*Originally posted January 5, 2015* Part 1 can be found here: Little House on the Prairie Virtual Field Trip For this virtual field trip I grouped 4th and 5th grade together. Weeks 1 and 2 were spent introducing the concept of a virtual field trip and exploring one website together as a class. At this point, I felt that the students understood the purpose of our virtual field trip and could work independently. Weeks 3 and 4 were spent working and learning independently or in a small group. The kids really thrived in these weeks. I put together resources for these weeks, and they could also choose to go back to any of the resources we had previously explored as a class. They loved being able to choose what they wanted to learn about and what resources and technology they would use in their exploration. I gave each class a couple of guidelines: 1. You may choose any resource off of the 4th and 5th Grade list or in the 4th and 5th Grade Folder on the Ipad. You may not go to any other website. 2. You may work together in a SMALL group as long as you do not disrupt your classmates. Honestly, this went much better than I had hoped! : ) Even my most challenging classes stayed on task and enjoyed what they were learning. I'll definitely be using this again! Week 1: Monticello Monticello has a great interactive website. We briefly looked at the biography section and then moved on to the House and Gardens section of the website. The Monticello Explorer offers several different interactive tours of the house and gardens. Explore the Plantation gives a birds eye view of the property and helps to give the students an idea about the amount of land we are talking about and what the land was used for. Explore the House allows you to navigate through a 3D recreation of Monticello. There are also 3 Virtual Tours that have video of the actual house and gardens with narration of how each room and garden was used. A popular feature that was revisited during the 2 weeks of self guided learning was the House Builder. It allowed the students to build their own house making choices about building materials and giving reasons for each choice given such as cost, time to build, ect. Week 2: Mount Vernon This week was very similar to the 1st week. We explored the Mount Vernon website together as a class. It also has some great interactive features. The Virtual Tour allows you to explore each room of the house at your own pace. It has a photo of each room with information about the room, its furniture and purpose as well as stories about George Washington that might center around that room. The Mansion Room by Room Tour gives you the layout of the house by floor. It has pictures and a brief description of each room.
Week 3: Presidential Libraries I started this week by going over the guidelines for individual/small group learning. I had a folder on each ipad with bookmarks to each website and had a list of links on the library homepage for use on the computers. Some of the websites and virtual tours were not compatible with the Ipads so the desktop computers had to be used for those particular websites. The kids did a great job following directions and staying on task! John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Interactive Exhibits White House Diary: This exhibit allows you to look through the President's calendar that includes photos, videos, and/or audio of the events of that day. Virtual Museum Tour The President's Desk We Choose The Moon : This interactive exhibit allows you to follow along with the moon landing minute by minute with photos and audio. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum *I visited the Reagan Library and Museum several years ago when I visited Southern California and knew I wanted to include it in this unit. I showed the kids several pictures of my visit and they loved trying to find those same spots in the Virtual Tour and the Video Tour. Air Force One Pavilion: The Reagan Museum has the actual Air Force One that the Reagans used during their years in the White House. The kids loved this! Video Tour Oval Office Virtual Tour: When you click on the Google photo it allows you to use your arrow keys to navigate through the museum. This was very popular with the kids probably because it was similar to playing a game on the computer!
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AuthorI am an elementary educator in Birmingham, AL. I have previously taught preschool, kindergarten, and first grade. I now have the BEST job as an elementary school librarian or "The Library Lady" as I'm called by the kindergartners! Archives
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