We're Famous!!

If you know a 4th or 5th grader in Virginia chances are you've heard of the Virginia Trekkers. They are a group of ITRTs from Henrico County who set out to create more resources for students in Virginia Studies classes. Their videos have been a fantastic way for my students in far Southwest Virginia to see the other regions of Virginia. 

Last year we had a 4th grader at our school win a visit from the Trekkers and now we are all famous on their website! The guys played a trivia game with our kids, talked with them about where they had been trekkin' in our region, and shot some footage for their video with our kids. It was like having celebrities in our building! 

We've been keeping a close check on their website and our video is finally up!!

You can click on the picture above to check it out.

Even if you aren't from Virginia you may want to give the Trekkers site a look. They have expanded and have videos from different locations all around the US. There are also a lot of great games and activities on the site. 

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. 

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?

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?