Newly Retired Elementary School Teacher

I am a newly retired elementary school teacher, eager to consult with teachers to help them integrate global education with literacy, keeping in mind the core standards. In 2009, I won the Social Studies Teacher of the Year from the National Council of Social Studies. I have developed curriculum for elementary students from Ghana, China, Japan, Hopiland, India, and Kenya. I have also developed an economics unit for Ghana and a Civics unit for India. Creating meaningful curriculum, (with a heavy emphasis on geography at the introduction), for diverse groups of students has always been my top priority. I have worked with Primary Source, a non-profit global organization, to develop workshops for teachers.

Replies

Genevieve November 7, 2011 at 11:54pm

Hello, I teach first and second grade at an international school in Taiwan. We are beginning a geography unit of countries around the world. We are currently focusing on Asia, but we will cover all continents over the course of the year. I have a small, but diverse group of students and although they are only 6 and 7, they are quite enthusiastic learners. We are going to be starting a collaboration project with the middle school students of our school next week. The partnered students will choose a country, research information about it and choose how they will share what they have learned about their country with the rest of the students. They will also need to incorporate an activity about or from their country that everyone can participate it... (sing a song, teach a dance, we all cook a meal, create a craft, etc. whatever they choose.) If you have any resource suggestions or information recommendations that would help our students with this project, or even other project ideas, I would love to hear them! Thanks so much.
- Marcy Ann Prager > Genevieve November 8, 2011 at 1:30am
  
  Hi Genevieve,
  
  There are so many wonderful interactive geography games my students loved to play!
  
  Look at the second grade social studies links for geography games that I put on the school website I used to teach at:
  
  http://driscoll.brookline.k12.ma.us/content/second-grade-links
  
  Here are some geography sites that you can look at:
  
  These maps may be printed and copied for personal or classroom use:
  
  http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/
  
  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/
  
  http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm
  
  This site is all about China, geography and every aspect of culture:
  
  http://www.kidskonnect.com/content/view/307/27/
  
  A kid-friendly multicultural site:
  
  http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/cquest/
  
  You-Tube has amazing songs about geography that my kids loved to watch and sing.
  
  This is only one example:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP0YyyzY4Yg&list=FLNSWdDbWHNHu2A...
  
  I love the fact that you are pairing up with older kids! I developed a continent unit. Groups of students had a continent of choice and in flexible reading groups, they read non-fiction books and atlases about their continent to find factual information, landmarks, what people can do in that continent, etc. Each group made a BIG Map of the Continent from an overhead projector and pasted their "facts" and pictures. All 7 continents were hanging out in the hall with riddles the kids wrote about their continents.
  
  From there, we studied countries in the continents.
  
  Good luck with the unit!
  
  Best,
  
  Marcy Prager
  - Genevieve > Marcy Ann Prager November 14, 2011 at 11:26pm
    
    I'm so sorry Marcy... Last week got away from me way too quickly. I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you so much for this amazing list of resources. I really appreciate all your help and suggestions. Looking forward to how this project goes! Have a great week.
    
    Genevieve
Co-Chair

Lucy Gray July 31, 2011 at 8:16pm

Hi Marcy Ann -

Welcome to the GEC! I hope you'll consider volunteering at our online conference in November. There's a group here for interested people: http://globaleducation.ning.com/group/2011globaleducationconference....

Please let me know if you have any questions,

Lucy Gray