Comments on: How can we improve this lesson? Need your help by Monday!

By: Beverly Keegan

Beverly Keegan — Sat, 22 May 2010 12:50:22 +0000

We use “buddies” with our 1st graders. Whenever we have something like this, I enlist helpers from our 6th grade to help out. The 6th graders love this, and during the month of May and June, the 6th grade teachers are more than happy to “lease” their students to me.

An older student could act as scribe on chart paper for a small group of first graders. I’d also give each group an object (maybe an Egyptian object a model of a cartouche necklace?). You aren’t allowed to share your idea unless you are holding the cartouche. That will help the 6th grade leader to avoid chaos within their own group. Hope this helps!

By: Susan E

Susan E — Fri, 21 May 2010 20:12:29 +0000

How about different colored post-it notes!

By: Lydia Schultz

Lydia Schultz — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:39:36 +0000

You could give each child in the group a very specific job. For example, one person can note details, one could ask questions, one could try to answer questions, and one could be the scribe. Then, you could either mix up the groups or change the jobs.

By making everyone have a particular job, you can cut down on the competitive stuff that goes on. And by switching jobs, everyone gets to try out the different roles.

By: Donna Bills

Donna Bills — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:33:06 +0000

My suggestion would be to enlarge the sheet into a poster and let the students add their ideas with Post-it notes It sounds like a great unit. Best of luck.

By: Amy B.

Amy B. — Fri, 21 May 2010 01:31:50 +0000

I would start the project as individual work, with maybe their observations in their own “archeologist’s notebook”. When they are done recording, they share their observations first within their group and then each group reports out their answers to the other groups. To help the other groups stay engaged as another group is reporting, have the students put a check mark next to any of their own individual observations that are the same or are similar to the ones being reported out…hope that makes sense!