Saginaw Field Trip

This past Friday our second and third graders had the opportunity to tour around Saginaw and learn a little more about the city that they live in. My father, "Uncle Bob", was kind enough to be our bus driver as we toured around the city. The students began the field trip by going to the Castle Museum. At the museum, students learned a bit more about how Saginaw began as a lumber town and grew into the city that it is today. Students also had the opportunity to look at the miniature railroad "cities" that have been placed at the Castle Museum. Second and third graders loved looking at the miniature buildings along the railroad tracks and watching the train move through them. 

There was also a Lego exhibit at the Castle Museum where students had the opportunity to tour through Saginaw buildings built with Legos as well as other well known buildings built with Legos. After watching a video about how the Lego company got started, students toured these buildings and had a chance to build their own Lego creations.

After touring the museum and eating lunch there, our next stop was City Hall. Mayor Browning was gracious enough to greet us and explain what his job was as the mayor of Saginaw. Students loved shaking his hand and asking questions about what it's like to be the mayor of Saginaw. 

To finish off our tour, second and third graders stopped at multiple places to hear a little more history about the changes that have occurred in Saginaw. Students enjoyed these stops, especially because of the beautiful statues that have been placed all over the city of Saginaw for people to enjoy.

Second and third graders learned a lot about the history of Saginaw and how it became the city that it is today. Feel free to ask your child what they learned about our city!

Specialization

Second and third graders have been learning about specialization in social studies. To apply this concept in order to understand it a little better, we did an activity that would demonstrate specialization. In three groups, students represented three different car factories. Two car factories applied the concept of specialization by using an assembly line, while the other car factory was comprised of single workers. The assembly line factories had one student doing one specific job (such as cutting out the car body or gluing the wheels on) and passing it on to the next person in line to do their part and, in the end, finish making the car. The single worker factory had one worker making the entire car all by themselves, one person did all the cutting, gluing, and coloring themselves. To make it even more interesting, I was the manager of the factories (haha!). When cars were completed by the workers, the car was given to me to inspect. If the car was okay, it was taped on the board as a point for that factory. However, if the car was not up to my standards, it was thrown in the trash. All three car factories began at the same time with the hope that their factory would make the most cars in the 15 minutes they had to do their work. Ready, set, go!!

Students worked hard in their factories and, in the end, it was the two assembly line factories that were the winners. After this activity, we sat down and discussed the meaning of this activity. Students noticed that the assembly line factories worked much better and faster than the single worker factory. Students also pointed out that the assembly line workers got really good at the one job that they had to do. This meant that the car that was made through the assembly line was actually a better product because the workers in the assembly line "specialized" in their own job and did a better job than the single workers. We then discussed how Michigan specializes in certain things, such as cherries, while a place like Florida specializes in other things, such as oranges. These two places do the things that they do best and then they can buy and sell the things that they specialize in to other places. After this discussion, students were given a half sheet of paper to write down their thoughts after this activity.

While reading these sentences, I was extremely impressed with how well students understood this difficult concept. Good job, students!

Country Presentations

These past few weeks our second and third graders have been studying immigration and the countries that their families have emigrated from. To learn more about these countries, each student was given a country to research and learn a little more about. After researching and writing down certain facts, students created a powerpoint so they could present this information to the class.

Not only did students present these reports to the class, students also had their own passports throughout these presentations. So, while students "visited" these many different countries, students wrote down certain facts about the country and got their passport "stamped" after visiting the country.  By the end of the presentations, each student had a passport full of stamps from multiple different countries around the world, along with a bit more knowledge of these countries.

Students did an amazing job preparing and presenting their country projects to the class. Good job students!