Here's what I came up with...the era's are across the top and themes/strands are down the left side. I have more eras and more themes, but my bulletin board ran out of space :( . We will use this to reflect on and summarize our learning. The beauty of it is, WE (I) WILL BE ABLE TO SEE THE HOLES IN OUR LEARNING :)
I also love this (for the holes reason) because I might find that I am unable to teach a whole unit on one of the topics in history, but I'm sure I can find a day or two to let students learn a little bit about the topic we wouldn't get to otherwise (see my Civil Rights Era Timeline Activity for an example of a valuable 2-day project that builds background knowledge). I kinda feel like I can use this to do an "it's better than nothing" couple of lessons on the parts of history we won't get to go in depth on. Then, students will have some background knowledge for future history classes. (I feel so guilty admitting that we don't get to it all, like it's some secret the people who make the social studies standards don't want us to say out loud.)
In my defense, I truly feel this will up the level of social studies teaching in my classroom and the understanding of social studies for my students. (And such a simple idea :) I also plan to have students create a working timeline as we study different time periods. We will start the year off with an "overview of United States History" timeline activity. (Which I will happily share when it's completed :)
My next thought was, okay, this is great for a classroom representation, but how will the kiddos represent and track their learning without it being a huge chart with itty-bitty blocks for them to have to try to cram information into. Thus, this 2 pg template was born.
Download everything you need to get this bulletin board started at my tpt store.
Happy teaching! I hope this social studies idea is a super-awesome-amazing problem solved for your classroom :)
I love this idea! Just gave you the “One Lovely Blogger Award” because I always enjoy reading your posts.
ReplyDeleteApril @ The Idea Backpack
Love this idea! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteKathy
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