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#interactivenotebook #ornah

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These handouts are extremely valuable! Tons and tons of great things here!

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~ Social Studies Thinking Sheets (Handouts) - Shannon Shelton

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This site is organized by quarter and major units in the order we will be learning about them. You will see the units chronologically organized with downloadable handouts.

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Great assessment!

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The DAILY news explained in 10 minutes. Great current events for students and great for Student Circle!

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CNN 10 is an on-demand digital news show ideal for explanation seekers on the go or in the classroom.

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WORLD GEO Travel Brochure Lesson Plan Activity

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WORLD GEO Travel Brochure Lesson Plan Activity

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Fun way to help kids get into World Geography!

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I randomly came up with this idea during the last week of school. One of my reading groups had finished their book and project before any of the other groups ha

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Classroom Door Decor {Classroom Design Photos, Set Up Pictures & Ideas, Organization & Management}

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As part of my classroom makeover for the new school year, I added some new pizazz to my classroom door. It is such a simple touch and super easy to do, but is a

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If you are anything like me, you are always in search of ways to keep your writers writing. When I can integrate writing with another subject area, it is a win-win! During our study of pioneer and The Oregon Trail, pioneer journals are fun way for students to use their creative brains, practice their narrative writing, and share what they are learning with others!

Every year, the fourth graders at my school participate in an Oregon Trail simulation. Students are grouped in wagon trains groups, select a wagon master to lead them on their journey to Oregon, and buy supplies.

Wagon trains earn points which help them move along the trail. As they move across the Oregon Trail map, they learn about the landforms, native people, and the dangers pioneers faced as they made the treacherous journey.

One of the ways students document their trials and tribulations along the trail is by writing in their pioneer journals. This is a great way for students to practice narrative writing while learning about a history!

Before my students make their journals, we talk about how important the journals of the pioneers are to preserving history. Much of what we know about pioneer life and the trip west we know because of these primary documents. After that introduction, we get busy making our journals!

The materials you will need for making the journals are pretty easy to come by.

You will need a large paper bag for each student. I just had students bring them from home. You will also need yarn or twine, masking tape, a heavy duty hole punch. An electric hole punch would work the best, but I have a two hole punch at school that I used. It is heavy duty and works great! My three hole punch works well too. You'll see a picture of it a bit later. The one shown above DOES NOT work well. I'm not sure why I added it to the photo. :) For the journals you will also need either lined or unlined paper. I gave my students a choice. Each student will need 10 - 15 pages.

At some point, you will need your students' pioneer portraits. On the day my class was building their journals, we held our photo shoot. I photo edited (more on how to do this later in the post) and had the photos printed over the weekend so that we could finish our journals the next week.

The first thing your students will need to do is cut the bottom out of their bag. Using a good pair of scissors, model for them how to cut down one corner crease and then around the bottom section of the bag. When you are done, you will have one large section. If your bags have handles, they can be used for a latch which I'll explain later.

Now for the fun (and LOUD) part! In order to soften up the paper and make it easer to work with (and make it look and feel more like real rawhide) students will need to work their paper. This means they will need to crinkle it up and smooth it out over and over and over and over and over again! The more they work their paper, the more it breaks down the paper fibers and it gets softer and softer. This gets noisy! I suggest having students carefully roll it up and then step on it, putting as much weight as possible. They will need to be careful though. The paper will rip pretty easily.

Once students are happy with the feel of their paper (or when you can't take the noise anymore) have students carefully smooth out their paper as much as they can.

Now students can either measure how big their covers will need to be or, how we did it, eyeball it!

The paper should wrap around both the front and the back to make both covers. In the end, the cover should be be one continuous piece that just gets folded. This could be a great math lesson! Students will need to trip their paper so that it isn't too much bigger than the paper it will hold.

When the covers have been trimmed, you will now need to hole punch them. I suggest punching 4 - 5 holes.

This Swingline hole punch is adjustable with a little effort and I was able to punch 5 holes.

In class, we used yarn that I had on hand to bind our books. You could also use twine.

After journals are bound, have students title their journals. Each of my students have pioneer names to go with their pioneer identities. Students used Sharpie markers to write on their journals. The Sharpie bled through the covers, so next year, I'm going to have to remember to plan for that.

If you are adding Pioneer Portraits, each student will need to leave a large space in the middle of their journal for their picture.

