Learning about America's Regions

Students are working on the following objectives for social studies and science.

• The student will use geographic research to gather and process information to interpret, solve problems, and construct maps.
• The student will name and locate specific regions, states, capitals, river systems and mountain ranges in the US based on historical and current topics.
• Describe and analyze the physical and human characteristics of the region.

Students reviewed latitude and longitude before starting the research!

Students will be constructing a map including the following:

On the USA map independently complete the following in pencil first.

	Checklist
	Outline the states in your region.
	Label the state names in your region.
	Label the city names in your region and identify with a STAR.
	Include the most important river system in your region. (Consult a map or atlas) Draw it in the region and label it.
	Include any mountain ranges, using the appropriate symbol and label.
	Create a key to the map in the lower corner and be sure to consult a map or atlas to represent it correctly.
	Identify and label the following on your map after you consult a map or atlas: Great Lakes Mississippi River Missouri River Pacific Ocean Atlantic Ocean Gulf of Mexico Rocky Mountains Appalachian Mountains Great Plains Mojave Desert Grand Canyon Glaciers in the United States

1920's and 1930's Learning!

Students learn about the Dust Bowl and its devastating effects on the geography and economics of the time.

Students learn about immigration through Angel Island and explore what a "Paper Son" is.  We used this awesome book to learn more!

Learning about the Great Depression with this picture book. Students learn content-specific vocabulary while following "Rudy" travel by train across the United States. 

Students are watching mini video clips learning about some important people and ideas post WWI:

Students read two articles from NewsELA that addresses the economics of life during the 1920s. It was considered the time of "buy now, pay later". With the introduction of the washing machine, the vacuum, and the refrigerator housework was lessened and free time increased.

Taking our Notes and Making our Presentation on Colonists

Last week, students spent time researching information about the colonists. Students used their textbook, primary sources, video, and trade books.

Students took notes and are now ready to collaborate to build their presentation. Each group member is responsible for contributing to a slide in the presentation. Our lesson for today was how we need to put "highlights" on the slide so that the text is not overwhelming. Students also were introduced to the "speaker's notes" where they can add additional information to help them when they present.

You can see there are six students working on this presentation at the same time. 

Students will be presenting their portion of the presentation while the rest of the class is taking notes. This will be their first attempt at taking notes while a speaker is presenting. In other words, they have to summarize the information they hear and write down the important parts. A valuable skill to have!

World War II Picture Book Club Study

Using the following books, students "multiple accounts of the same event" while comparing and contrasting the points of view.   This was a compliment to our work in Social Studies. We had a guest speaker, video clips, picture books and many conversations about this time period in US history.

Students read the book and identified important details, what they learned and what further questions they had.  Students collected thoughts on a google slides template.  Here is an example of what a slide looked like:

Some student examples:

On Friday, I read aloud this book, The Whispering Town. It is a perfect compliment for students to connect what they have read from the week, and from our work with the Underground Railroad and the book Sophia's War by Avi. Students connected events from the American Revolutionary War, the Civil War era, and World War II.  

Students summarized big ideas that we had learned and explored over the past two weeks by contributing a Hashtag.  The idea was to keep the language short but would be informative to the time period.

Be sure to ask your student what resonated with them. What did they learn? What is going on in today's world that reminds you of this time period?

Finishing up Social Study notes