What was life like in Spain?!?!

Today our teachers were teaching to our students about life in Spain!  They first started by establishing rules for the classroom and explaining a game that they were going to be playing with the students, Captains vs. Explorers.  This game was a way to manage the students' behavior throughout the lesson and also the noise level in the classroom.  The teachers gave each of the students their own explorer folders and inside the folders were all of the papers that the students would need throughout the lesson.  This was a really good idea so that way the teachers did not have to take time out of the lesson and pass out the different papers.  Throughout the lesson, the teachers had different ways to get the students engaged and involved in the lesson.  They played and ask the expert game where the teacher would ask questions and the students would stand up if they agree with the statement or sit down if they disagree.  There were also times for the students to turn and talk with their groups.  Whenever a key term would appear on the board the students would do a "firework motion", this kept the students focused on the lesson.  This lesson was very engaging for the students and they really seemed to enjoy learning about life in New Spain!

Once the teachers had finished teaching the students all about life in New Spain it was time for the students to apply what they learned from the previous lesson into the next lesson.  For their inquiry lesson, the teachers had the students search in the corners of the room for gold.  Each of the students had a different role within the group, which helped to keep the students on task and engaged in the activity.  At each of the different stops the students would have to answer questions as a group about how they would use the gold in their society.  At the end of the activity the class regrouped and each of the groups shared how they would use the gold in their society for each of the questions.  After the students shared with the class they had one final task which was to write a story about themselves and how well they worked in their groups.

For their last lesson, the teachers kept the students in the groups that they were in for the previous lesson.  In this lesson the students would have to would have to work together to create a presentation.  Each of the different groups had a different topic and created a different kind of presentation and it was kept a secret until the end!  The students each were assigned roles in their group, which was a big part of this lesson because each of the students was responsible for a certain part of the work.  Once the students finished their projects they presented them to the rest of the class and after each of the students had to grade themselves on how well they worked in their groups.  Self-evaluation is a big part of cooperative learning so it was good that the teachers had the students evaluate themselves at the end.