Inspiring Travel in the Classroom

Before, I’ve written about the importance of geography in the social studies classroom. So far this school year I’ve seem to put a higher emphasis on traveling. Here are a few ways how I’ve done that.

1.       What Time Is It?

the middle clock's batteries are dying so it's time is not in line with the others

On my classroom wall I have a poster from Junior Scholastic Magazine called “What Time Is It?” I then got six inexpensive clocks and hung them around the poster all showing a different time zone. My students like to go over and find where the places are or try to figure out what time it is in another place. I love the questions I hear them ask one another. “So, the people in Japan right now are going to sleep?” “Is Australia already in tomorrow?”

     2.       Where’s Waldo?

This I’ve written about in a previous post about finding the teacher, but this year I’m implementing it with a more student-centered attitude.  To get my students started and provide an example, I wrote a description and included a picture of a location I had been and posted it on our Google Classroom site. Then I gave the students one week to guess where I was. The first to do so correctly wins a homework pass and to “hide” next.  All the students who guess correctly get a piece of candy. To help make it more challenging, if the student who “hides” does not get guessed, then that student receives another homework pass, a piece of candy, and to hide again if they’d like!

This was the first one I wrote to start off my classes.
Can you figure out the answer?

This is one of my student's hiding place.
Not all the entries went off my example this closely,
but this student stumped a lot of her classmates.
Can you find this 6th grader?

The goal of this activity is to have students honing their map skills, learning about new places, and getting to describe their own adventures to their classmates. This activity is optional and works as a great lesson extender. (The students in my classes have their own laptops or Chromebooks so they can easily access it.) Then on the large classroom map (mine is a shower curtain from Target) I plan on posting arrows with where everyone has hidden after the week is up. That way the students from other classes can see where their friends have been. So far, this activity has been a hit!

     3.       Passports

I never keep up with the bathroom sign out list, or who goes where when, it’s simply something I don’t prioritize. So I thought to myself, what can I do so I can see easily which students leave my room without having to analyze a sign-out sheet? A passport! I came up with a document that students keep in their notebooks with “stamps.” The student writes where and when they are going and then I actually stamp the paper. Each student gets nine “stamps” per nine weeks. This helps me see who habitually leaves the classroom and helps the students see how often they are leaving class. I was worried this would become a more of nuisance than a help, but once the habit was formed it goes really smoothly! I like this as a method to monitor the students and it encourages conversations of who has a passport, who’s never even seen one, who went where, etc.

I believe we are all students, no matter what stage of life we are at currently. I also believe that traveling helps open up our minds to new ways of life and news level of education. I suppose this is my way as a social studies teacher to “do” in order to learn. All I want for my students is to have a passion to continue learning throughout their lives, whether it be through travel or other means.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” -Benjamin Franklin

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Confucius