Social Studies Lapbooks!

I've had the flu most of break and haven't had a lot of time to leave the house. There are only so many shows you can watch on Hulu and Netflix in a given day. So after catching up on Castle and Revenge, I put my sick self to work! Last year, Ohio changed our Social Studies standards and I had a hard time finding what I needed for my students. Since our district was short on resources, I used a hodge podge of articles, notes, videos, etc. In the words of Tim Gunn, I had a make it work year.  So, this year, I took our standards and made lapbooks for Canada and South America. I wanted a generic notes sheet that could be used for any resource. I'm still working on a Mexico & Central America lapbook but for the rest of the weekend both lapbooks are only $2! Two for the price of one! Enter to win a copy on Instagram!

Here's a preview of the Canada lapbook:

Here's a preview of the South America lapbook:

Freebies are included in both previews - so check those out before purchasing! Please, leave some positive feedback if you purchase :)

Don't forget to check out other great Geography ideas and products over at Fifth in the Middle! 

Hope everyone is having a healthy, happy, and productive break! 

Must Read Mentor Texts: A Walk In Text set...

Happy Sunday! This week starts our Spring Break and I can think of nothing better than starting off my weekend with some book recommendations! To share my Social Studies mentor texts, I'm linking up with Amanda and Stacia at Collaboration Cuties for their Must Read Mentor Text Linky.

We're getting ready to start Canada in Social Studies. Before break, students worked on their Canada Word Walls and started getting glimpses of Canada. When we return from Spring Break, students will be studying three different regions of Canada and creating a Canada "passport" lapbook.

Of course, I went looking for Canadian picture books on the web to help out with our unit! There are few ABC books and a colleague of mine found Goodnight, Canada that we're going to turn into a class book. But there weren't many others... Since our main focus is geography in fifth grade, I found these gems on Amazon while doing some searching!

Each of the A Walk In books covers a different biome or landscape of North America. There are great maps and descriptions of each place! I wish I had these earlier in the year... My students have a hard time understanding places like "tundra" because many of them have never seen it. As a bonus, the books are very description and beautifully written.On Amazon, I found these used for $4 dollars each with free shipping! Yay!

Excerpt from A Walk in the Tundra...

I plan on using these books for supplemental research as we discuss each region and as students begin their research for their portion of the ABC books. I'm hoping these books really bring the geography aspect of our curriculum alive to students! I created a few cinquain geography poetry half sheets since it is National Poetry month! I figured these would be a good way to get students thinking about the information in a creative and fun way...

Do you use any geography mentor texts in your classroom?

A Peek at My Week!

It's been a while since I liked up with Jennifer at Mrs.Laffin's Laughings for A Peek at My Week! This week are starting all new units! We only had a three day work week last week due to the Polar Vortex and extreme cold. We introduced some new units but didn't really get "started"... so this week, we're digging deep and getting our new units!

We started our next novel! We're going to be reading The Tale of Despeareux. It's one of my favorite books to do as a read aloud with the kids. Plus if you haven't heard the audiobook version... OMG! It's my favorite audiobook! My students beg for the "man on the CD." He does all the voices and has a fantastic accent. Adore this book and all the characters. The lessons we're doing come from Lucy Calkin's fifth grade suggested calendar from her book A Curricular Plan for Reading Workshop Grade 5.

We're staring our Argumentative Essay unit! This is my favorite writing unit of the year! Fifth graders are very persuasive. Students made construction paper folders to hold their research notes and choose topics this past week. Starting Monday, students will be learning different ways to take research notes on a topic. Then they will be reading both sides of their argument as well this week and then choosing a stance. Since we're already practiced gathering research for our feature articles, we choose six topics for our students to research and collected credible articles for text sets to save some time!

We started our Latin America unit last week with some mapping practice. Now, we're ready to learn about the Maya, Inca, and Aztecs!

The Ancient Civilizations for Children series is fantastic introduction to each cultural group. These were a great find at my local library! We plan to end our week watching the movie, The Road to El Dorado where students have to decide if the mythical tribe in the movie is the Maya, Inca, or Aztec. Bonus: The movie was only $5 dollars on Amazon!

Can't wait to see what everyone else is up to this week!

Thanksgiving Must Read: "Bugs for Dinner"

So, I know I'm a little bit late to link up with Amanda and Stacia from Collaboration Cuties, but I have a great must read Thanksgiving Mentor Text that is also very historically accurate! This is one of my favorite lessons to do right before Thanksgiving. We're actually making time for the lesson tomorrow even though it's our end of trimester party day!

My favorite text to use the day before Thanksgiving break is called Eating the Plates by Lucille Recht Penner. This book has multiple chapters but I only read the first chapter to my students entitled "Bugs for Dinner." This isn't your typical "yummy" Thanksgiving story!

I print out the entire first chapter so the students can follow along. We discuss some aspects of narrative nonfiction and then we get started. {It is a few pages to print out but I use the same copies year after year.} The chapter "Bugs for Dinner" talks about the hardships on the Mayflower including lice, no showers, sea sickness, and of course the lovely meals on the ship. My students always do a moan and groan after we read this chapter together. I love to do a dramatic read as we go through the Pilgrims pre-Thanksgiving meals on the ship.

