An important 21st century skill to include in your lessons is making choices. The famous Americans unit is a great opportunity to provide choices for your students. Not only could you let them choose which person they want to research, but they they could also choose how they want to present the information. As long as you’ve introduced the programs, let your students select the one they want to use… or they could even choose to use multiple programs. Students could do a Comic Life, a Garage Band podcast, a Keynote slideshow, or use some of the online web tools for their projects. Just to give you a couple of examples from recent lessons: in first grade, this student did a Keynote and video about Benjamin Franklin, and this student did an animated timeline about George Washington (you can download the template by clicking here); in second grade, this student made a podcast with music about Jackie Robinson, and this student should really just have his own talk show. Most of the pictures of the famous Americans can be downloaded on this post. Go ahead, give your students choices! What could be more American?