As a fun added element, students could put "latches" on their journals. Some of our bags had handles and one of my students creatively came up with this ingenious way to keep her journal closed!

Using the handle pieces, she glued a small part in the front to make a loop. and a larger piece in the back that wrapped around the side of the book and tucked through the loop on the front.

I was pretty impressed! This may become a regular addition to the pioneer journals in the future!

Now that the journals are done, let's talk about the Pioneer Portraits!

This year, I tried something a little different for our journals. I included a Pioneer Portrait of each student. They turned out amazing and were very easy to do. All I used was my iPhone and a photo editing app called Snapseed.

On our journal making day, I asked all students to bring clothing and props that we could use as part of our photo shoot. Students brought hats, bonnets, vests, scarves, aprons, and more. I put up a brown piece of butcher paper on the wall and each student stood in front of it as I took their photograph. While I took the photographs, the rest of the students were working on their journals or getting dressed in their pioneer garb.

Once I had all of the photographs, and later that night, I sat down with my phone and worked on the photo editing. Like I said, this was my first time doing this and I am no photo editing expert! I'm going to share how I did it. If you know of tricks and tips that would make the process better, please share them in the comments. Actually, editing the photos wasn't painful at all. Once I figured out the filters I wanted to use, it was just a matter of repeating the steps over and over again 28 times.

The first thing I did was open up the app Snapseed on my iPhone.

I opened a photo of one of my students...

then I clicked on "FILTERS".

The first filter I chose was "BLACK & WHITE" and picked the "film" option. This gave the photo a bit of a grainy look to it.

The second filter I chose was "GRAINY FILM". This added a bit more graininess to the photo.

The third filter I used was "VINTAGE". This filter made the photo more brown, which is what I was wanting.

The next step was "LENS BLUR". This filter blurred out the edges of the photograph.

Finally, I opened the tools and chose "VIGNETTE".

This tool darkens the area around the subject of the photograph.

When it was all said and done, this is the beautiful photograph I ended up with. It makes my heart happy!

When I was done editing all of the photographs, I sent them to Costco for printing. They cost me about 17¢ each to print. Well worth it!

The next week, I had a wonderful parent volunteer cut ovals in the front covers of all of my journals.

We used this oval cutter by Fiskars, purchased specifically for this project!

Once the ovals were cut, the photos were added.

It was as simple as using masking tape and taping the portraits on the inside cover of each journal.

And here are the final results! They turned out great and the students love them.

I think this would be a great project for any history class. Almost any time period would make great material for a personal journal! I can imagine Civil War and Revolutionary War diaries, Lewis and Clark journals, Civil Rights diaries (just to name a few)!

Since the events and language need to be historically accurate in the writing, journals and diaries written from the perspective of a historical figure or an imaginary person during an important time in history is a meaningful way for students to construct a deeper understanding of the past and share that understanding with others.

If you are interested in more things "Pioneer", click HERE for my post on our annual Pioneer Day! It's a day full of pioneer activities, crafts, food, and fun!

Thank you for visiting Literacy Loves Company! If you have any questions about the project or ideas that would enhance it, please share in the comment section! I'd love to hear from you.

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If you are anything like me, you are always in search of ways to keep your writers writing. When I can integrate writing with another subject area, it is a win-win! During our study of pioneer and The Oregon Trail, pioneer journals are fun way for students to use their creative brains, practice their narrative writing, and share what they are learning with others!

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Multiple accounts of the same event

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How Do You Know?

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From the classroom of an organized Middle School teacher | I AM A GOOD TEACHER | Pinterest | Middle school teachers, Middle and Teacher

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From the classroom of an organized Middle School teacher

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Divide your whiteboard with colorful borders to create multiple "bulletin boards" | I AM A GOOD TEACHER | Pinterest | Whiteboard, Bulletin board and Board

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Divide your whiteboard with colorful borders to create multiple "bulletin boards"

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Clear Learning Targets

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Back to Basics

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I can ...

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Clear Learning Targets

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Maps are so essential to Social Studies. Teach your kids how to read maps!!!! They'll thank you later!

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Feel free to make it your own but this would be great to use!

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Good advice for students AND teachers.

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Got em.

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I Can ...

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Enjoy

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Boom.

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Balloon Globes that are perfect for Open House. Back to School activity. Social Studies project.

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Link in Mrs. Lopez' Autobiography Check it out!

