought some a lot. The check out lady gave me funny looks....oh well...I was just happy they were back! 

After the groups discuss the people and events and decide where they go they can check their answers with a key. Then they partner up, switch up a few cards, and try to trick the other group members. They love playing that game! 

This is a pretty simple concept and didn't take very long to put together, but I feel like it has helped my students get a better understanding of when events happened in relation to each other. 

Paper Plate People, Author's Purpose, and Fun {Five for Friday}

Happy Friday! Its time for a recap of the week with Doodle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday. Since we are in full review mode (T -10 days to THE test) I don't really have any exciting, life-changing things to share - just the regular "stuff" from our days.

1. In Social Studies this week we reviewed the Founding Fathers, so I decided it would be a great time to make those adorable paper plate people for some review fun. You can read more about the paper plate people here. 

Both of these are George Washington - check out his hair in the picture on the left! I love it! 

2. We've also been talking about author's purpose this week. I always like to have students write for each purpose, so this week we were writing about cereal. I overheard one group talking about Usher and Lil' Wayne AND cereal, so I just let them write on...LOL...you gotta love fourth graders! 

3. We have been playing a memory matching game in stations this week as well. Who knew they would get so excited about this game? Its an oldie that I sometimes forget to pull out but they are all loving it! 

4. We celebrated my Dad's birthday last weekend with lunch out on Sunday and then some shopping. We stopped in at Staples (because I just can't pass it up) and he bought me this adorable clipboard! His Birthday and he bought me something?! I think we somehow got that backwards, but it was a fun day anyway! 

5. I am so excited because I just booked my first ever massage! Yay!!! Happy Dances! It is scheduled for the Friday after I finish state tests and will be much needed by that time! I can't wait...I'm dreaming about it...literally! 

Social Studies Menu {Tried it Tuesday}

I've read about choice menus forever, but never tried it until just recently. I decided to created a menu to use during social studies review when students finish with stations early or we have a few extra minutes in class. 

I introduced the menu a week ago and you would've thought I'd given my students gold! They were thrilled!! I asked if they'd seen a menu before and we talked about a fast food restaurant menu. Then I asked what they would buy if I told them they had $5 to spend at the fast food restaurant. We played around with that a few minutes and then, with great drama, I introduced the social studies menu. I told them they had 50 points to "spend" and they were beside themselves - some even wanted to know if they could "spend" more! 

As we were going over the points values for different items one students even said, "All the fun stuff costs more points, but the boring stuff doesn't cost as much." I really had to pinch myself! How did this happen?!?! 

We've had a week to work on the menus and they have really been successful so far. I've been amazed at the creativity my students have shown. It's also been really interesting seeing which people and time periods they choose to work with. 

I think this is a strategy I will try to use again. Maybe next time I'll try something with reading - after a class novel or maybe even for their self-selected texts. 

You can click on the picture to download a copy of the menu. It is specific to 4th Grade Virginia Studies, but it might be a good place to start for a menu specific to your social studies standards.

I'm linking up with Holly from Fourth Grade Flipper for another great Tried it Tuesday linky. 

Fun Geography Review

I wanted to share a fun new station I am using this year to help with social studies review. 

We cover a lot of geography skills in 4th grade and I wanted to get in as much practice with that as I could before our state test. To create this station I started with a cheap shower curtain from the dollar store. I taped the curtain to the wall, projected a map of Virginia on the curtain, and got busy tracing with my Sharpie. 

Next, I went through our standards and created task cards that would help students review all of Virginia's geography SOLs. I also created some labels for states, water features, important cities, etc. I laminated the task cards and put them all on a ring. Then, I labeled large manilla envelopes to match the task cards and put the materials needed for each card inside the envelope. I also added in a Virginia atlas. I stored it all, including the map, in this handy box. 

Here is a picture of the center in action. For this task card students are labeling the states that border Virginia. 

I think this activity has been a big success and the kids love it! However, I would recommend investing in a sturdier shower curtain. This one is still holding up okay, but I have to make sure the kids are very careful with it and we all know that isn't something 4th graders are very good at! 

Do your students have to learn a lot of state specific geography?

Reading Stations, Task Cards, Dioramas and a Freebie {Five for Friday}

Its time for Five for Friday at Doodle Bugs Teaching.

1. I am thankful to have made it through the first official week of review. I have to confess that I really dislike reviewing for Social Studies. I feel like a broken record and we have 5 weeks of review, so this year I decided to really step it up and create review stations for Social Studies and reading. I've got to admit that I was very nervous on Monday morning, but I'm happy to say that the stations have been a big success. 

2. During reading review stations we used two of the activities from the Spring Language Arts and Math Centers for Big Kids by Collaboration Cuties. They were a big hit with everyone! Don't those little chicks just make you happy?

