Teaching Social Studies through team teaching

This year has really been a trying year.  It has been full of ups and downs.  I am sad to see my students go this year, but I am really ready for this year to be over.  I have been super busy since February.  My blog has been the last thing on my mind here lately.  I quickly run through my blog roll just to see all of the latest and greatest.  My team this year has really come through it all.  My team consists of four teachers including myself.  One of them had a precious baby in March.  One teachers husband transferred in March as well.  Since March I have been working with two long term subs.  I love them dearly, but it is tough trying to keep up with several classes.  Anyways I am through complaining now.  Before most of my team left we had the chance to team teach twice.  I LOVE it.  We started our first try at it in November. The day centered around Thanksgiving.  Each one of us took something from Thanksgiving to teach to our students.  The students rotate from class to class.  You teach the same lesson four times.  It was pretty rough a learning curve.  We realized that we didn't hit very high on Blooms.  We then moved into December and decided to do Grinch day.  This day was a huge success. Our activities were pretty high on Blooms this go around.  Our students to this day still talk about Grinch Day.  It was one of my favorite days as well.  Well towards the end of the year the students are having a harder time focusing.  We decided to do this again with one of our standards.  The whole day was focused on learning about different ethnic festivals in Texas.  Each one of us took a festival and our room became that festival.  It was a lot of work, and quite a bit of fun.  The students were so excited, that we still had some what of a time keeping them focused.  We called this day the Cultural Fair.  The students experienced, Cinco De Mayo,  The Creole Festival, The Austin Powwow, and The Asian Festival.  Each room had food from the festival, music, videos of dance, clothing, and much more.  In each room the students created something as well.  They went home with all kinds of goodies. 
Here is the Creole festival.  They made rib boards which they played with a pencil.  They also ate beignet (basically a sopapilla).

 Welcome to the Asian Festival.  This was another sub who went all out.  She even made lanterns to hang from the ceiling.  They had glow sticks inside of them to make them light up.  They also made chinese yo-yo's, ate fried rice, fortune cookies, and received chop sticks.

 And of course I forgot to take a picture of my own set up.  Shame on me.  I had two sombreros and a pinata hanging up front.  I played mariachi music on Pandora, and I served chips and salsa.  The students made pinatas and stuffed candy inside of their pinata.  I saw the pinatas on pinterest.  It led me straight to Lesson Plan SOS and their fabulous unit on Cinco De Mayo.  Check it out here.  These are two of my students who made beautiful pinatas.  They truly had a ton of fun.

Enjoy your week.  We have a short one due to the holiday coming! Woo Hoo!