Making Connections

Brain Connections

School is tough on children! Elementary school students today have a lot to deal with. Standardized testing has taken over the curriculum and trying to make the material presented in the classroom interesting for children can be challenging. One way to enhance a student’s understanding and make the learning more interesting is helping children make connections.

Connections are just what the word sounds like. It’s drawing that imaginary wire in the brain from what the child already knows to what he needs to know. When a child has something in their brain to connect new learning to the odds that the new learning is going to stick is great.

How can connections be made? More importantly how can meaningful connections be made? Books, Videos, Computer, SmartBoard and the old fashioned pencil and paper, when combined make lessons that give children a strong foundation for learning.

It’s quite easy to choose any topic and branch out in all directions to reach every child where they are. Let’s start with snow. This is something all children can relate to right now. From here there are hundreds of lessons that an instructor can build to cover math, science, social studies, writing and of course reading.

Let’s start with the Dear America Book: The Winter of the Red Snow. After reading the book show the video, which is available through United Streaming Video. It’s called “The Winter of Red Snow: The Revolutionary War Story of Abigail Jane Stewart: Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 1777.”

To continue the unit on the Revolutionary War and cover other areas of the curriculum as well allow the children to make a PowerPoint or other type of slide show. This involves understanding the time period, research, art, and computer literacy. The children can then present their slide shows to the class when they are done.

If computer availability doesn’t make the slide show an option then posters and dioramas are a terrific ways to get hands-on visual learners involved in the learning process. Shoe boxes, box lids, lunch trays, all make great bases for the dioramas. Clay is a great building material. Allow the kids to use their imagination. Doing the project in school keeps the design more child friendly and allows the children to collaborate and communicate.

For more ideas on teaching about the Revolutionary War and connecting it to the curriculum, these sites are invaluable:

http://www.scholastic.com/dearamerica/parentteacher/guides/dearamerica/redsnowfs.htm

Add a virtual field trip or webquest to take the unit to a new level.

http://www.thwt.org/virtualtours.htm

If you’d like your student to write their own book on the Revolutionary War as a compilation for the unit http://www.biguniverse.com has a Create a Book section that rivals all of those currently available and once the book is complete it can be published to the Internet.

Happy Connections!