#mysteryskype prep activities

Students generally have a difficult time conceptualizing how the U.S. is divided into states (let alone where those states actually are) and how states are divided into counties. Playing Mystery Skype can be daunting for students who are unfamiliar with U.S. geography. Concepts such as regions, compass directions, and states physical relationships can sometimes confuse them. I found it necessary...

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#mysteryskype interactive maps with mapchart.net

One of the necessary tasks when doing Mystery Skypes is to track which states your class hooks up with. In my classroom I put up a poster size map of the United States and strung little papers to each state we had Skyped with. Students referred to it often to determine what states we might still be Skyping with. The problem with the poster was that it took time to update and could only be seen while...

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#mysteryskype recording book

Last school year I made it my goal to have my 4th graders Mystery Skype with all 50 states. We first Mystery Skyped the second week of school. Our last Mystery Skype was the second to last week of school. Unfortunately time and curriculum got in the way and we were not able to reach all 50. We did Skype with 21 different states and a few states multiple times. Here's a map of the states we made friends...

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In search of best practices to teach coding to elementary students

image from The Scheme Team For the 2017-2018 school year I will be working at Marzano Academy at Heard Elementary School. Marzano Academy is a brand new magnet school in the Clark County School District focusing on coding. While my official title is Humanities teacher, my focus will be teaching coding to the students in grades 1-5. The first tasks I was given was to develop a scope and sequence...

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