October 1, 2022 · current events
Our first joint Halloween costume - a double high five! Our 5th graders were amused. Rebecca Nagle reminded me that it was suddenly fall and a perfect time to share resources and reminders for the upcoming holidays. Her tweet thread explains it beautifully and shares helpful resources. Our blog posts below share different strategies and ideas for addressing Columbus Day (Indigenous Peoples Day), Halloween, and Thanksgiving in the classroom. We taught these lessons with elementary school students (3rd or 5th grade), but they can easily be adapted for older learners. Columbus Day (Indigenous Peoples Day): October 12th Unfortunately, Columbus Day is still a federal holiday, although more and more communities have voted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead. We facilitated Columbus Day Debates with our students one year and led a Holiday Inquiry: Columbus Day another year. If you
holidaysinvestigationColumbuThanksHalloween
November 2, 2016 · Uncategorized
Hallo again! (see what we did there ? Nina says this wasn’t my finest). Yours truly were there , and they're ( their was also a costume but is not pictured). Of course we can all have a reminder about homophones on Halloween! It was just recently Halloween in 5th grade and we wanted to share one of our favorite parts of prepping for the holiday. In 5th grade since we are constantly examining systems and institutions, we examine many holidays throughout the year and Halloween is no exception! Halloween is a jackpot for discussing stereotypes, cultural appropriation, gender norms, “trends” and media. In short, we LOVE it as a way to inspire even more social justice conversations. We do an investigation into Halloween in which students are broken into four groups: “boys" costumes, "girls" costumes, cultural/international costumes, and "women’s" costumes. We have either found appropriate
social justice educationsocinvestigationholidays
May 5, 2016 · Uncategorized
In our classroom we have a Social Studies unit focused on Virginia's (and Maryland's) Indigenous people. This unit developed after we noticed that our students had no idea about the people, cultures, and communities that have been on this land for thousands of years. One part of this unit that we are just getting into is an investigation about the one and only Pocahontas. She is from a tribe in the Virginia area, called the Pamunkey (part of the Powhatan Confederacy) and thus is very relevant. She also was a source of great interest to our students-- so we went with it! Investigations are a great way to get students (or anyone!) invested in a conversation, and gives the space for everyone to get some more background information before taking on a heavier or more dynamic conversation. Our Pocahontas Investigation was structured by having small groups (3-4 students) doing what is
Native American studiesIndigenous peoplesinvestigationPocahontas