5th Grade State Research

North American Geography is the 5th grade social studies curriculum in our county so they spend the entire year using maps and learning everything there is to know about the regions of the US including the states and capitals, historic events, landmarks, climate, geographic features, physical features, natural resources, etc.

In place of their grade level program they host a Wax Museum where each student does extensive research on a particular state. Then they develop a science board for their state, dress up like a famous figure of that state and write and memorize a speech. Last year they created podcasts (reading their speeches) and linked those to QR Codes. This year I hope to up the anit with the technology integration and have come up with a few ideas!

I just found Weebly and I love how user-friendly it is (I hope it isn't blocked at school)! I played around with a few other web design sites that were difficult to navigate and I got really frustrated so I knew they would be useless with students but Weebly is awesome! Check out the example site I created! If you are interested in a tutorial just let me know I would be happy to provide one in a future blog post!

VA State Example

If you haven't checked out Lino yet you can read my earlier post, it is a free Web 2.0 tool that is like a big pin board. You can post stickies, photos, links, documents and even videos. It is similar to Glogster but I find it much easier to use. I thought that it would be a different and more interactive way to show off the state!

Linoit Virginia Example

The last thing I want to do I saw an example of on SchoolTube but cannot seem to find it at the moment is have students create a commercial for their state using iMovie or maybe PhotoBooth! We will be getting 30 MacBook Airs in the next few weeks and I thought this would be a great intro project. Although I have a MacBook Air I need to learn more and what better way than to JUMP IN and get started on a project.