Here's a glimpse at the first page...You can also preview the entire chapter on Google Books.

My favorite page discusses the Pilgrims' meals of ship biscuits and squishy turnips! Doesn't it sound delightful? Mmmm....

Then after we finish, we complete a simple visualizing activity! I promise I do more than visualizing activities but this activity is really great because the author does add LOTS of imagery and details. So much so, that my students are usually moaning and groaning about all the "gross" things the Pilgrims had to endure on their journey. We also watch a short video about the size of the ship and realize that no one has any personal space to boot!

Here's my visualizing worksheet. Click on the image to get a free copy.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week! I'm extremely thankful that we only have a two day week this week! The kids and I both are need of a break!

Hope your Thanksgiving doesn't include "ship biscuits" or weevils!

Peek at my Week: Florida Everglads & Nonfiction Research

Since, I've been a terrible blogger lately, I thought I'd at least link up with Jennifer's A Peek at my Week and give everyone at peek at my week! This week, we're going to wrap up our Southeast Region unit. We're going to spend some time on Tuesday this week reading about the Florida Everglades and looking at some photos. Then we're going to answer some text dependent questions after our reading. I was going to pull a Time For Kids article but then a coworker had a fantastic idea....

Why not read a blog for information? Of course!

My coworker found a great blog that has tons of information for our reading! The Florida Everglades Blog is great because it has a short amount of readings plus tons of pictures, maps, and other information to help students learn about the Everglades. The site is super user friendly and easy to navigate for students! I can't wait to use the site this week with the iPads in Social Studies!

In reading and writing, we've started our nonfiction unit. Students are going to be learning about text structures and and types of nonfiction this week. I found a great handout on TPT that goes over text structures. So, we'll be handing out MsJordanRead's Nonfiction Text Structures. We will use this handout while reading various articles throughout the week - looking for signal words to identify the type of structure. We also have a mix-up activity planned for later in the week to help students further practice text structures and types!

In writing, we're going to use our reading knowledge to help plan our own feature articles. Students are going to use an environmental issue to research and plan an article using the Problem-Solution format. It should be a fun week of nonfiction reading and research! Only 7 more days until break....

What's your week look like?

Visualizing and Veterans Day

Last week, I blogged about some great reads for Veterans Day. You can check them out on my earlier post here. But today I want to focus on how to incorporate reading strategies into Social Studies. I try and get the most out of my limited time with my students. So, if I can create a reading lesson from a Social Studies text, I try to use the "double whammy."

This week, we're in between reading units until after our Character Unit Common Assessment (end of unit test). So, in preparation for Veterans Day, we'll be reading America's White Table by Margot Thesis Raven. This historical fiction / informational text is a great read prior to Veterans Day or Memorial Day. The premise of the book is about a fictional family setting a white table for Veterans Day that is meant to symbolize what it means to be a veteran. Interwoven into the meaning behind the white table is a story about Uncle John and his heroic acts while he was in the service. The words and descriptions in the story are extremely vivid -  great for a visualizing activity!

Here's what my teaching partner and I will be handing out to the students after we read the story:

To try this activity in your classroom just click the image for your own visualizing handout. Or you can download from Dropbox here. Handouts like these are simple way to get our students using reading strategies in Social Studies. Hopefully, our students are starting to realize that they are always readers - not just a reader during Reader's Workshop.

Have a wonderful Sunday,

Must Read Mentor Text: H is for Honor

Today, I'm joining up with Amanda & Stacia from Collaboration Cuties to discuss a must read Social Studies mentor text for Veterans Day. At our school we do a 5th grade celebration for Veterans Day. Students are invited to bring in photographs for a Wall of Fame/Timeline of their friends and family that have served our country plus veterans are invited in for a special breakfast and presentation. Students honor Veterans by reading some special poems and presenting them with a powerful "Just Three Words" video that showcases the meaning of Veterans Day in literally "just three words" by each student.

However, before we can start celebrating on November 11th - we need to prepare by reading some amazing mentor texts. Many of our students have some background about Veterans Day but we do read a short nonfiction piece about how Armistice Day became Veterans Day first. Then students begin their collecting of additional "knowledge" about veterans through the reading of the book, H is for Honor by Devin Scillian.

The book showcases the lives of military families in way that students are able to relate to.  Its presented in alphabet style which makes for a quick and easy read while also providing a wealth of information. Since, we have to collect words for our three words project. We use this book as a spring board for thinking about the importance of veterans in our country's history and in our lives. Here's a snapshot of some of the skills the book covers:

As we read the book the students take notes on their own personal word walls. They collect appropriate words that we could use to honor our veterans in our own poetry and "Just Three Words" video. This book hits so many great vocabulary words that's its perfect for starting your Veterans Day study! I found my personal word walls from A Love for Teaching's Blog. She has a free download on her site or you can click my image below for a blank copy. My Personal Word Wall example: 

We then continue our study and independent reading with some other great books about Veterans Day. Here are a few of my other favorites that relate to this amazing holiday!
Both America's White Table by Margot Theis Raven and Granddad Bud: A Veterans Day Story can be found on Amazon! We use America's White Table to introduce our students to a Remembrance Table which we set up during our celebration for those who are unable to be with us. Granddad Bud's story is great because it's perfect story to introduce students to Veterans Day celebrations and the meaning of Veterans Day because the students in the book have also invited veterans into the classroom.

