Lesson Plans!

Hey, so I think we pretty much know what we are all researching, the history of our previously selected cities, correct?

Sam- Portage

Kaitlyn- Grand Rapids

Jessica- Kalamazoo

However, since we are all doing different lesson plans, we need to makes sure that we all have different ideas and different student activities that the students do with their information. Once you have your main idea of the lesson and the students activity, list it below so that no one else does the same thing!

Thanks- Sam

Google Map

Southwest Michigan Museums

The students will share museums with their pen pals that cover local history of their assigned city. They will ask their pen pals to do the same.
View Driving directions to Public Museum of Grand Rapids, Pearl Street Northwest, Grand Rapids, MI in a larger map

Virtual Pen Pals

Virtual Pen Pal Google Doc Assignment

Local History Pen Pal Assignment

This assignment is for students in 5th grade, since Michigan benchmarks cover local history in 5th grade.  For this assignment, students will compare the history of their local city to the history of London, England.  They will do this by interacting with pen pals in London, England.

Each student within the group will be assigned a local city (Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Portage, Grand Rapids), which is to be determined at the beginning of the local history project by group members. After they have already completed a portion of their research for the local history of their assigned city, and have collaborated in their assigned discussion groups with group members, they will then compare knowledge on the local history of that city to the local history of their pen pals in London, England. Each student will e-mail their pen pal asking them a series of questions and sharing their own information about their city.

Students will contact their pen pals multiple times over the course of two weeks. Time will be provided in class for students to contact their pen pals.

Questions that students will ask their virtual penpals include:

1. What year was London established?
2. Who established London?
3. What famous people, inventions, or companies originated from London?
4. What holidays are part of London’s history?
5. What is London known for?
6. What key roles did London play historically?
7. How does having a royal family affect life in London?
8. Do students have to go to school on holidays  in London?
9. Do schools in London keep religion separate from school work?
10. Do you get to vote in London? If so, at what age can you start voting?
11. Student’s individual choice question
12. Discussion Group’s choice question
13. Discuss with pen pal’s museums in Southwestern Michigan (Kalamazoo Valley Museum, Public Museum of Grand Rapids, Historic Adventist Village in Battle Creek and the Celery Flats Interpretive Center in Portage)
14. Discuss local history museums in pen pal’s city.

With the information that students have gathered from their pen pals, they will create a venn diagram that compares and contrasts their local city with London. The venn diagram can be created on www.creately.com. After creating a venn diagram, students will then have to write a 5 paragraph essay summarizing their findings (Intro, similarities, differences, their thoughts about their findings/the project, and a conclusion paragraph).

The map of the museums that will be discussed with pen pals can be found here.

Google Map Assignment

We still need to make a map this week as well.  I've looked at Google maps, and I'm not exactly sure what we're supposed to be doing, so I emailed Sharon again and copied both of you on it. Google maps will not make a route from Kalamazoo to London, so we'll have to decide what we're making a map of that relates to the pen pal assignment.  I have plans for the rest of the day and evening, so I won't get back to this until tomorrow. When we get a response from Sharon, if either of you have a chance to start our map, that would be great!

Virtual Pen Pals Assignment

What type of assignment do we want to do with the virtual penpals? We could have the students compare and contrast the similarities and differences between their regions in terms of the local history. I think this would work best if the virtual penpals were from any city in Europe, Asia, South America, etc. where cities were established much earlier than in the United States, and cultural differences would be obvious. What city should our virtual penpals be from?  Do you have a different idea for this assignment? - Jessica

Web Evaluations

I'm starting a new post, so we can discuss which websites we're each evaluating for this week. To get started, I'd like to evaluate www.kalamazoomi.com/hisf.htm, which is titled The History of Kalamazoo.

Okay sounds good, where should we put the info we find most interesting so that we can share what we think should go on the blog? Should we just put it here? - Sam

This was my idea for our concept map. I made it on bubble.us it is free to us, however, to make something a group project or what not you have to pay. The bad news is, that I can only edit it :[

Let me know what you think? -Sam