Does you Anchor Hold?

One thing that could be very beneficial to students in any subject, especially social studies, is something called an anchor chart. An anchor chart is a chart that can hold specific facts, vocabulary words, definitions, or people's names, on a large piece of paper. When learning about social studies facts, it may be overwhelming for some children. Anchor charts help identify the important things the teacher wants the children to remember. For example, if a teacher read a story that was ten pages long, but she only wanted the children to remember the main character's, she could list those names on the anchor chart, that way children could refer back to it if they had a question.
One thing we did in our social studies class, was we had to pick a topic that had a lot of facts in it, and then make an anchor chart. Since my group didn't know a lot of the facts about the Boston Tea Party, we decided to research that. We looked up information in books, and on the internet, and then wrote down the concepts that we thought were important. Since the Tea Party happened in basically 5 parts, we decided to make our chart into a story board. Each section told a little story and displayed a picture, that way the children could read the text, and then visual learners could connect the text with the picture.

No one in my group had ever heard of an anchor chart before and we were so glad we were introduced to it because we will all use it in our future classrooms. Not only can it help the child learn the important parts of social studies, it can help them dig deep and find the information and learn something new. Anchor charts will also be beneficial because it is student work displayed around the classroom if they make their own charts.

Anchor charts are an essential part of the classroom. Below is a link to a blog posted by a teacher. She shows us how she used anchor charts to teacher her 5th and 6th graders about the Indians.

Anchor Charts in the Classroom!

Family Connections

Within the Social Studies realm of History, Geography, Civics and Government and Economics, there is also a place for relationships, family, and culture. Family holds a place in every one's life, whether it holds a good place or a bad place. The word family can incorporate culture, background, values, and the people that may or may not hold a special place in our lives. Family can also mean the word tradition. There are thousands of family traditions. Some people may have the same family traditions, and some people may have different traditions, but the most important thing is that when that tradition is happening, we are with family.
One thing my family likes to do is bake. Once a year we bake cookies for the local fire department, and all of the money raised goes to the fire department. There has been a cookie recipe in our family for a long time and it is called Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Banana Cookies. My grandma promises that these cookies are "healthy" cookies, but there sure is a lot of butter and chocolate chips to make them "healthy!"

Here is a picture of the cookies!

Family is something that is extremely important to me, and I would not be who I am today without my loving family. There may be students in my future classroom that do not have family, but that is where I as their teacher try to guide, direct, love, and support them in every way possible. By incorporating authentic resources into my classroom such as famous family recipes, then my students will be able to make more than surface connections.

Here is another picture of the cookies at the trade fair that we had at school!

Below is a blog created by a teacher. She uses different receipes throughout her blog, and she makes family connections, as well as how she incorporated the receipe into her classroom. This was a great blog to read, and the receipes sound really good too!

The teacher that cooks!