A couple of the latest additions to our Teacher Collaboration page are Not-So-Silent Movies and Time for the Classics. Both of these pages remain under construction, so links are not all active at this time.
Time for the Classics is a Math page. It uses the daily schedules from Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and can be used to teach concepts in time. Students are asked to use each of the schedules to reinforce concepts such as elapsed time, range, mean, and ordering. Each day during August, TCM features the movies of a different actor or actress and these placards have been posted on facebook to promote the lineups.
All of these are things today's elementary student probably has not been exposed to, which has great advantages. They aren't the images that have flashed before their eyes in popular video games or home video. The manifold values of using such materials in your classroom might include:
- an equal playing field; everybody starts at square one with unfamiliar stimuli
- increased mystery; students are working with previously unseen visuals
- exposure to the classics; students have a chance to appreciate the oldies
- actual skills improvement; students are stimulated to work on real skills
- unique experiences; do you know any other class using these?
As always, my teacher friend, you may take of leave these ideas all you choose. Adapt them or improve them all you want. If you think about it, let me know how it goes.