History on Tap

Sarah and I hope everyone has an enjoyable and relaxing break!  See you all in January!

Time for another giveaway, this time geared towards 4th grade.  Sarah and I are giving away a pack of (brightly) colored paper, which is perfect for foldables.  (500 sheets, 5 colors.)  AND whoever wins the contest can also schedule a lesson for their class to be taught by Sarah and Lisa. 

So, the first person to leave us a comment on this post wins the paper and lesson.  Good luck!

I picked up a lot of great information at the state conference this past weekend.  Sarah and I also shared the resources on the blog with teachers from across the state and they were very excited about the resources we have in Portsmouth.

I’m going to try something new here~I’d like to share some of the things I picked up during the conference.  So, the first person to leave me a comment on this post will receive a History Alive sample lesson on Manifest Destiny.  The sample lesson includes everything you need to complete the activity.  The graphic organizers, student worksheets, pages from the text, everything!  So, leave me a comment and I’ll put it in the pony to you.  Manifest Destiny is really covered in 6th grade, so if you’re not a 6th grade teacher please either pass the word along, or share the book if you’re the winner.

Thanks to everyone who came out to our session at the VCSS Conference on Friday.  Sarah and I enjoyed presenting to you, and we hope that you got something useful out of it!  You guys were a great group. 

I’m sorry I had to rush at the end when I was discussing the blog.  (We didn’t want to keep you over our time.)  So a few things I’d like to mention~

• In addition to the games, foldables and powerpoints, you’ll find unit reviews, vocabulary cards, note taking pages, and graphic organizers.  But again, Sarah and I do things a little differently, so please don’t expect the exact same thing for every SOL. 
• All of the information in the activities came straight from the curriculum guide.  While additional material may be taught during class about an SOL, we only included the tested information in the activities. 
• Feel free to leave comments or e-mail us if you have a question.  I just want you to know that the person you e-mail or leave a comment for may not be who replies to you.  For example, I deal mostly with the USII and USI information, so if you send me an e-mail asking about Civics, you’ll probably get a reply from Sarah.  We split subjects to make it easier on ourselves. 

Thanks again for attending our presentation!  Have a great year!

Just wanted to make you aware of a change to the blog.  I have tagged all the posts on the blog to try to make them as organized as possible and easily accessible.  If you click on a tag on the right sidebar then it will bring up all the posts that have that tag.  The most frequently used tags are larger in size.  (Check out “summer institutes” for example.)

So if you’re looking for something specific, just click that tag.  I hope this makes things more organized for you!

I hope everyone is having a good first week!  I’ve made a few changes to the blog I wanted to make you aware of.  The most important one is that all of the resources on the different pages should now open up in new windows.  I’ve tried to make the blog as user friendly as possible, and I hope this helps.  If by chance I missed one and it does not open up in a new window please e-mail me or leave me a comment and I’ll fix it ASAP.

I’ve added a few activities for USII and CE, as well as powerpoints for USI.  Sarah and I haven’t forgotten third and fourth grade, we’re working on it!

School is almost over!  Next Friday will be here before you know it.

 Thanks to everyone who took time this week to help with VGLA grading.  It’s a huge responsibility, but I think we did a great job in getting it done.

Once I come back to work in August, I’ll be updating/adding to the blog, especially the 4th and 8th grade pages.  When you sit down to work on lesson plans for next year, don’t forget to check them out.

I’ll also be posting pictures and entries about Korea.  (I leave in 3 weeks!)  I’ll probably create a page for Korea, so if you’re interested in reading about what I got to do and checking out some pictures, look for that page in July.

Working with Portsmouth’s TRT’s, I have decided to re-do my blog.  I’ll add all the powerpoints, notes, and information from my previous blog, so don’t worry.  It might take a little time, but I’ll get it done!

If you need to access that information before I’ve transferred everything over, you can access the old blog here:

http://teachhistory.edublogs.org