Going on an Expedition with Lewis and Clark!

Finally, we were going to explore the Louisiana Territory! This was the lesson that I was the most excited for. To begin, we reviewed key terms regarding the Louisiana Territory using this WordArt.

We then had a Voki of Meriwether Lewis in which he was explaining that he needed the fifth graders help to re-explore the west. Unfortunately, we experienced some technical difficulties and weren't able to play it. That didn't let us down though, we were excited for our adventure!

Close your eyes and transport yourself back to 1804... The classroom has transformed into the Louisiana Territory... and we are now explorers.

The students were split into five groups and each group of tables was a different center. At the center there were QR codes and iPads. Using the iPads, the students scanned the code and began reading about their center. In their Expedition Journals, they had a page for each center with directions and space to fill in answers.

The three centers included:

1. The Animals Discovered

2. The Plants Found

3. The Rocky Mountains

4. The Dangers Faced

5. The Friends Made

I had the privilege of working at center five! This center was a little different because instead of having one QR code and one website about the topic, each group that came to me learned about a different tribe. They had to find three important or interesting facts about their tribe, and at the same time I was learning too! I really enjoyed listening to the facts that the students thought were important or interesting and they loved sharing them with me!

Even though we figured out that each center should be eight minutes in order to stay on task with time, we still ended up short. We had to cut out the last round of centers so the students only visited 4 all together.

The students stayed at the seats they were in and were given a piece of paper for their first Expedition Journal Entry! These sheets were super cool because they had been stained to make them look like they were actually papers from 1804.

Here's how the staining process went:

In order to stain the papers, I needed my dads help. We boiled water and put a bunch of tea bags in a rectangular, flat dish. One by one, we put each piece of paper into the dish and moved the water around to make sure it would be stained. With paper bags all around my kitchen, we took the paper out of the water and laid it on a bag. During this, we were also blow drying each piece of paper with a hair dryer. Although this was very time consuming, they came out really cool and doing this definitely added a lot to the lesson. Thank god for my dad :)

This was by far my favorite lesson and I think it went the smoothest out of the three we taught. It sure set high expectations for our cooperative lesson!