SOL Review

At our school we are in the thick of SOL review. We wrapped up the our last new content, The Renaissance, right before Spring Break. This has allowed me to give the students a release test (which I'll blog about soon) and then use another WHI teacher's notes to review.

On Friday, I wanted to shake things up. Overall, students have a difficult time with geography: blank maps, labeling places, identifying a place on a map stump my students. I brainstormed with a fellow 8th grade teacher and she gave me the idea of the students creating their own review. I identified six SOL strands and divided the students into six groups. Students were given paper, butcher paper, mini-dry erase boards, makers, and index cards to create a review lesson to present to the class.

Students work busily for about fifteen minutes and then present their lessons. They were to identify important land features, water feathers, and explain how the geography influenced the civilization.

I was pleased to see that students drew maps for each of their lessons. Drawing and creating are at the top of Bloom's taxonomy and hopefully the lesson they created will help them come SOL day on Thursday.

Happy Teaching!
C

Where in the world?

I was looking through the stash of book and other items in my class.  I came across some very nice maps.  Did I mention they were laminate too!?

The whole display

I was telling the students the other day that the name of the course is technically World History & Geography I.  What a great find!

After mulling over what to do with these lovely maps I decided to keep a record of the places we have studied.

I used some of my gold star stickers to show where the place is on the map.  I then used some cross-stitch floss to lead the space to the place label.

My plan is to change the color of the floss as the 9-weeks changes.

Happy Teaching!
C

The approximate places and their stars.