My fourth grade classes spent the last couple of weeks studying prehistoric cultures in our state as part of our social studies curriculum. To culminate the study, we hosted a guest speaker (a hobby archaeologist from our community) and took a field trip to our local Woodland Indian mound site (Old Stone Fort).
The day before our field trip, we walked and listened to the Native American Mound Builders podcast (4-#72). We also watched two short video clips, suggested in the list of supplemental videos for adopters. Students were excited to learn new facts from the podcast and solidify other knowledge we’d already discussed in class!
We had a great discussion following our walk. The students all remembered unique and surprising facts. Not only did the walk add to students’ background knowledge of the prehistoric mound builders, but it also got us ready for the 1.25 mile hike around the mound site! (We walk about 1.2 miles on a typical Walking Classroom walk, which is two laps around our school grounds. Perfect!)
As always, the podcasts present interesting and new information to students in a way that gets them very excited about learning. The students build up their walking (and listening!) stamina and feel very important as we walk around the school learning from the podcasts. Connecting the podcast topics to classroom learning is easy. The only hard part is choosing which podcasts to use, since we don’t have time for them all!
Kari Lawson
4th Grade Teacher
Westwood Elementary
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