Wednesday, January 31, 2007
States Debate
One of our Social Studies' benchmarks is locating/identifying the 50 states. While teaching this over the course of a few years, I have often wondered about the "usefulness" of this skill. What are the thoughts out there? Is it important for kids to know the location of the 50 states given a blank map, or is it more important for them to know where to look to find the answers?
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I never learned where the 50 states were as a kid. I knew North Carolina because I did my 5th grade report on it. Now,after teaching the 50 states and having visited many of them, I feel it's one of the most important things a 5th grader learns. It is so neat to be able to read a book with them and have them identify what part of the U.S. we are discussing. It also makes the U.S. seem real, rather than this map that we pull down every once and a while.
Hopefully these kids will get the chance to travel all over our beautiful nation and think, I know exactly where I am, where I've been, and where I'm going. Save the maps for finding Interstate 50!
I even take it one step farther and have them learn all the capitals as well! They love it! I think the key is to continue reviewing them year to year~unfortunately this rarely happens.
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