3. I also used my first ever set of task cards in a station and I've got to say that I'm in love! I was so impressed with how the cards were appropriate for all my learners. Even my fastest workers were busy and engaged! We used Rachel's Context Clues task cards this week. 

4. We have been reviewing our standards on First Americans and I thought it might be fun to make these "dioramas" showing how the First Americans got their food in each of the seasons. You can click here for the freebie if you'd like to try this in your class. My kids were amazed with this activity and I'm pretty sure I gained a few steps on the coolness ladder because I knew how to fold paper like this! Hahaha 

5. Scholastic Teacher Express is having a sale on pocket charts!! The hanging file organizer I love is on sale - I picked up two for $17.24 including shipping! Click here to shop the sale and use code PC50. Sale ends on Saturday 4/20. 

I hope everyone has a relaxing and enjoyable weekend! 

Cardinal and Intermediate Directions Review

In 4th grade I do a review of cardinal and intermediate directions at the beginning of the year and we are usually set for the rest of the year. This year...not so much. I felt like my students were really struggling with test questions that required them to apply their knowledge of directions. 

I created a few quick and easy activities to use with my students in review stations this week and thought I'd share them with you. These activities were for a station that is teacher-led.

First off I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out some simple shapes that we used to create our own compasses. We used our creations in the other activities.

Next, I put some copies of these simple worksheets in page protectors and we used the dry erase markers with them. Instead of using the directions at the bottom of the page we all took turns coming up with directions to move around the maps. 

After that we got out the big Virginia maps and started practicing some of those test questions we have such a hard time with. Things like, "If Rachel traveled South from Richmond which state would she come to first?" To spice it up a little we moved dinosaurs around our map. It was something different and I was surprised at how much the kids liked it! I even had them talking to their dinosaur and taking it on a "walking tour" of Virginia's regions. LOL It was really fun! 

I also recently learned a new trick for keeping East and West straight. We wrote the word "WE" in big letters on the map and used that as a visual for helping to remember which side was which. I think its a pretty helpful trick! 

Do you have any tricks for teaching directions? 

Oreo Moon Phases, Personal Spelling Dictionaries, Bottle Rockets, and a Government Foldable {Five for Friday}

I made it through the week after Spring Break and it wasn't too bad. We had a very productive week and I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday to give you a recap!

1. We have been working on the moon phases and had some fun with Oreos. The kiddos loved it!

2. I was finally able to track down some small, durable address books at the Dollar Tree. I gave these to a few students who are significantly below grade level and struggle with spelling. These students are always asking for help spelling during our writing time and I am hoping these personal spelling dictionaries will help them be more independent. As of now, I am using these as a personal word wall - when the student asks me how to spell a word I help them record it in the address book so its there for future use. There is a certain novelty in these books that a regular notebook doesn't have, so that is working in my favor right now!

3. Every month we get a visit from our 4H Extension Agent. He always has a fun project for us to work on and this month was no exception. We started working on bottle rockets that we'll be launching next month. I'll keep you updated on how this goes - we are really excited about it! 

4. We began studying the 3 Branches of Virginia's Government this week and created this foldable. 

5. I love snail mail and this week I got a wonderful surprise in the mail! I won this Flip Flip Foot Repair from Run! Mrs. Nelson's Got the Camera. Yay!! It feels oh so good and the smell is great too. The temperature has been in the 70s all week, so its definitely time to break out the flip flops!



What have you been up to this week? 

Graffiti Review Game

Just wanted to take a minutes to share a quick activity I used during my social studies class today. 

Have I mentioned that I have a really challenging class this year? One group of my 4th graders has a very difficult time retaining social studies information and since we are nearing testing time, I am always looking for a fun, different way to review. You can expect to read about many social studies review ideas in the coming weeks. 

The idea to use this graffiti style review game came to me while I was working with a small group of 6 students. I had already created a paper with 6 boxes, each labeled with one of the people we were studying. After a lot of review, I had the students sit in a circle with a clipboard and their blank sheet. When I said "go" they each wrote one fact on their paper. After everyone had written one they passed their papers on to the left and wrote a different fact on the new sheet they had. My kiddos couldn't write fast enough - they were really into this review activity! 

Because it was a small group we went around the circle twice. After two trips around the circle, students read over their papers and double checked any information they found suspicious. When the game was over it was really easy for the students to see which areas the group needed more practice on. 

It just so happened that I had already created papers that worked perfect for this activity, but it would work just as well to have students fold their own papers and draw a grid themselves. This would be a great time filler if you have an extra few minutes at the end of the class. 

 Anyone use this game in your classroom? Any other ideas of how it could be used?