ISM Spotlight – Experiencing History

This year I am the luckiest teacher in the world. I get to teach at the best school ever – International School of Morocco, with some of the best, most creative, teachers ever. Each time I walk into someone else’s classroom, I get inspired and we just seem to spiral great teaching ideas off of each other. It’s a wonderful place to teach, and since we are all collaborating, it’s a wonderful place for our kids to learn – a teacher’s dream, right? I have tried and tried to convince the other teachers to create blogs of their own to spotlight and share some of their amazing ideas, but everyone is super busy. Instead, they have each agreed to let me spotlight some of their ideas right here on Raki’s Rad Resources. So, each Friday night, I will be posting an ISM Spotlight.

This year, there are three new teachers at ISM.  I’m taking some time to introduce you to them.  We’ve already met Courtney Nassar, our Year 1/ Year 2 teacher and Ixchell Tolentino, our Reception teacher (4 Year old Pre-K).  This week, I get to introduce you to my partner in crime – Elizabeth Johnson.  Officially, Elizabeth teaches our Year 5 and Year 6 students.  However, she and I have teamed up this year so that she also does all of the writing and social studies for her students and mine; while I do all the math and science for both groups.  We’ve only been working together for a few months, but it’s great to have such a wonderful teammate!

In Social Studies this trimester, Mrs. Johnson is guiding the students through their own country studies.  In order to help them get ready to study a country of their choosing, she has first guided them through learning about the United Kingdom.  She has taught them about the culture, the geography, the government, and the history.  Her two weeks on history truly inspired her kids, so I thought I would share some of what she did here.

First, she shared key events of British history with the students, starting with 6000 BC/BCE.  The students added their most memorable events to timelines in order help them remember the events that meant the most to them.

Then, she let them get hands-on with history by playing some of the coolest games that she found on the BBC History for Kids website.  The students got to pretend that they were Viking Raiders and Norman Soldiers.

   

Finally, she had the kids write using all of their new information.  One of our students wrote this cool storybird about the Celtic Childhood.

 

Come back next week to see what else has been going on at the International School of Morocco!