Happy Birthday Fenway!

I was lucky enough to end my April Vacation with a trip down to Boston to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the opening of Fenway Park! The celebration began by commemorating 100 years of history at Fenway Park with a large-scale pregame ceremony. The Red Sox played the New York Yankees, the same team (then the New York Highlanders) they played on April 20, 1912. Both teams wore 1912 throwback uniforms!

Part of the pre-game ceremonies included welcoming back and honoring former Red Sox players.  We just happened to be walking into Fenway as all of the players were getting off the busses and got some great photographs!  In the photos below are Pedro Martinez, Terry Francona, Mo Vaughn, and Nomar Garciaparra followed by a group shot of players from yesteryear!

It was so special, even for a person who isn't necessarily a die-hard baseball fan, to be a part of history.  All of these memorable players in one place was quite remarkable! There was even an attempt to set the Guinness Book of World Records record for the largest toast (with sparkling grape juice)!

 Anyone who is interested in the Red Sox history should check out this website.  

You can take a virtual tour of Fenway Park through the years and read about the history of the park, the city of Boston, and baseball!  The website also highlights members of the Red Sox Hall of Fame and offers an interactive tour of the Park with videos.

If you're in Boston, you can always take a guided tour of Fenway Park.

 The 100th Anniversary of Fenway was an amazing experience that I won't soon forget!

"Spring Sphere" Hunt

Before going away for April Vacation we concluded our unit on the Populist & Progressive movements by taking an exam:

With the last half hour of class I decided to have a little pre-vacation fun by hiding eggs all around the room for the students to find.

Of course, like most activities I plan, there was a twist!  Each egg contained a little prize as well as a U.S. History trivia question taken from all of our previous units of study:

The students had to correctly answer the question before they could keep their prize!  It was a fun way to relax, review, and kick off vacation!

HAPPY SPRING!

Family, Friends, Food, and Fun!

It finally happened!  Tonight we had close to 200 students and parents at Family History Night!  I wanted a meaningful and fun way for my students to showcase their immigration and family history projects (read about the project descriptor here) so I planned this fun and casual event.  In addition to presenting their projects in a museum-style format, students were asked to bring a dish made with a family recipe or that represented a part of their heritage.  We had LOTS of great food and it was a really fun event.  Check it out:

THANK YOU to everyone who attended!  Your support is very much appreciated!

Scrapbook Map

It's February Vacation!  Are you bored yet?  If so, I have a really great craft project for you!  Actually, credit for this project goes to Martha Stewart since I saw it on her website first, then made my own.  All you need is scrapbook paper, scissors, tape, glue, a frame, a printer, and a whole lot of patience to make your own unique piece of artwork!  It is a U.S. map using beautiful scrapbook papers...check out my finished project:

The full tutorial for this project can be found here.  If you make one, let me know and we can post pictures!  Happy vacation!

Monopoly & Lemonade

This week we did one of my favorite lessons of the year...one that I actually first created and used during my student teaching at Orono High School 8 years ago.  I always try to think of creative ways to engage my students in the topic we are discussing. Currently, we are learning about inventions, industrialization, and the rise of big business during the Gilded Age.  Some key concepts and vocab for this lesson involve...

-social Darwinism/ survival of the fittest
-laissez-faire capitalism
-monopoly
-trusts & corporations
-vertical & horizontal integration


The students were asked to do a background reading on these concepts and fill in a worksheet before coming to class.  To reinforce and engage the students in this topic we played this:

Yup...it's the classic game of real-estate adventures...Monopoly!  What better way to discuss the topic of monopolies then to play Monopoly?

The students get SOOO excited when they walk into the room and see these four board games set up at each group of desks!  Little do they know, there is a twist waiting for them...

At each group, I have placed 4 or 5 envelopes.  In each envelope there is a predetermined amount of money and property, representing different social classes in society.  The envelopes are placed face down before the students come to class and they say "Do Not Touch" so they  won't know what is in their envelope when choosing a seat.  When told to do so, they open their envelopes and find out whether they are a 'captain of industry', part of the middle class, or on the low end of the totem pole...

I have them play the game for about 15 minutes, just long enough to either amass more wealth or lose so much that they either forfeit or have to take out a personal loan from another player.  Playing the game in this fashion acts as a spring board for a great discussion about social class, survival of the fittest, luck and pluck, what it takes to be successful in business, and, of course, monopolies. Here are a few of the discussion questions after the game (click on the picture to enlarge):

Here are a few more pictures of the students playing the game:

To finish the lesson I also have the class create a fictitious lemonade stand...

We discuss various strategies that one would need to use to make their business profitable.  This leads into my explanation of how Andrew Carnegie used the strategy of vertical integration to dominate the steel industry and how John Rockefeller used horizontal integration to dominate (and create a monopoly of) the oil industry.  This is a fun and practical way to explain these somewhat complicated ideas in a friendly and relatable manner.  

As a side note, here is a really tasty and simple lemonade recipe!  My Period H class had fun making it... they were my last class before February vacation and thus they got to actually make the lemonade so that the lemons didn't go to waste!

Chat Time!

As part of our new unit on the Gilded Age and Progressive Eras, we just started watching the film Gangs of New York.  Instead of pausing the film every time I want to point something out or every time a student has a question, I create a private chatroom at TodaysMeet.com.

TodaysMeet is a really cool (and free) resource for teachers and presenters who want to encourage a backchannel chat amongst their students or audience.  Backchanneling allows conversations to go on while something is being presented.  In this case, we watch the film while having an online conversation.  I can also print out a transcript of our conversation to give to the students as notes.  How cool is that?  Most students seem to really like this activity because it takes something they love to do (chat online) and allows them to do it with a purpose!  This type of 21st Century activity would not be possible if it weren't for the 1-to-1 laptop initiative, so I am very thankful for that!  Check it out in action:

I'd also like to give a shout out to Mr. Richard Byrnes, whose blog I follow to get lots of cool ideas on how to integrate technology in my classroom.

Civil War Speed Dating

Today we did a quick warm-up activity that allowed the students to share some of the more interesting information they learned from researching their Civil War papers.  We lined up a row of desks, each facing one another, then I rang a bell and the students shared information about their paper with their partner.  After a minute or two, I rang the bell and one side of the pair had to switch to a new partner, speed dating style!  Check out a little clip from the activity:

Holiday Break

We are now officially on holiday break!  The class before break, however, we took an exam for the first half of class then we made American flag ornaments...my gift to the students!  Here is a video of our little craft session:

Oregon Trail Simulation

This week we are finishing up a unit on westward expansion.  As part of one homework assignment, I had the students read an excerpt from the journal of Amelia Stewart Knight, a mother of 7 who gave birth to her eighth child while traveling west on the Oregon Trail. You can read this excerpt by clicking on the link (you may have to click on it twice) here.   Primary source documents such as this one are a really great way to get students interested in the topics we are studying.  Instead of just reading facts about settlers going west in the 1800s, they can read the experiences from a first-hand perspective, which is always more interesting!  

After the readings, we did an Oregon Trail simulation as a warm-up activity in class.  The class was divided into two 'wagon trains', each with a mother, father, wagon hands, and lots of children.  I told the students to bring 'western wear' to get in the spirit of the activity!

Before class, I used string to mark the Oregon Trail on the classroom map of the US.  Each of the two teams had a marker on the map to show where their wagon train was on the trail.  The object of the game was to get further along than the other wagon trail, with the most survivors and supplies, while getting through the 'obstacles' I threw at them along the way.

I printed up 18 slips of paper, each with a real obstacle or success that pioneers faced along the way in the 1800s.  Each team took turns picking slips of paper and then, based on what the paper said, they moved up or back on the trail, lost a family member or supplies, etc.

The twist was that I had taken several excerpts from the primary source journal mentioned above and printed them on the slips of paper.  If the student could tell me whether or not what I had read was in the journal, they could move up on the trail.  This was a great way to see if they had in fact done their homework and comprehended what they read!  Here are a few more pictures of the wagon trains:

YEE HAW!