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AnonymousAn interactive site on Japan explores the Meiji Restoration.
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Meiji/english/html/menu.html
Six hosts introduce students to a variety of themes.
Students can explore emporers, samurai, religions, and politics. Another theme explores the arts including ceramics and the tea ceremony and another theme the wedding ceremony. Students can learn about the Japanese wars with Russia and China, the diet, politics, the Ginza, industry. The illustrations are two dimensional. The text is short and to the point. The interactiveness will keep students interested since they can always return to the menu and select another topic.
AnonymousAnother site to explore is The Virtual Museum of Japanese Arts sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is well organized and easy to maneuver. It is an introduction to the traditional arts of Japan that will interest students. Most of the information is presented with minimal text accompanying pictures, but there are several short videos included.
http://web-japan.org/museum/menu.html
The Architecture and Gardens section was most interesting after our visit to the Huntington Gardens in May. There are four gardens for viewing, including a temple garden from 1339 and a 17th century palace garden outside Kyoto.
The Todaiji Temple houses the central Buddha (completed in 752 CE) and several newer buildings are on the same grounds. The pictures offer a fine study of temple architecture.
The Performing Arts section provides beautiful pictures of sets and costumed actors in Kabuki, Noh and Bunraku Puppet Theater. Enlarging the picture brings out the masks' details and the composition of the sets.
Pastimes include flower arranging, calligraphy (which includes the First Works of Calligraphy of the New Year), the tea ceremony and bonsai (of special interest since our trip to the Huntington Gardens).
There are also interesting sctions on martial arts (judo, sumo, karate and aikido), Ninja, Tanka and Haiku, and four festivals of Japan.
If you have a Quick-Time player plug-in, you can watch movies of Japanese festivals and martial arts.
This accessible site offers a lot of information that students can get into quickly and easily. Assigning topics to groups of students and having them report out to the class will be easy and interesting.
AnonymousI like to use some of the short animated movies on brainpop. This website has many short movies on a variety of subjects. At the end of each short movie is a quiz. You can either print the quiz ahead of time or have the students take the quiz on the computer. China themed mini movies include the great wall, communism. The students enjoy watching the movies and quizzes are not very difficult.
AnonymousI'd love some feedback....
I designed my curriculum unit (an assignment for the East Asian Seminar) for grade six history, and I decided to focus on The Silk Road. I wish I had more hours in the day! Maybe I would have checked this thread and found some of the ideas and websites listed here faster than I did! And, if I had more hours in a day, I would have also tried to incorporate more video clips, art, and other media into my lessons. Two examples that I have already found are "The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan", a CD with a collection of traditional music from the countries along the Silk Road; and clips from the movie "Warriors of Heaven and Earth", which has fantastic shots of desert, rocky terrain, mountains, and forest, and is supposed to take place on the Silk Road during the Tang dynasty in China. Alas, I can only do some much with the time alloted by the moving of the planet, so I had to stop somewhere and hand in a "completed" unit....but as with most lessons and ideas in the classroom, this plan will forever be evolving, and I will forever be in search of things to add!
So, with that being said, I will post the brief introduction PowerPoint I created to spark interest in my sixth graders, and I will post the 5-day mini unit and project on my next reply. This Intro PowerPoint is supposed to be very basic and leave questions unanswered, because the next step of the mini unit is a research project that will require the students to do research for more details about it. (See below and my next reply for more details!)
If anyone is interested in the other materials and handouts and I don't end up posting them here on my own, please reply to this thread and I will post them.
Quick overview of the project: Students will work in small groups to research detailed answers to one question about the Silk Road (What it was, Where it was, What was traded, What the impact was, etc.). The small group will write, then record themselves reading, a mini-report about their topic. They will select images to show more about their topics and put their recorded mini-reports on the slides. The end result will be a class PowerPoint presentation about the Silk Road (putting all the group slides together) that has audio (the recorded mini-reports) and visual (the selected images).
AnonymousThis the the Silk Road Mini-Unit I designed (See my last post). If anyone is interested in the other materials and handouts and I don't end up posting them here on my own, please reply to this thread and I will post them.
Quick overview of the project: Students will work in small groups to research detailed answers to one question about the Silk Road (What it was, Where it was, What was traded, What the impact was, etc.). The small group will write, then record themselves reading, a mini-report about their topic. They will select images to show more about their topics and put their recorded mini-reports on the slides. The end result will be a class PowerPoint presentation about the Silk Road (putting all the group slides together) that has audio (the recorded mini-reports) and visual (the selected images).
I would love any feedback![Edit by="aharris on Jul 26, 12:24:20 PM"]I am not sure why the file didn't get attached...I'll try again! (Tough to get any feedback on a file that's not here!)[/Edit]
AnonymousMy Silk Road Mini-Unit..... (let's try this again!)