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Mrs. Lopez' AUTOBIOGRAPHY MAPS ... Super Cool!! Super Super!

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Mrs. Lopez' AUTOBIOGRAPHY MAPS ... Super Cool!! Super Super!

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I did these at the all girls' school many years ago.  It's such a fun project, if you do it in your class I'd love to help.  Check out this link!

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Revolutionary War FREE Timeline Organizer

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Revolutionary War FREE Timeline Organizer

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I love me some free. This is cool!

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Ten Interesting Facts . . . . . The Revolutionary War

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TweetEmail TweetEmailStudents will enjoy reading these Ten Interesting Facts about the Revolutionary War. Be sure to head to the bottom of the post for links to

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I LIVED by Sentence Stems in Social Studies. Kids often struggle with writing in Social Studies and this helps get them going.

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Bill of Rights PRINTABLE and File Folder Game

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Bill of Rights PRINTABLE and File Folder Game

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Games are so much fun to make in the classroom

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We are learning a lot about US History. We are enjoying reading different books, watching videos and talking about the beginnings of our country.

The next document our kids will be memorizing is a short form of the Bill of Rights. I had fun creating some materials to help them in this process.

I typed the Bill of Rights with a few illustrations, and also created a fill-in-the-blank sheet.

My kids love playing games and I love hands-on activities, so I made a couple of folder games. I tried to make it into two levels. The first one is a little easier in that the child needs to match just the word tiles to the pictures already in place in the game.

The second one, is a little bit harder because the child needs to match BOTH picture and word tiles in the correct order. I plan to start with the easier one, and when I feel like they are close to having it memorized, I will move them to the harder one. 🙂

Interactive, self-check sheets are always fun to me.

As a visual learner, I always need to have picture cards. So if your child is a visual learner, this will be just right for him/her.

Click below to download the file.

Hope this is helpful to your family!
-> Bill of Rights <-
Have a wonderful day,

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We are learning a lot about US History. We are enjoying reading different books, watching videos and talking about the beginnings of our country. The next document our kids will be memorizing is a short form of the Bill of Rights. I had fun creating some materials to help them in this process.

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Show what you know by completing three of the activities below ...

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Don't be afraid of partners or groups! The person doing the most talking is doing the most learning! 100.

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Engage your students with something INTERESTING!

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20 Images that Will Help You Take the BEST Notes! 100! 

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20 Images that Will Help You Take the BEST Notes! 100! 

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For real, I just want to go take notes on something now after looking at this!

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Even in the year 2016, when we have all of the technology in the world right at our fingertips, the old-fashioned practice of handwriting notes in class continues to be the best method of learning. Actually writing things down on paper - not typing them, not plugging them into your iPhone, not listening to a recording or watching a video - is still the most effective way to memorize and comprehend the material. Sure, it's tempting to bring your laptop to class, where you can type everything into Microsoft Word, but at the end of the day, you'll understand better and memorize more if you put the extra effort into writing things down with a pen and paper.

But even though there are a lot of great things about taking notes in class, that doesn't mean it's foolproof. Jotting down what you think is the most important material in scraggly handwriting with no sense of organization isn't really going to help. Sure, the act of writing is what helps you remember and understand, but you also have to be able to go back and read and study what you wrote. That's why it's so important to keep your notes neat, organized, and, well, pretty.

