Second round of Socratic Seminar

After our successful and passionate discussion about the branches of government (who knew?!), we tried out another seminar.  The reason why these can be so powerful is that there is no right or wrong answer! What it does do is to let the children have some time to think and reflect about what they are saying- and sometimes even get a little change of heart.  That's just what happened in this seminar.
    For this seminar we posted four provocation statements around the room.  I left them up for the week prior so the children had some time to think about them and reflect on which spoke to them.
They were:
Everyone's opinion counts.
The government is not responsible for everyone.
It's okay for some people to be very rich-they must have worked very hard.
The ones who make the rules are the most important people.

Funnily enough there were 30 children who felt that the most true statement was "Everyone's opinion counts." and only two that felt "The government is not responsible for everyone."  So instead of starting with why you chose such and such.  I simply started with one that was not chosen and asked them why no one chose that- is it not also true?  That was it folks- the rest was a 30 minutes (no kidding) discussion as to what is true and why they felt that way.  I had a few change their minds at the end and we did some reflecting later about how what we believe influences the way we view the role of government.  Ahhh-mazing!!!!

A Socratic Seminar x 2

     You know those moments when you think later- "dang why didn't I grab my camera?!" Yep- it was one of those days.  We have been studying the branches of government so we had a little Socratic seminar to discuss our opinions on the branches of government.  What I love about the Socratic method is that there is no right answer- the children all get really involved and take on their own learning.
     After watching and discussing our videos shared in the last post- I broke them into groups to research each branch of government and highlight five important facts of each branch.  We then gathered in a giant circle and I threw out the question, "Which branch of government is the most important?"  Wow, that sparked some serious discussion!!! It was awesome and I can guarantee that they all gained a deeper learning into what they branches of government were about and the true meaning of checks and balances.  
    If you haven't tried this method yet, I highly suggest it. It gets children talking and justifying their thinking with reason and evidence.  We have used it in the content area as well as in literature discussion groups.  You can find more information about it on Read Write Think.

Building Knowledge of Democracy

The first step to understanding our government was to help them understand the power of checks and balances.  I showed them a prezi (one of my favorite presentation tools) that took them through the branches.  You can view it here.

Then flocabulary as a great little rap that definitely got them going- to this day some of the sing the parts to help them remember the different aspects of each branch.

Overall they are getting more and more invested in learning about their government.  Maybe, hopefully I am helping create a generation of informed voters who really understand how our system works. 

How We Organize Ourselves

We've begun yet another unit of inquiry for our IB studies.  This is another social studies based unit- we are exploring through investigating government systems.  We launched the unit by having the kids think about what it means to be a global citizen verses a citizen of the United States. Our ultimate goal is for the kids to realize that we are not the only type of government that is in the world- many countries  are ran in different ways good or bad.  Despite our differences in government, our country also has to work others on global matters.
Now how do we make this accessible and relevant to children who are 9 & 10 years old?

Now, as you can see they don't have a lot of background knowledge- especially when it comes to a global citizen.  So we have a lot of work to do!! 

December Currently

November Currently

So let's break it down.

Listening: We are doing our Tune Up Tuesday today. This is where I find a song that generally fits with the year's theme of being proud of who you are. So today it is Katy Perry's Roar. They are going to be excited!

Loving: Chris Van Allsburg- who doesn't? He is an amazing author that has helped my guide my class in questioning and thinking through the text.  Such a great mentor author.

Thinking: I can... I can not really think too much more about them or my head my actually spin around. Have you seen the Exorcist? That's pretty much my take on it right now.  Ugh!

Wanting: I really need to rearrange my room. I currently have about 10 bookshelves housing well over 2000 books, which is great and all...but with 32 children there is little room left for us. And, we need to spread out!!

Needing: I need a day to actually work in my room and prep and plan and do all the stuff that is expected of teachers.  The last thing I want to do is it to take it all home- I'd like to see my family a little bit.

A Yummy Pin:  This soup is amazing. It was 1 degree when I woke up today!! 1 degree!!!!

Leaders in Time of Conflict

So keeping with our Unit of Inquiry we really needed to begin looking at leaders so we can examine how they responded in time of conflict and ways they expressed themselves.  I wanted the students to examine both sides of the Civil Rights Movement and make comparisons on what each contributed to the movement, good or bad.  So I composed a list of supporters and opponents and had the children choose one from each side. They were then to research a bit about each person, telling me what they did and how the two were connected . The students organized their thinking in a Venn Diagram.

This was a big eye-opener for some of my children because they just could not fathom how someone would think in such a "backward" way.