Having had a great chance to interact with such a great class, I was able to help them put together a work of narrative pantomime that I hope to get the video for soon! I apologize for the delay!
The video will speak for itself, but each student was assigned to a civilization like the Mayans or Aztecs or to a specific explorer. We had Monday class (12/1/14) to rehearse, and Wednesday (12/3/15) the students put it up. I narrated the action starting with the first people in the Americas and passing on down to the Norse Explorers who temporarily invaded Greenland but were pushed out. Then time passed and Spain became a nation united under Isabella and Ferdinand. Due to this expansion and much fighting between Portugal and Spain, many explorers sailed the world looking for new passages and new lands. Eventually, England joined the fray along with France and Italy. The results were life changing for everyone within the sound of my blog.
The students did a great job and had a chance to reflect on their work and what social studies means to them. I am incredibly grateful to Lindsey Pettibone for her feedback and the chance to work with her students. They're a wonderful class!
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Visit 7 11/25
Often, we don't have words to adequately describe the things that happen, or have happened. This is especially true when attempting to keep a historical record of the things that have happened. Many of the most important people who have lived historically didn't think of themselves as remarkable historical figures that people would be certain to remember for generations to come. So occasionally, we have to simply draw on other information to give us clues to what we're seeing!
In drama we call the work of storytelling without words Pantomime. I began class with a very sore throat and had to have a volunteer read for me what I needed to say from a power point because I didn't have a voice. They read through a series of instructions that enabled the students to understand that we were going to play a game involving a magic box. Inside this box, each student would reach in and pull out an object. The objects could be big, small, animate or not, but they had to interact silently with it until other students could guess what it was. We went around the circle with each student pulling out a variety of things from food, to animals, to books, games, more magic boxes, and so forth!
When the students finished, I finally spoke. My voice was weak, but I could talk a little. I indicated to the students that artifacts we find are often indicators of what the explorers may have done. I asked the students to think for a moment about the explorer that they had been assigned to be. Where had they come from? What were they famous for? What did they do? Then we played the magic box game again and enabled the students to pull things out pertaining to their specific historical figures. Some of these were really difficult, and others were a little more simple, but it caused the students to ask some great questions about what was happening with their explorers, and what they may have had.
There's no visit Thursday due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.
In drama we call the work of storytelling without words Pantomime. I began class with a very sore throat and had to have a volunteer read for me what I needed to say from a power point because I didn't have a voice. They read through a series of instructions that enabled the students to understand that we were going to play a game involving a magic box. Inside this box, each student would reach in and pull out an object. The objects could be big, small, animate or not, but they had to interact silently with it until other students could guess what it was. We went around the circle with each student pulling out a variety of things from food, to animals, to books, games, more magic boxes, and so forth!
When the students finished, I finally spoke. My voice was weak, but I could talk a little. I indicated to the students that artifacts we find are often indicators of what the explorers may have done. I asked the students to think for a moment about the explorer that they had been assigned to be. Where had they come from? What were they famous for? What did they do? Then we played the magic box game again and enabled the students to pull things out pertaining to their specific historical figures. Some of these were really difficult, and others were a little more simple, but it caused the students to ask some great questions about what was happening with their explorers, and what they may have had.
There's no visit Thursday due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.
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