Social Studies Alive! America's Past

Over the summer, Mr. Lyons and I wrote a proposal to bring our new Social Studies program, Social Studies Alive! America's Past, to Pine Glen.  This is the 5th grade continuation of the Social Studies program students used in 4th grade.  There were many reasons the Grade 5 team advocated for and eventually were granted permission to conduct a pilot at Pine Glen, including a more accessible text, more interactive materials and kinesthetic activities.

There is an incredible amount of work that goes on "behind the scenes" to bring this curriculum to life.  Many hours were put in over the past few weeks to prepare for lessons, create materials, and set up the scenarios in which the students participate.

Hands fly up to answer questions during a game.

If I ever wonder if it is worth the long nights of copying, cutting, creating visuals and other prep work, I simply have to recall our experience in class this past Wednesday.  Students had scoured maps and texts to come up with questions to stump each other the previous week.  On Wednesday, they played a game to test their geography knowledge and skills.  It was amazing to watch as they adapted the game to overcome obstacles (they instituted a time limit for answering to prevent hands from going up prematurely), supported each other in finding answers, and poured over maps to find answers.

In the end, I realized that they had taken control of their own learning and the best thing I could do was to step back and let them go!  The prep work to set the stage paid off immensely and our students were on their way to becoming life-long learners.