This past week was Spring Break, and I could not think of two better sounding words in the English language. A week off was awesome, and was just long enough that I was excited to come back, versus the dread you sometimes feel after a short three day weekend.
Besides mooning over spring break, I did want to share an activity that I did right before the break, reviewing some history figures that my great state has determined children need to know about.My dilemna during my “postWWII culture” unit was that the state required my students to know about Ray kroc, the original franchiser of McDonalds, and not topics that I thought were more valuable, like say – Watergate, Iranian Hostage Crisis, Women’s Liberation Movement, etc.
My solution was to shove Mr. Kroc and some other less than stellar historical characters picked by the State standards to exist in a homework assignment/game, so that I could spend more time on topics I thought were more important. I’m attaching two different versions of the assignment, differentiated for different levels, and the review game we used on the due date. (I gave the kids 4 or 5 days to do this)The review game is a history-fied version of my all-time favorite board game – Taboo. Simply divide the class into boys v. girls, and have them play “taboo” projecting the names on to a white board that only the groups can see. Flipping back and forth between boys and girls, give each team 30 seconds to get their representative (who is turned so they can’t see the projector) to say the name. The catch is that in each level, it gets harder, with an increase in words they can’t say – just like the real taboo! My template is incredibly simple, but the idea can be recreated to span any unit in history. It gets a bit loud – but the kids definitely loved it!
My Supplies:
1. The “harder” version I used for the Gifted and Talented classes…this one requires access to a computer at home, so I gave enough time for the assignment so they could work at school if necessary.gt-persons-of-interest.doc
2. The “easier” version I gave to my gen-ed kids, less challenging BUT it focuses on the more difficult information…academic-guess-who.doc
3. The PowerPoint game we played during class on the day it was due…VERY simple outline, but easily edited!taboo.ppt