A Little Shoutout

I LOVE teaching with music because it is so powerful in aiding memorization, and it's super fun too!  It definitely helped my fourth grade kiddos prepare for a new state test last year.  Last year, Ohio changed the fourth grade Social Studies content standards to include American History on top of Ohio History.  Basically the history of our country was woven into the history of our state, and we had to get SPECIFIC.  Like, knowing specific treaties and battles and people and places.  From memory.  So they could write PARCC-esque extended responses.  From memory.  About really complex things most of us learned in middle school or high school.  Because you know... rigor. ;)

While I question whether this is all a bit much for fourth graders, I will say that they were interested in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Amendments (that they needed to remember), the Northwest Ordinance, and everything else we learned.  Interest is great!  I LOVE Social Studies.  History was my minor, and I could eat this stuff up.  As you know though, student interest and passionate teachers are powerful, but when there's a lot of content to master, you're moving at a blistering pace to teach it, and you know you won't have a ton of time to reteach,  you have to get the most bang for your buck.

So, on top of debates, projects, and close reading, I turn to music to help my kiddos remember Social Studies content.  In my search for videos to help cement complex topics, I found MrBettsClass on YouTube.  He cleverly takes popular songs and creates parodies to teach difficult content, and my kids LOVED them.  They even played them at home because they loved them so much.  Because they were able to remember the lyrics, this opened the door to complex discussions where I would probe them about different historical events in detail, and they would often cite information from one of Mr. Betts' songs.  So when it was time to review for the "BIG TEST", guess what?  Those songs were quoted.  They helped my kiddos retrieve the information seamlessly.  Music is powerful, isn't it? 

It's hard for me to say which video my students loved the most, but "Manifest Destiny" was definitely WAY up there!  Check it out, and check out some other videos while you're at it. (My kiddos loved "Emancipation Proclamation", "Compromise of 1850", "Stay With Me", and so many more!)  Maybe you'll find something that can help your kiddos too!  Shout Out to Mr. Betts!  You made my year easier!  :)