[Mrs.T92207]

I am student teaching for 4th grade. I really need ideas on teaching PA history and making it engaging and fun. I will be teaching William Penn and Colonial PA. I'm not concerned about the content, I'm just concerned about how to make this interesting for the kids. Any ideas? A brochure won't work because the kids are doing one right now for their PA regions projects. I only have 30 minutes a day to teach them and this is a 2 week unit. (I need 10-11 days of lessons). I just did a flip chart for PA regions so I'd rather not do that again. I was thinking of doing something with a journal but I have no idea where to go with this. I don't think they would do well with a webquest because they are fairly needy. Any ideas on how to make this engaging?

[CAtchr]

I am putting together a social studies unit on the Ca gold rush, here are a couple things that seems to be fun for the kids depending on what you have access to in your rooms:

1. field trip online- take them somewhere significant to PA's history many of the museums etc have great online tours and allow them to work in groups of two with worksheets on what to look for.

2. give the students copies of primary documents and in groups lets them find things and piece together history.

3.what about splitting the class in 2 groups and having one be the colonists and one the Indians... have them research and teach each other the different views of history

4. Could they create a colony of their own? journal the creation and compare it to William Penn and his experiences

Not sure if any of these would work for you but stuff we have worked on in classes