Taking a "close" look at WW1

Hello from Room 506!  Today I thought I would share with you the work my students are doing in Social Studies . We are studying the key events of the 20th century and tying it with our Common Core Unit of life lessons that we can learn from revolutionaries of the past.  One of our big focuses in this unit has been "point of view."

We started our study with a general overview of WW1.  Our state standards just require 4th graders to know the basics so I didn't plan on going too deep, however, my boys had other plans!  I should have known that boys and "war" would be a hot topic.  Their vast background knowledge really amazed me!  We ended up taking a small "detour" from my original plans and did some research on trench warfare and what life was like for the soldiers in the trenches.  I quickly realized that an independent learning project was going to be necessary or we might be study WW1 until May! :)  The boys decided that they would start working on documentaries over an aspect of the war.  They will be using the iMovie app and will submit these documentaries in a nationwide contest.

Since the boys were already very knowledgeable about the war, I decided to go at it from a different angle.  Last week I had the opportunity to hear a great presentation over argumentative writing and its role in the new Common Core State Standards. The presenter really pushed teaching your content through the controversies.  After some research (even teachers still learn!), I found that African Americans fighting in the war was somewhat of a hot topic since they did not yet have equal rights back home in America.

I also found a great song (http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/howyagonna.htm) that illustrated this point.  We did a close read of the lyrics after listening to the song.  The boys did a WONDERFUL job at really digging in to the deeper meaning of the song and even did some foreshadowing of the implications in the later Civil Rights movement!  This fit in perfectly with our reading focus of how different our point of views can be. Yay for connections! 

Thank you for stopping by Room 506!  I hope to update later this week with how we have been bringing "Angry Birds" into math!