How do you celebrate Veterans Day in your classroom or at your school?

Spark Student Motivation: Great State Race

This week I'm working on motivating my students to learn more about the regions of the United States! So, of course, I had to link up with Joanne from Head Over for Heels for Teaching for her Spark Student Motivation Saturdays and with Diane from Fifth in the Middle with some of my team's motivating geography techniques.

This week in Social Studies, I launched our next big study on the Regions of the United States. Our first stop is a train tour of the Northeast. This aligns with our text, Social Studies Alive! But we are not using the text's notes but instead are creating our own "interactive" suitcases for this unit. Students will be filling their suitcase with notes, maps, Kodak moments, and more as we travel throughout the Northeast. *The handouts are courtesy of Erin at I'm Lovin' Lit's editable pages in her Interactive Reading Literature Notebooks. I just modified them to work with our Social Studies text!

Here's my sample:

 

I do realize the Muse song title is wrong. It has since been corrected. The theme song for our Boston trip is Muse "Uprising."

Then, to get our students even more excited about our cross country trip, we also introduced our Great State Race Project this week. Each homeroom is asked to collect postcards from each of the 50 states. The first homeroom to collect a postcard from each state wins a special victory celebration! The students really get into competitive mode here and love seeking out the postcards. This project allows all students to get involved on some level and provides leadership opportunities to students who really want to track down those "remaining" postcards.

We hang a big USA map in the hallway and connect the postcards to the states. It's a BIG deal. Plus, they can also track each homerooms progress. 

Here's the letter I send home with my students. Click the image to download it from Dropbox.

The rules for the race are as follows:
- The postcard must be mailed from the state to count
- The postcard must contain one Social Studies fact about the state
- You may get multiple post cards from the same relative as long as the postcard is mailed from the state (example: Your grandparents go on vacation and mail you postcards from each state they visit)
- You can mail a postcard to yourself
- You can use any means necessary email, letters, phone calls, etc. to get postcards

Don't forget to check out all the great Student Motivation ideas on Head Over Heels for Teaching plus all the other Geography ideas at Fifth in the Middle!

Columbus Day Explorer Journals!

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and now we get a holiday.... Usually, we're not off school but this year it happened to fall during our Fall Break. Therefore, in honor of the holiday and being off school for Fall Break I thought I'd share with you some journal entries I've had my students complete in the past during our explorer unit. Feel free to grab a complete copy from my Dropbox here.

Here's a few of the questions I ask my students to think critically about after or during our unit:

You can also use these questions as write arounds during explorer stations! They provide some great thinking and students generally have some great thoughts on each topic! I'm linking this post up with Diane from Fifth in the Middle's Social Studies Explorer Linky. Don't forget to check it out for more great explorer lessons!

Happy Columbus Day!

America Before & After Explorers

Last week was a black hole... I wasn't able to get much of anything accomplished let alone time to blog! Our parent curriculum night was a success and thankfully we are nearly done with conferences. After Wednesday night, I'm in the home stretch! Whew! I just wanted to catch up with the blogging world and share a Social Studies activity we're working on this week...

We just took our Native American test last week, so this week we're moving on to European explorers. With our new learning standards from the state of Ohio, we don't teach an entire unit on explorers anymore in fifth grade. Our "I Can's" really focus on the cultural impacts of explorers. For example, place names, foods, words in our language, etc. Much of the "history" has really been passed down to fourth grade. However, before we get into our regional studies and how explorers impacted various regions of the country - students do need reminding that Europeans came to America. So, we're spending this week doing a brief overview of explorers.

We're going to read Encounter by Jane Yolen and watch the National Geographic documentary America Before Columbus. For Encounter I share optical illusions and discuss how history often has two sides. We look at how if we look at history from different points of view we can see different things. The students love this connection and the book, too!

Then, over the next two days students watch the documentary America Before Columbus in two parts. They look at life for Native Americans before European explorers and after European explorers.

Students complete a handout as they watch the video to get down some key ideas.Our public library has a free copy to check out but Amazon and National Geographic both have copies for sale.

Video Caution:
** The total documentary is 90 minutes in length and would be appropriate for 5th graders and up. There is a part about some of the disease that were spread but it does not go into graphic detail but it does mention some of the diseases that were spread in brothels. It has been on the National Geographic channel. You can fast forward or just choose to "not explain" that scene. It's less than 20 seconds and goes into no detail with students. As always, watch the video first and make sure it's suitable for your group of kiddos!
  
We're ending the week with some cultural stations. Students will be looking at language, food, places, and architecture influenced by Spanish, French, and English explorers. I'll post a separate link up about our stations after we complete them this Friday! 

I'm linking up with Diane from Fifth in the Middle's Explorer Linky Party! Can't wait to see some other great explorer activities!  Hope everyone has a wonderful October week!