Aesthetically pleasing notes aren't just great for taking a #StudyingHard Instagram photo or for impressing everyone around you. When your notes are nice to look at, they're readier to read, understand, and study. Plus, it makes the whole experience a little bit more fun, which I know sounds weird and nerdy, but is totally true. Taking notes becomes more interesting when you add in little doodles and character breaks and different colors. Why not try it out? These below images will help you take the best notes ever that will look amazing and actually help you get better grades. Can't argue with that!
1. Making your notes look good is all about adding on extras aside from just writing. Here are a few tips that will make your notebooks look amazing: 2. Highlighting is a great way to make your notes look colorful and cool, while also keeping things very easy to read. Create a color coding system so that it's not just there for no reason. 3. You can also label your highlighters so that you never mix up your system. 4. Annotating keeps your notes organized and easy to read, and can also make them look better. Here are a few simple ways to stress certain words and phrases. 5. Taking notes can be time consuming, which is why it's helpful to know certain abbreviations and symbols that will minimize writing but still make sense. 6. Sketchnotes is a way of taking notes that includes lots of little drawings. It makes note taking fun and look more put together. Here are some little symbols to know: 7. Keep these bullet points in mind: 8. If you want more structure, use this method of note taking for something that's proven to work: 9. If you're still not convinced this is the way to go, read this: 10. Here are a few simple ways to embellish your notes: 11. Aside from making your words look cooler, you can also illustrate with little drawings - and you don't need to be an artist to do it right. Follow these tips: 12. If you're more into outlines than long paragraphs, here's a good way do that: 13. Make sure you use titles, dates, and headlines in different styles of writing so that you can find things easier. 14. Follow these steps to be as neat as possible: 15. Having your own structure is important - copy this template, or create what works for you: 16. Sketchnoting is the prettiest way to take notes. Here's what to know if you want to try it: 17. Add in boxes, bullet points, Post-It notes, and more to highlight certain things and organize all of the info in the best way possible. 18. Don't forget about your notes the second class is over! They're supposed to serve a purpose. Here's how to make the best use of them: 19. Two things from here to keep in mind: one, you can always embellish and add on later when doing homework, so don't forget to focus on what your teacher is saying and not just your notes. Two, if you prefer to have things on the computer, scan or copy them later! 20. Your notes don't just have to be paragraphs. Here are several different formats you can choose from: How do you take notes in class? Which tip are you going to try? Let us know in the comments. You can follow the author, Jessica Booth, on Twitter or Instagram. 18 Tips On How To Have The Most Organized Planner Ever

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20 Images That Will Help You Take The Best Notes In Class - Gurl.com

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Even in the year 2016, when we have all of the technology in the world right at our fingertips, the old-fashioned practice of handwriting notes in class continues to be the best method of learning. Actually writing things down on paper - not typing them, not plugging them into your iPhone, not listening to a recording ...

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Because we should ALL know the Preamble, right? This is a fun activity to keep the kids engaged and memorizing the Preamble!

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This goes great with the GRAPES Idea ... see above!

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The best way to learn world history and explore new civilizations is by studying GRAPES. Whenever my students begin studying a new civilization, I … | 6th Grade Social Studies | Pinterest | Civilization, Chart and Students

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The best way to learn world history and explore new civilizations is by studying GRAPES. Whenever my students begin studying a new civilization, I distribute GRAPES charts to students to fil…

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6 Factors to Analyze World Civilizations & Cultures

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6 Factors to Analyze World Civilizations & Cultures

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When "visiting" any civilization, train your students to consider the GRAPES!

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Fabulous ENGAGING Idea for Your Classroom!

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Have you ever heard of using the "Tug of War" strategy with your students?

I got this great idea from the book, "Making Thinking Visible"

This is an AMAZING teaching resource! If you are looking for ways to promote engagement and critical thinking in your class (who isn't?!) this is definitely a must read!

So, the Tug of War strategy goes like this:

1. Present a fairness dilemma.

2. Identify the factors that "pull" at each side of the dilemma. These are the two sides of the tug of war.

3. Ask students to think of "tugs", or reasons why they support a certain side of the dilemma. Ask them to try to think of reasons on the other side of the dilemma as well.

4. Generate "what if?" questions to explore the topic further.

My first and second graders have been learning about animals. So today we did a tug of war for how people impact the lives and homes of animals.

In the middle I wrote: "People have a positive impact on animals and their habitats. Then I gave students sticky notes and had them write down their ideas to support this or refute it.

Check out how many ideas they had! I was amazed! And the conversations we had while they were writing out their sticky notes were phenomenal.

This is a great strategy for increasing engagement in your students and for using higher order thinking skills! Whether you teach Kindergarten or grade twelve I believe all students will find success with this activity. Give it a try.

What are your favorite activities that promote higher order thinking skills?

Another activity you might like is creating a digital wonderwall. You can read about that here.

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How About a Tug of War? Making Thinking Visible

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Hi, my name is Heidi and I'm an elementary school teacher. I blog about ideas and resources for the classroom as well as issues in education. I love technology and inquiry based learning so I often include those topics. I create resources for a variety of subject areas and grade levels.

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Social Studies Teachers, do you ever look at these Crash Courses by John Green and his former High School Social Studies' teacher? He talks super fast, but gives good info!

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Women in the 19th Century: Crash Course US History #16

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Check out this great list of test taking vocabulary!