Create Your Own Country...

While doing some reading on geography lesson plans, I came across one in particular that I was fond of. This lesson consists of students creating their own country. This specific teacher broke the project into several manageable sections for the students. The first section consists of research, where students choose a country that already exists and answer eleven questions about it. These questions range from the name of the country to the vegetation to the language spoken there.

 Next, the students make a country of their own and go on to answer the same eleven question but this time, about their fictional country. They should use their imagination with this, but their answers must be logical. For instance, you cannot have a desert country that is tropical.

Then the students have to draw two maps; one of the research country and one of the fictional country. The maps should include a key, a scale, a compass rose, and any lakes, rivers, mountains, or other major physical features. Additionally, the maps should be about poster board size and include at least one major city or town. The poster board is used so that the students can share their map with the class. 

This activity not only provides an opportunity for students to develop their research skills, but gives them a lot of practice working with geography (through making the maps). Another positive aspect of this project is that students can be as creative as possible!

Last Day

Friday was the last day that we were in the classroom. In my opinion, it was the least productive day of the entire BizMovie process. This was probably due to the technical problems that happened on the computer, but the students basically had 15 minutes of completely free time. I know in our group it was tough to keep the students quite and well-behaved because there was not anything to keep them focused. However, each of the students received their certificates and trophies which was exciting. All in all, I think BizMovie could use a little tweaking, but has the potential to be a very successful program.

Group 4: Session 2
Today the students worked well on creating their animated movie. However, only one student is able to go to the computer and type at a time, so the other students had trouble staying focused and calm. Overall, the group got a lot of work done on the movie and came up with a few good ideas. The students who wanted to type seemed to really enjoy using the computer! One thing that came up during today's session was how some of our group is disappointed that they are not the characters in the movie. I see where they are coming from because they all want to get dressed up for the scenes. Maybe the next BizMovie group should have either everyone film the movies or have everyone make animated movies. This way none of the students feel left out.

Group 4: Session 1

Group 4: Session 1
Yesterday was the first session for the last group. After introducing new vocabulary and reviewing some older vocabulary words, the students were given an opportunity to work on their movie. The group that I work with, Sparks Fly, began using Kerproof to make their animated movie. The goal is to have the movie done by the end of class Wednesday, so we tried to get the students to work diligently. However, a few of the students did not take part in the movie creation this session, and were actually quite distracting. Hopefully they will be more motivated tomorrow so that they can finish making their animated movie!