Happy Cranberry Day!

It's hard to believe we are half way through November already! Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and I wanted to share a few resources.

The Great Thanksgiving Listen from StoryCorps & Google

StoryCorps and the Great Thanksgiving Listen is something that I shared with you this time last year. This is where teachers ask students to interview elder family members this Thanksgiving, in an attempt to really get to know their story.  Dave Isay of StoryCorps won the 2015 TED Prize, and tells about his message of "I exist" in this TED Talk. If you follow this link, you will have access to an Educator's Toolkit giving you more directions, and some questioning ideas.  I would love it if you or your students would be willing to share your stories. 

Vanderhoop, J. (2002). Cranberry Day: A Wampanoag harvest celebration. Acquinnah, MA: Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) Education Dept.

Another great resource that touches on the story of the first Thanksgiving is the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head's page, which tells about thanksgiving (notice the lower case "t") from the Wampanoag tribe's perspective.  Don't miss this!  I truly LEARNED about perspectives of this holiday (such as Cranberry Day) that I hadn't known about before.   

Image Courtesy Wisconsin State Journal

Of course I wouldn't write a blog post without giving you some math!  How Frozen Is Your Turkey? is one of my favorite lessons that I developed during a math group from a few years ago.  It guides the learner through choosing, thawing and cooking a turkey, and is based on a handout that was distributed in one of Cornell Cooperative Extension's presentations in my class.  It's interesting how algebraic functions are so embedded in preparing a holiday meal.  

Enjoy these resources, and, as always, please let me know how they went.  Please comment below with questions or ideas for using them in the classroom. 

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Would you like more resources?  Visit the Hudson Valley RAEN website to find tons of great news and resources!

Who Owns the White House?

In case you've been hiding under a rock for a while, you probably know that the Presidential election is on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.  Hopefully your students are registered and ready to vote in this (ahem) historic election.  Below is a link that will take you to a page where students can look up their polling place if they're not sure where to vote.  

A big discussion is sure to be about the Electoral College this coming week.  I was lucky enough to get my C-Span Electoral College Map Poster in time for this year's election, which is displayed at the Truman Moon School. 

2016 C-Span Electoral College Map

Features of this poster include:

• State electoral votes that reflect the 2010 census. 
• State abbreviations for easy identification. 
• States' electoral numbers color-coded to reflect the 2012 election results. 
• Locations of the 2016 Republican and democratic Conventions 
• The history of the election results since 1900 including electoral and popular votes 
• Inset maps showing the electoral results since 1992 
• Asterisks denoting Maine and Nebrasks as district method states instead of winner-take-all

With the map, you and your students can discover the number of electoral votes assigned to each state, analyze the 2012 results, trace trends in Electoral College history (can you find the non-red/blue state, and why was it a different color?), and make informed predictions about the 2016 race. You can also use related resources on the C-SPAN Classroom website to help students branch out and make further connections as your study the campaign and election process in depth. C-Span has created a great collection of resources, so it's definitely worth clicking the link. I think a fun idea would be to have students make predictions about which states will be red or blue, and keep track if they are correct. This is a great year to do this, as it is not a traditional election.

Be sure to include instruction about the other races taking place, especially in our legislative branch. We tend to minimize these roles when it is Presidential election time and they are so very important. VOTE!!!

What other topics are you teaching in your classroom this week? Daylight savings? Black Friday? Comment with lesson ideas or to let me know if you need resources. Also, remember that I am available to come to your classroom to give you a fresh set of ideas and resources.

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Would you like more resources?  Visit the Hudson Valley RAEN website to find tons of great news and resources!