April & May 2009 Volume 1 , Issue 7

GADOE Elementary Social Studies News

Welcome to our last newsletter for the school year! Now that the stress of testing has passed, we hope you are enjoying your end-of-the-year festivities with your students. (Field Day is the one we miss the most, we think.)

Here at the DOE, we have also been working on many different end-of-the-year projects. Many of you have probably noticed the new look of GeorgiaStandards.Org. As you plan for next school year, we encourage you to use the curriculum maps, unit frameworks, videos, and other resources available on that site to design your GPS-based instruction. In addition, we hope to add more activities, tasks, and helpful hints to the units over the summer, as well as content background documents, giving you additional resources for planning.

Notes from Marlo & Sarah

Junior Achievement of Georgia Junior Achievement of Georgia offers two free financial literacy programs for Georgia elementary school teachers: a six-lesson program, JA More than Money, and a one-lesson program as part of its $ave USA initiative, Get Moving. Both were created in response to the growing need to enhance financial literacy education in the U.S. In communities where JA is still growing its reach, teachers can recruit their own volunteers from among their families or friends. JA programs are also a great way to engage business partners who are looking to have a more meaningful impact on the students in their communities. For more information on either program, contact your nearest JA office and state in which county your school is located.

Contents

Notes from M & S 1

Junior Achievement 1

Teacher Feature 2

How to Submit 2

As this school year comes to a close, we invite you to congratulate yourselves on completing GPS rollout for all content areas! Think about how far we have come, and how much has changed since the ELA rollout started in 2004. Now that we have at least a year of teaching all the GPS under our belts, we have the opportunity to really dig into the standards and start making connections across content areas.

Finally, you may notice that this newsletter is quite a bit shorter than normal. In order to make amends for that, we sent two additional attachments with the newsletter email that we hope will make you happy, and that we think will make your lives just a bit easier. Have a GREAT and RELAXING summer. We’ll see you in the Fall!!

JA of Georgia has seven offices to serve the state: *Atlanta (entire Metro area) – 404.257.1932 *Augusta – 706.736.3070 *Columbus (mid & southwest Georgia, also serves Macon) – 706.568.1407 *Gainesville (northeast Georgia) – 770.297.1222 *Dalton (northwest Georgia) – 706.278.9180 *Savannah (mid and southeast Georgia) – 912.790.7822 *Greensboro (Greene, Putnam & Morgan Counties) – 706.467.3918 You can also contact Rebecca Stoll (rstoll@georgia.ja.org) or visit the Junior Achievement website, www.georgia.ja.org, to learn more.

Marlo Mong, Program Special ist mmong@doe.k12 .ga.us Sarah Brown, Teacher on Assignment sbrown@doe.k12 .ga .us

'Tis like the birthday of the world, When earth was born in bloom; The light is made of many dyes,

The air is all perfume: There's crimson buds, and white and blue,

The very rainbow showers Have turned to blossoms

where they fell, And sown the earth with flowers.

- Thomas Hood

.

Julie Bower, Teaching & Learning Consultant for the Athens-Clarke County Schools, asked Melanie to share a little of what she does to integrate music instruction with social studies content. Here’s what Melanie had to say: “The majority of my music lessons have a correlation with another subject. I strongly believe that all our disciplines are interconnected, and to teach them separately is artificial. Music especially lends itself to correlation with Social Studies. Students can listen to music and enjoy it without having any social context. However, to understand and appreciate the music, more fully, students must comprehend the historical context and social importance of the time in which the music was written. In January, we study the life and times of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and we sing and play the music of the Civil Rights Movement. That unit leads into a study of the development of American music from its roots in slavery before the Civil War, through Reconstruction and ragtime, the turn-of-the-century and Depression era with early jazz, and the post-World War II development of rock. My job is to guide students to become life-long learners, performers, and appreciators of music; I feel that this is a good start.” We loved the way Melanie’s music class literally makes history come alive – and we think that these fifth graders would agree!

Teacher Feature: Melanie Powers – Clarke County

Marlo Mong Sarah Brown

1754 Twin Towers East 205 Jesse Hill Jr. Dr. SE

Atlanta, GA 30334

Phone (Marlo): (404) 463-5024 Phone (Sarah): (404) 651-4859

Fax: (404) 656-5744

E-mail: mmong@doe.k12.ga.us sbrown@doe.k12.ga.us

Send Us Your Stuff! Interested in seeing your classroom, lesson idea, or activity in a future issue of our newsletter? We would like to

share best practices from educators around the state in our “teacher feature” section. Please forward anything you think might benefit your colleagues to Marlo at mmong@doe.k12.ga.us. We can’t wait to hear from you! Thanks for

your help.