Mrs. Slaviero's Blog

My full circle moment. Almost one year later. Monica Burns from  Class Tech Tips wrote an intriguing article about using GarageBand in the reading classroom  in 2016 and posted it on Twitter. I  blogged last July about how I'd like to use this with my Student Historians . That opportunity finally came and the result was profound, especially for one group of students. My History classes have studied the Civil War the past two years by completing an iMovie. I created a twist, though, each group studied one year of the war and ranked three events of that year they feel most strongly impacted the end of the war . Students needed to use investigative and discovery skills to learn about the entire war, then the impact of their focus year. Groups were required to find three primary sources related to those events, one Mathew Brady photograph from that year, and a piece of Civil War-era music (not necessarily from their focus year). The GarageBand article gave t...

Two quotes are the basis for this reflection. The first is from someone I had the honor of hearing speak this past spring. Sir Ken Robinson is an author and education and creativity expert. The second is from William Plomer, a 20th Century writer and poet. Both quotes relate to the heart of my educational philosophy and the never-ending journey to make my classroom a place where creativity is an integral part of the process of thinking like a Historian. I came across a post yesterday that linked these ideas beautifully. "How to Use GarageBand in the Reading Classroom" by Monica Burns has some terrific ideas on how to use this music app in Language Arts classes. I believe that they can successfully be used in Social Studies classes, as well. The second tip was special and I can't wait to add it to the project-based learning my Student Historians will undertake this year! Ms. Burns suggests students compose a music piece that evokes a particular em...

I really enjoy incorporating music into my classroom on a daily basis. I play classical music while my History students are working on group activities, Motown hits for my Effective Teens when they are planning their Genius Hour projects, U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. and analyze his impact on the Civil Rights Movement, and relaxation music when I sense student stress levels are high.  Yesterday I utilized music in a different way--to help students deeply review the American Revolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REUusj4nxh4 The piece I used was the main theme to the movie "The Patriot", composed by John Williams. This piece is brilliant, in my opinion, because it so clearly takes the listener through the history of the American Revolution. One can hear life before British taxation in the colonies, the impact of events like the Boston Massacre and Intolerable Acts, the early, middle, and turning point battl...