I once did a lesson on George Washington for fourth graders, so I will discuss the sequence of skills necessary for ultimate mastery of the content. In terms of constructivism, they should be exploring and discovering information about him for themselves.
First I would ask them if they knew anything about George Washington. I would include vocabulary and new signs into this step. After making sure they know that he was the first president of the united states, I would ask them why he is important to history, and why we should learn about him in school. Then I would give each of the students a sheet with information about him on it, and they will share with the class what they learned about George Washington. After this activity, I would ask the students to write down what their favorite thing about George Washington is.
I think this activity is good for the group, since they have to pay attention to learn trivia about the first president. Below, I just found a little site that has information about GW.
http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/trivia93.html
I think your ideas are good, but this is more of a cognitive lesson than a constructivist. You might want them to research and build their knowledge base about George Washington before you have them represent, so maybe no handing them a sheet but having them read books or do something else.
ReplyDeleteThese are good ideas for teaching about George Washington. It maybe would be helpful to break down these activities or have them on different days so that they would not lose interest in the topic.
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