Concept #4 - Location

The Big Idea with Location is Location affects the economy, culture, and development of a society.

By now, students should know how to find absolute location using latitude and longitude coordinates, and relative location by describing what a location is near.  We will one these skills throughout the year.

We also discussed a little about how practice and repetition is how our brain learns best, and that the brain does not really choose to learn new things, but rather wants to use our memory to apply old things to new situations.  [NOTE: Yes, we did discuss this kind of cognitive science, based on Daniel Willngham's book, Why Don't Students Like School.  Most of my classes enjoy the conversation of this topic.]

We watched the video below to begin class, and will use it as a reference point throughout the year.  Practice until new things become automatic...like tying your shoe or saying the ABCs.  Directed practice in basic knowledge gives all of us the necessary background to apply our thoughts (memory) to new, complex concepts we will meet this year.

So let's learn to "skip rope" like the girls from King's Firecrackers.

Do you think we can do Social Studies as well as these girl's jump rope?  I do!

Posted via email from rrmurry's posterous