Why Explore?

Our newest Social Studies unit is Explorers. I'm taking this one slow, as I haven't be able to find any standards to help me form and guide my unit, so I'm sort of playing it by ear.

I figured that we would start with why people went exploring. We created a foldable about the different reasons ( I got the idea from Stephanie at Teaching in Room 6...she has some great resources!).

The first thing we did was to create a map/brainstorm ideas on why people went exploring. They did pretty well with this...just a few hints!

Sorry about the computer screen, it was easier than trying to pull it up on the SMART Board

After we brainstormed, we made our foldable (which went into our SS Notebooks...something I'll definitely keep for next year!)

The last tab is blank...we'll fill it in another day, after we have learned a little more about explorers.

Tomorrow we are going to do Stephanie's old-timey map with monsters- talking about how they traveled and what they thought the world looked like.

The kids are also going to be working on a biography project about Explorers (in conjunction with the librarian). Each kid is going to become an 'expert' on one explorer and then present about their explorer (using a powerpoint). They will be doing research both in books and online, and then create their presentation. Good  practice for later (note-taking skills, bibliographies, etc.).

No outfit picture today...I left my camera at school (I was taking more pictures of stuff for you guys and left it by the computer)...I'll double up tomorrow :)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn