Fifth Grade AIM Update
@norton_AIM
Very productive day in AIM!
Today we started the day discussing a major exhibit project that we will be doing for the rest of the year. This is a combo research, writing and building project! Today they picked a general Civil War topic and then went about finding scholarly articles about that topic. I required them to print out each article and THEN read each one (with a highlighter) to try and narrow down their exhibit topic (moving away from the "What" to "Why" in their projects. In the upcoming weeks we will look for patterns and organize their research into 3 subtopics, write a thesis, etc., find primary and secondary sources to support their writing and FINALLY build an interactive display. It's a challenging project but I have spread out the deadlines and have broken things into weekly goals so it will be a great learning opportunity for all.
During our research time we also filmed another battle newscast while another group was editing on the computer so I hope to have all of them completed in the next couple of weeks!
We also started our Civil War Simulation which is always a class favorite! They were randomly put into teams, selected their role (farmer, tradesmen, factory worker etc.,) and determined which regiment they will be representing. Their first challenge was to find their flag and print it out quickly. They also rolled the dice to find out what kind of provisions they will have and more. This will be a fun activity that we will do each week for the last 40 minutes or so...