Connected Learning

What does being a connected learner mean?

In our classroom, we learn a lot!!  We enjoy learning, and we make learning fun!  One way we do that is by being a "connected learner".  This is a broad term that means we connect things we learn in certain subjects to other subjects.  We don't just put what we learn in Math into our Math brain box, we connect it to what we are learning in Science or Language Arts.  Also, you can find something that you are passionate about, research it and then share it with the class.  Here is an article with a little more info on it: Click here for an article on Connected Learning
Here is an example of a video that some students made to promote reading.  You can make a commercial like this, too, and share it with your classmates on a subject that interests you.  Some examples are: your favorite animal, your favorite book, a hobby you have, interview a family member about a past milestone, etc. You can post it on here and see what people have to say about it!

When we learn in our classroom, we will connect our new knowledge to everything we can think of that relates to it: our lives today, history, how we would recreate it, and on and on!  The sky is the limit!!! Let the learning begin!

Teachable Moments

As a parent, I have a different experience as a college student than some.  This past weekend, we were sitting down to our gourmet dinner of pizza (some college stereotypes still apply!) when my oldest daughter started talking about the book they are reading in school, "The Diary of Anne Frank".  My daughter is very tender hearted, so naturally, this book has really made an impact on her.  She was talking about how awful it was for them, and how scary it was.  My younger two children had no clue what she was talking about, so she gave them a brief run down.  I filled in a couple of gaps by saying that Hitler was the leader of Germany and had decided that he was going to restore Germany to power by eliminating all of the people that he felt got in the way of that.  We had a lengthy discussion about what that meant: the death camps and the concentration camps, the soldiers invasions of countries to separate families and destroy people.  I told them that Hitler was responsible for over six million deaths, which brought me to the movie Paperclips that we had watched in class. 
After talking about how awful it would have been to live there during that time, I said again that Hitler talked an entire country into believing his way was correct.  I told my kids that he didn't just wake up one day and say, "I think I am going to kill some Jews today", and I asked them how they thought this happened.  My kids always amaze me.  My son (who is 7) said, "I think he had like the bad person on one shoulder and the good on the other, and he listened to the bad person", my daughter, age 10, said that he wanted to be popular and loved so he made a plan.  My 13 year old said, "Maybe he was bullied as a kid".  Those are some great answers.  I pointed out that one seed of bitterness or hatred in his heart bloomed and grew into a hatred that changed the whole world.  The entire world was brought into a war because of one seed of hate.  We talked about how important it is to guard your heart, to make sure that any bitterness, anger, hatred, or rage is dealt with in a good way, so that we don't allow it to grow.  My 13 year old is learning a lot about WWII, and she is connecting some things my grandpa told her when he was alive. Yes, she is making text to text connections, text to self, and text to world, but, she is learning a lot more than that.  As a parent, I always look for those teachable moments with my kids.  As a teacher, we need to, too.

Connecting to the Past

This is a picture of my grandpa and me.  I was very blessed to have all eight of my great-grandparents alive when I was born.  All four of my grandparents were alive until last March, when this grandpa passed away.  I still see my remaining three grandparents very often.  I have a very close relationship to them.  My children have a close relationship to them.  I realize how very blessed I am to have them in our lives.  We have a five generation picture on my piano.  I realize now how uncommon this is.  I am a "reflector" as I like to call it.  My sweet husband says "over-analyzer", I think "reflector" sounds better.  I have loved history for a long time.  As I reflected back upon my school years (did I also mention I have a really good memory....my husband is SOOOOO lucky!) I realized that history to me wasn't a bunch of random facts that happened to somebody a long time ago.  It was real.  It was real because I had "sources" I could ask about so many of these events from years ago.  The Civil War....went to my great-grandpa (who died at the ripe old age of 102 three years ago, and who I inherited my good memory from) and asked him about it.  Turns out his grandpa was  prisoner of war in the Civil War.  The Depression.....ALL of my grandparents had a story about that.  World War II.....more stories than I could write down (which I did write down as many as possible) from my grandpa who served as Chief in the Navy during WWII and Korea.  The boring stats in the book came to life as I heard these personal accounts from my wonderful grandparents.  Now, as I prepare to become a teacher and hear that History is a "least favorite subject" of so many (to my shock and horror!), I make plans to change that.  The more of a connection you have to history, the more real it becomes.  While I didn't experience many of these events I feel like I did, because I heard the stories from people who were there; who lived it, saw it, felt it.  And someday, I will tell my class (and kids and grandkids) about all of those stories and my own recollection of 9/11, and the recession we survived while unemployed, and all of history that is yet to be written, and it will come alive to them.

What's in YOUR lunchbox?

     We've all been there.  You open up the lunch box and stare at something that turns your grumbling stomach.  Faced with starving to death before 3:00 when you get home, you weigh your options.  Choke it down, or trade with a classmate.  Trade it is.  Now you must capitalize on your persuasive speech, fine tune your salesman technique, and seek out the most willing "victim".  The barter and trading begin.  With skills and signals like a New York stock exchanger, you emerge victorious with the package of Oreos, while the trader goes away with the revolting stomach turner.  Your trash, his treasure.  Desperate times, desperate measures. 
     Our trade fair wasn't quite as "vital" as our previous trades in life have been, but it was a lot more fun.  I came home with a Coach purse, an item I was pretty sure I would NEVER have in my entire life and that probably cost more than anything else in my closet.  It cost me a Longaberger pie plate.  A fair trade?  That's all in the eyes of the beholder.  How much did Ashley value the pie plate?  How much did she value the purse?  What will each of these be worth in the future?
     The trade fair was a fun way to recreate an event that was a way of life for our ancestors.  What was I going to do when I saw that purse and wanted it, but all I had was a pie plate?  How could I make it more appealing to get what I wanted?  What would I have done hundreds of years ago if that was medicine for one of my kids and didn't have what the owner wanted as a trade?  These are questions that came up, and became real, when participating in the fair.  You could relate, even if on a small level, to what it was like.  To me, that is the key to making history a fun subject: relating it to life now, caputring the wonder of words in a book coming to life years ago, and realizing that what we are living is history to our grandchildren.

Paperclips
We watched the movie "Paperclips" a few weeks ago in class.  I don't think I will ever look at one the same again.  To see the number of lives lost because of their beliefs was so heartbreaking.  How anyone could be so cruel and full of hatred is beyond me.  I really don't know how that can happen to a person, and how that person got so many people to follow him.  The whole thing is unsettling and disturbing.  However, as time goes on, and distance is put between the generations that experienced World War II and "the next generation", it seems there is a numbing effect to the harshness of these actions. We are too far removed from the event to feel the effects of it. That's why projects such as "Paperclips" are so important.  It brings history to the present, a face to the horror, a feeling to the words, and life lessons to the people involved.  I hope to do projects that are just as meaningful as this one in my own classroom someday.  I think making connections to the present and future are one way you can make history come alive to the students.