The Roman Empire is falling again and again in Ms. McGuire’s 6th grade World Cultures classes. Working in the Lighthouse Makerspace room, Students are designing and creating their own board games that capture the crucial components of the decline and fall of the empire. Students must include political, economic and social factors along with environmental factors such as geography and weather. Feather boas, strips of plastic, and are being re-purposed and refashioned into Uno and Pokémon Gladiator cards. An excited student explained, that “In our Pokémon game the goal is to get everyone else’s cards. We are learning that good weapons and shields, and lots of practice made the armies strong. When the Romans didn’t have any of those things any more, that’s when the empire started to fall.” 

Submitted by Katie Lark
5th Grade Teacher, Rodgers Forge Elementary

Throughout the second unit of Social Studies the 5th graders learned about the events leading up to and during the American Revolution. Throughout the lessons students were engaged and motivated by the opportunity to role play, discuss and write about what they were learning.  In light of the mannequin challenge trend we decided to create a Revolution Mannequin Challenge. Groups of 5th graders designed props, created sceneries, and directed their classmates to pose and represent the event they were assigned.  Each group also wrote a narration to accompany their mannequin challenge scene.  The final product will be a complete retelling of the Revolution.  Here is what students had to say about this project:

• “This is the most awesome things ever because we get to be creative and it’s historical and it’s fun!” -Carter
• “It’s a different way to have a test and it makes learning awesome and fun!” -Charlie and Olivia
• “A fun way to better understand events in history and to actually know what it felt like for it to happen.” -James
• “The Mannequin Challenge was a fun experience because it was an assessment turned into something fun that all of us liked!” -Maddy
• "Doing a mannequin challenge for our assessment in Social Studies was awesome!  Instead of BORING a paper and pencil assignment we get to do something active and fun.  Who heard of a fun assignments before this?  It was awesome!" -Elliot