Venn Diagrams and Time-lines

On Wednesday, we covered Venn-Diagrams and Time-lines.

Time-lines are obviously important in a history class, so it is important to me to know how to use them correctly - or most effectively. We read documents in the Revolutionary War packet, and used anther strategy. K and I used Questioning the Author. I did a little better with it on Wednesday, but I still don't like it. Anyway. After everyone was done with their reading, we made a time-line as a class putting the documents in order, as well as writing down details that could be important for the document. It really helped put them in context. I read all the documents, looked at the dates, thought about the dates and the sources, and it still helped me exponentially.

Now, I have images of worksheets dancing in my head, and projects, and class activities. All to do with time-lines. This is something that could be hung up in the classroom when the kids are done, and then they would wander over to it and see what it says and learn even more I think. Besides, I think it is sort of fun. I'm not sure if the kids would see it that way, since I like them anyway, but I think it would be fun for them. At least - as far as school goes : )

We also did Venn Diagrams which I HATED as a kid. I don't hate them so much anymore. We used the same documents to fill out the VD. On one side we did the British, and the other the Patriots. One fun thing we did with that was to put up all the different names of the British and the Patriots...Redcoats vs. Provincials...etc. It was cool to see all the different names up there, and I think that is something that the kids could enjoy too.

We talked about the three way VDs too, and I like those a lot. The one concern I have with all the VD is that I think the circles are hard to write in, and I often draw the middle too small. I'm thinking about trying to create a version of them where the shapes are squares or something so that there is more room for the students to write. I don't ever remember using them in history clsses, just science and occasionally English. I want to try them out with some students and see how well they respond to them in the history classroom. : )

On other notes....
I missed Monday and we went over cornell notes. I'm going to look them up and try them as I know I did them in HS but don't remember the entire process...and today (FRIDAY!!) we're going to the lab to start on our work there and I am stoked. I think it is going to be really fun! This class has so many things that are amazing about it and I feel so fortunate that I kind of found it by accident.