Artifacts Bag

 

 

 In class we were assigned to make our own artifact bags that related a topic to using the BizMovie production lessons. I chose to do my unit plan based on a children's book called The Lotus Seed. This book could be used for a unit plan because it can be incorporate into each subject and can especially used through BizMovie. In my artifact bag I had a bunch of pictures:

1.       Picture of Emperor

a.       It is a picture of Nguyen Vinh Thuy, also known as Bao Dai, he was the last emperor of Vietnam before France conquered it and made it into a colony. Bao Dai remained a symbol of the Vietnamese heritage and performed traditional ceremonies, but held no real power, until 1945. In 1945 Bao Dai handed the throne over to the Ho Chi Minh who was in charge of the “leaders of independence movement”.

2.       French flag with an arrow pointing to Vietnamese flag

a.       In the last 1800’s France conquered Vietnam and turned it into a colony. France exploited the land and people.

3.       Sail boat and American flag

a.       Vietnam turned to turmoil once France conquered their land. Once they were able to win a war for the land back, the south and north started a civil war. The United States was there to support and help the southerners, and about one million Vietnamese fled their country by boats to come to America for safety and a new life.

4.       Two army men, a bomb, and a catapult

a.       These pictures represent the wars that were happening in Vietnam from the late 1800’s until 1975.

5.       Lotus Flower

a.       The lotus flower is a popular flower that blooms in Vietnam. The lotus flower is what ties the history of Vietnam to the book that the unit plan is based off of. 

  I think these artifacts would really help to tie into the lesson because these are the main aspects on the story. This lesson would tie into BizMovie by students having to create a movie based  off of the artifacts and the book presented to them. I think students would really enjoy this because they could use all the different movie making programs and act things out themselves. They would also get to see how each group viewed the history aspect of it. 

  I think the artifact bags are a good way to start a lesson because it intrigues kids. They never know what you're going to pull out of the bag next and it really grabs their attention. Then the fun also comes afterwards when they have to try and figure out what each artifact could possible represent. I definitely look forward to using it in my class in the future. 

Time to Study History!

In class today we broke into our groups and chose an Indian Tribe to research. The point of this lesson is to perform the Jigsaw Method, which is having the students teach their peers about different topics. So Dr. Smirnova chose Indian Tribes and had each person in our group choose a tribe to research.

We broke off into our tribal groups and researched the tribes together. I worked with Kathryn and Marissa. We chose to do the jigsaw method within our group as well. We each took two subjects to research and then we shared the information with each other via Google Docs. My mini group has the Dine Tribe, which is also know as the Navajo People. I'm excited to see how presenting it to our groups goes tomorrow. I'm eager to learn about the other tribes that my peers have. I'm also really interested in seeing how the Jigsaw Method works. I remember Dr. Smirnova telling us at the beginning of class a couple weeks ago that students retain 95% more information when taught by their fellow peers, so tomorrow I'll get to see whether that is true or not!