AnonymousI have read "Ties That Bind, Tie That Break" several times for my own enjoyment. I was hoping to use the Library Grant Money to get a set for the History Department, but that didn't work out, but the book is great, you will have shortly that picture that Clayton showed us of a women foot that was bound, what a great resource to go with the book. I think it is a wonderful book and it is so appropriate for 7 & 8th. graders. Its an easy read while being enjoyable. Keep using it, I know kids would love it, in fact it was a student who turned me on to the book, Enjoy!
AnonymousPuzzlemaker is a free online resource that allows you to choose from 10 different puzzles wordsearch, criss cross and hidden message just to name a few. I like to create puzzles as a review for keys terms. My middle school students never get tired of puzzles.
AnonymousI am attaching the unit I wrote for the seminar requirements. There are a couple of minor issues I would like to update but generally I am pleased with it.
This is a mini-project that I have yet to teach, but I am attaching all of the necessary materials for you to take a look at. Once I begin the unit and teach the mini-lesson I will update and edit this post with information regarding what I would fix and change. Isn't that always the case??
OK technological difficulties...
I could not attach the document so here is the rationale. Check back later for the full unit.
Overall Unit Explanation and Rationale:
Within the school year I teach nine units of study. One of the units is the Asian Civilizations, as promoted and directed through the California State Standards. This unit of study takes three full weeks of instructional days. At my school an instructional day consists of forty-six minutes. Generally, in my class, units are set-up to provide time for preview, guided instruction, independent practice and then review and assessment. Three weeks allows me one day to introduce the units with a unit study guide and check for prior knowledge about the topics presented. I then make sure that there is one day on the backend for assessment and then another for review of the unit. That leaves me with twelve instructional days to teach actual content and go into mini-projects.
The text we use for the class:
Spielvogel, Jackson J. World History: Modern Times. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.
I will spend three days on each lesson of the chapter. The focus of this mini-lesson
curriculum project will be the Mongol Ascendancy and Marco Polo. Before I teach this unit my students will have showed a concrete understanding of the previous two lessons: (1) Reunifying China and (2) Advances Under the Tang and Song. The third lesson the book presents is, The Mongol Empire. This is going to be the section of text the students will be required to have read before we start the mini-project.
The students will also have knowledge of how to read primary documents, summarize information, and hold a debate. In the mini-project, the students will be reading about the Mongol Empire and Marco Polo. They will then have to research two sides to the historical debate about whether or not Marco Polo actually traveled to China via the silk roads. The students will have half a day to receive directions, two days for research and preparation of the debate, and half a day to engage in the debate.
[Edit by="llogan on Jul 29, 4:12:13 PM"][/Edit]
AnonymousAn important article for middle level educators...
I came across yet another SPICE article from their digest that I thought would be of great interest to us middle level teachers out there. This article is written way above the readability of our students but could make a really supportive enrichment reading for ourselves. The article discusses the arts found along the Silk Road. Art is so hands on and full or expression and opportunity. What a unique way to educate about the Silk Road! We do not have to use spices and silks, but of the arts and we can incorporate making art and trading it with different classes of periods to model the methods of exchange practiced in the networks of trade.
AnonymousI would like to recommend a good resource for 6th grade teachers. It’s a resource book for Ancient China that includes 8 color overhead transparencies. The author is Maria Backus if you want to check it out.
AnonymousPowerPoint in history
The majority of students enjoy using computers. Although access to a computer for each student is difficult, I try to schedule computer time at least three times per semester. Once students learn how to create PowerPoint Presentations they get really interested in creating presentations. To save time students create the Presentation as a group. Each one is assigned a topic. The geography of China for example.
Each student is responsible for least three slides on their topic. They plan and layout their slides ahead of time so they don’t run out of time.
AnonymousSeveral people have mentioned History Alive. Can someone please post the address? I found something but I'm not sure if it's the same one they are talking about.
AnonymousThe Samurai's Tale By Erik Christian Haugaard is a great book to read with the class while teaching about Japan in the middle ages. It takes place during the transitional period of the Ashikaga and Tokugawa. Most of my students really loved this book. Some had trouble pronouncing some of the Japanese places and names, as did myself. However, with a little practice the pronunciations can be achieved. Other than the Japanese words the rest of the book is not to difficult and the plot is exciting and easy to follow. There are great examples of the blending of Buddhism and Shintoism in the book. Since a few of the characters really lived it also teaches a little about the real history as well (still historical fiction though). The author spent a year in Japan consulting professors and descendants before writing the book. The code of Bushido is clearly shown and the students get a good feel for how samurai really lived. I used the book to help supplement what they were already learning from the text and just added a few questions about the novel on the unit test.
AnonymousAcano, I am a little confused I would like to check this book out, but what is the name? Ancient China?????????