History was a very dull subject in school for me that seemed to be all about the dates and other seemingly empty, meaningless facts, without any connections to anything “real” to me. As a grade-school student, I could not relate to it. For this reason, I had difficulty remembering the facts I was supposed to remember.
But stories and movies online can help students relate new information to existing information about life: Connect the "dots" between your child’s understanding of life and the information given, in order to create a new understanding and ability to remember information better. For example, in reading about Ancient Egypt, first watch one or more short videos that depict how people lived their daily lives in Ancient Egypt.
But stories and movies online can help students relate new information to existing information about life: Connect the "dots" between your child’s understanding of life and the information given, in order to create a new understanding and ability to remember information better. For example, in reading about Ancient Egypt, first watch one or more short videos that depict how people lived their daily lives in Ancient Egypt.
- Use short you-tube videos to add sounds, sights, people and color to written words
- Make observations together
- From observations, make a word web (a group activity, brainstorming words related to a central topic) before reading*
- Discuss the vocabulary ahead of time. If you can, link pictures to the vocabulary.
- Read, discuss more, revert back to video images and information
- Make another word web after reading
- Maybe watch the video again and see if you can find the things in your word web in the video.
- To really solidify new vocabulary, use it again in creative stories or sentences.
The "dots" of learning are words, sounds, pictures, places, people doing things that students can relate to, and things that look like things they have seen before. The connection of words to ideas is not direct. In true learning, these connections run through many or all of the other dots.
Another way to make history more real is have students use the information in their own creative ways:
- Create plays of what is happening in the story.
- Write a song
- Write historical fiction
- Have each student study one person from the times, and make a poster of that person with pictures and words for the hallway.
*The following website is a great place to find different kinds of graphic organizers to help make a word web: http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer
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