Mounuments Men: “Art is long, life is short”

I’m sitting here in a comfy chair warming up by the fireplace, with laptop in hand and a nice cup of coffee nearby. It’s a snow day pretty much everywhere in the state of Kansas and I’m catching up on my to-do list.

One of the things to check off? The Monuments Men.

It’s an incredible true story. It’s a book. And this weekend, it’s a movie coming out starring, well . . . a bunch of my favorite actors. Bill Murray. George Clooney. John Goodman. Matt Damon. Cate Blanchett.

Early reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes seem mixed. But I’ll be going no matter what. I’m a sucker for movies based on historical events. Argo. Lincoln. Band of Brothers. Hotel Rwanda. Glory. Gettysburg. All the President’s Men. The Mission.

I’m hoping for the best but I’m sure that through the whole thing I’ll be making mental notes about the lack of historical accuracy and the jumbling of facts for dramatic effect. Because we all know that the book is always better. Always.

But I’ll also get over it. The book is always better but it’s also always interesting to see how the story “looks,” how the movie tells its version of events. Because the story is a great tale. If you haven’t gotten the drift from all the movie ads, here are the basics:

Huge amounts of new World War One goodies

Several years ago we got it with tons of American Civil War stuff because of the 150th anniversary thing. We’re about to get hit again with the 100th anniversary of World War One.

Get a head start by heading over to three new sites created by the University of Oxford:

“New” Kansas state capitol is awesome (and educational)

I love a good museum. There’s almost nothing as fun as spending time in a really sweet museum. Right?

I earlier posted some of my online museum favorites. Today? Back to the basics with one of my go-to brick and mortar museums and a new favorite.

My go-to?

The Kansas State Historical Society. It’s a great place to visit and it has some awesome online resources as well. I especially like the very cool (and free) Read Kansas cards available online. The Traveling Trunks are also pretty incredible. And for you non-Kansans, these are still useful to you – many of the cards and other resources can be easily adapted to teach US history, geography, and economics.

My new favorite?

Tip of the Week: Online museums

Last week, Learning Never Stops posted a great article about a variety of online museums. You need to add over and check out the entire list. Some of their suggestions are history / social studies related and you’ll want to be sure to read their reviews of the following suggestions:

• American Century
• The Secret Annex
• Colonial Williamsburg
• Lewis and Clark
• Mount Vernon

But there are other online museums out there that are super handy for classroom use. So today . . . a quick list of places you can visit for great resources to incorporate into your instruction:

Connected Classrooms with Google Hangout

When was the last time you took your kids on an actual field trip? You know. Got on a bus and went to some cool historical site or museum?

It doesn’t happen very often anymore. It costs too much. Takes time. Maybe there’s just not a lot of great places to go visit that are close enough.

So you no have no money, no time, and no cool places very close. The answer? The internet, of course.

Google Hangout has put together a very cool tool called Connected Classrooms. Connected Classrooms is a new program on Google+ that makes it easier for teachers to connect their students with virtual learning opportunities on Google+. Virtual Field Trips use Hangouts On Air to connect classrooms with unique learning experiences provided by a variety of educational partners on Google+.

My class used to be an air museum

Okay. Not an actual air museum. That would have been so incredibly cool but . . . no. Sadly, my classroom was an air museum in the metaphorical sense.

A little background might help here.

I’ve had the opportunity over the last several months to spend time in Liberal, Kansas working with the 7-12 social studies team on the creation of aligned unit curriculum maps. Lots of great conversations about historical thinking skills and big ideas and instructional strategies and well . . . lots of cool social studies stuff.

But until recently, it’s been in and out, one day at a time. Earlier this month? Multiple days back to back. And I know you know what that means. That’s right.

Enough free time for a visit to the Mid-America Air Museum. During World War II, Liberal hosted one of the largest B-24 training bases in the US and rightfully takes great pride in that fact. A museum was started. Planes were donated and according to the propaganda, it’s the largest aviation museum in the state and fifth largest in the country. Over 100 planes on display. And not just any planes. Some very cool planes:

• B-25 Mitchell
• F4 Phantom
• F-4 Tomcat
• Bell Huey helicopter
• F8 Crusader

I love planes. Especially military planes. So I was a bit giddy at the chance to spend some time at the museum.

But I walked away a bit disappointed.