Tip of the Week – Open and Closed Word Sorts

A language arts friend of mine shared this strategy with me several years ago and I’ve been using it ever since. It is incredibly simple to use in the classroom but it can have a huge impact on your kids. The English teacher was using it to help kids learn vocabulary words from novels and [...]

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Maps that freak you out

But . . . wait. Where else could you put the Northern Hemisphere but on the top? On the bottom. Yeah, but you can’t do that. Why not? ‘Cause it’s freaking me out. I was watching some old West Wings episodes last week and ran across a clip that a map nut like me just [...]

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Tip of the Week – The Third Way of Using Primary Docs

History teachers have always used primary sources in their classrooms, usually in one of two ways. The first might be called the single source approach. A teacher intersperses a single document (such as the Declaration of Independence) throughout a unit to support their instruction and content. The second can be described as the multiple source [...]

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Tip of the Week – KIM strategy

I ran across a nice, basic graphic organizer the other day that looks useful. I’ll be honest, haven’t used it yet with kids. But it looks like one of those graphic organizers that works across grade levels and content areas. It reminds a bit of the Frayer Model graphic organizer but perhaps easier to use. [...]

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Kids talking to kids – My History Network

I was told once that in the typical social studies classroom, 85% of the conversation is teacher to student, 10% student to teacher and 5% student to student. (And . . . no, I can’t remember the source so I suppose you can adjust the numbers as you see fit.) But even if the numbers [...]

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