To finish off our time traveling unit, my second graders had to travel to modern Japan. I wanted to approach it in a way that would link to their world, so we focused on technology. I couldn’t find a good read-aloud about modern Japan, so instead I opened by sharing my single experience of flying … More Modern Japan – Everywhere You Look, Technology
Returning to our unit on time travel, we moved on from Ancient India to Ancient China, where we spent two one-hour sessions. The focus for the first lesson lesson was Chinese painting: 1.Chinese painting uses “echo lines” (my term) to reinforce visual flow, especially in landscapes. 2. The Chinese consider the empty space to be … More Time Travel, Cont’d: Chinese Painting and Proverbs.
Last week I explained how our Rivers game worked for exploring the impact of rivers on a developing civilization. The next thing we tackled in that unit was to introduce the kids to Hinduism, yoga, and meditation, all indigenous to Ancient India. We started with meditation. This was the first year I’d tried meditation in … More Time Traveling through Ancient India
Moving on in our time-traveling-in-ancient-civilizations unit, we made a stop at some major rivers in Asia. Never was a subject invented for second graders drier than the identification of rivers. Yawn. But the Core Curriculum encourages a look at some of the more major rivers in history, specifically for our purposes the Indus, Ganges, Yellow, … More Rivers and Catan
So last week, I wrote about how my second graders made passports to keep track of their time-traveling through ancient cultures. This week, I’d like to talk about how we tackled Ancient Greece. On the first day, after making the passports, we still had about 20 minutes, so we flew very briefly to Ancient Greece, read … More Ancient Greece 3 Ways – for Second Graders
I’m a lover of history. I love it so much I have a degree in it. But it can be hard to bring it down to a kid’s level without losing a lot, including the kid’s interest. This is a problem compounded by sometimes apparently arbitrary decisions by policy makers about what is grade-appropriate. Two … More Passports to History – Time Traveling in Second Grade
Meghan E. B. Lin 