Donors Choose

I am really excited about this coming week in our classroom!  A few months ago, a teacher friend of mine in the eastern part of the state, told me that she had great success with a website called Donors Choose.  If you are not familiar with Donors Choose click here.  The site is a crowd sourcing site. The idea is a non-profit group (teachers, charities) writes a proposal, Donors Choose approves it and then people sponsor the request.  If you want to check my Donors Choose page you can click here to see it.

I had done executive lapbooks before Christmas (I'll take pictures and post that later) and they were a great success.  I wanted to do another lapbook but file folders, glue sticks, paper and scissors are expensive- especially for 90 students.  I decided to give Donors Choose a whirl and within three weeks my project was totally funded!  All I need to do is take pictures of the students working on lapbooks and send a thank you note.  I will get that done this week.

Here are the pictures of my newly arrived supplies.

I am also hoping we can do an Economics lapbook.  I'll have to start brainstorming on that one.  If you have any ideas I would love to know!

What exactly is a lapbook?

Are you asking yourself that?  A lapbook is a handy tool to put all of your chapter's foldables in one place.  Using a regular manila folder, folded in the window pane style (open up and take the outer edges to the middle and refold).  This is what the outside of a lapbook looks like.

Wait- what is a foldable?  A foldable is a method of teaching that uses the kinesthetic side of learning.  I use them in my classroom after the initial introduction (in my case I use column notes that I have devised...I put those up later).  Most of my foldables correlate to Virginia SOLS.  A colleague and friend of mine, Mrs. S., introduced me to foldables a few years ago.  She is a Dinah Zike certified instructor.  To learn more about Dinah Zike click here.

So, after my students have made their myriad of foldables (and I keep them in a file folder for each student.  Each student has a ziplock bag with their name on it and they put it in the correct period' folder.  I recommend that you do not let the students take their foldable home.) we spend part of a class putting the lapbook together.  I also give the students a rubric to glue on the back.  I like the rubric because the students know exactly what they need to do to get the desired grade and it makes grading very easy.  Additionally, I make a quiz for the students to take using their lapbook.

Happy Teaching!
Cori

Virginia Government Lapbook

Before Christmas Break I had my students make a lapbook about the Executive Branch.  Though they are 7th graders I think they enjoyed making the foldables.  So, this week-end I have put together a lapbook for Virginia Government.

I used the following Virginia SOL's: CE.7a, 7c, and 7d.  I will post pics and instructions for each foldable.

Happy Teaching!
Cori