Week One is almost over.....

Well, its almost the end of week one. I've introduced my students to me and the course, given them a pre-test about part of the first unit, we've assembled interactive notebooks and tomorrow, their first assignments are due ( "Map of their route from home to school," and some Cornell Notes about geography vocabulary).

After I collect their assignments, its time to get into small groups to begin a small geography lab about our county. I have a set of ten questions for them to answer using a variety of historical and other maps and data that include our county. Then, for minimum points, they create a list of at least ten facts about the Geography and History of our county; for "more" points, they make their facts list and create some illustrations to go with their facts (they can find pictures online or draw them), and for the most points, do all the above and write a short report about the Geog. and Hist. of our county.


Over on Coach Brown's blog, he's listed some things "to do" this school year. I really hope he can "not take home work." THAT is a biggie for many of us teachers. As for Polski3, here is what I plan to try this school year (in no particular order):

lecture more

more student writing

use textbook more as a resource for pictures and other graphic resources, using the reading study guide and standards enrichment more for the "reading" assignments.

Do more DBQ type activities

More primary source material (much easier to do for US History than Medieval World)

Try to do more small group activities

Try to bring home less work (this from the guy starting out by collecting two assignments on a friday !)

Hope your Friday is good. Weekends are almost always good. Leave a comment, I'd like to hear from you !

Thanks for reading my blog !