This year was the year we covered the 5 regions of the US in social studies. I love studying the five regions. There is just so much you can do with it. As we "toured" the US, one region at a time, I knew I wanted my kids to do a project to end the year in a big way. That's when I ran across the idea of having each student create a state float to show off their learning about one state in the union.
I gave the students instructions (way ahead of time). This float had a lot of requirements. of course a few started right away, but there were several who did not start until the week before it was due.
I contemplate the grading of projects like this because you always have several types of learners. You have the ones who obviously had parent involvement more than student involvement (as my former principal told one such student duo, "Mom, you get an 'A' and (looking at the child) you get an 'F.'") Then there is the child whose parent realizes that it is the student's project and helps in the hard or dangerous spots such as running the hot glue gun. And of course there are the students who very obviously had no parent help or direction. They were left to figure it out completely on their own and it shows. There were students who got right to work the very day you handed the project out and students who spent the final hours before it was due trying to play catch-up but it was too little too late. And of course, there is the child who did not bring in any float at all, despite the fact that you sent parents notes, texts, personal messages, etc. These are the things I struggle to muddle through when considering what each child deserves. Thankfully rubrics help to even the playing field by putting the focus on actual requirements. It takes the guess work out of grading projects like these.
I am going to share a few of the projects here. Enjoy our "Parade of States."
