Independence Day + Close Reading

I have been motivated by my patriotic spirit....I am so incredibly blessed to be part of this fabulous nation, and weekends like this remind me of all of the great things that our country has to offer.

One of the most difficult things I am finding with all of our new initiatives is being able to find time to teach social studies and science.  Many people are okay with pushing them aside in favor of more reading time, and while I am a huge proponent of reading, I also believe that we need to expose our students to necessary background information in the content areas. 

I think what I have created will help in a couple of ways.  It will allow me to incorporate more exposure to history and geography while also exposing students to more reading of nonfiction.  In addition, the hope would be that kids will begin to pick up on key words in the text to help them solve the question.

What I am attaching is a sampler of what I made for my class.  It is an activity called "What's My Name?"  I will display it in my room by revealing a clue each day of the week and offering students the chance to guess who/what they think it is.  I have seen commercial versions of things like this before, but I think they typically are just people.  In my version, I am also including cities and landmarks.

Feel free to use if you wish.  It is nothing fancy, but it is good information.  I learned some new things preparing these pages.    I hope you and your students enjoy!



Click on the flag for the link to the What's My Name Sampler