KeelClass

These are all materials that I created for personal use in my classroom across several years of teaching 6th Grade Social Studies. I don't use textbooks or readers. Everything my students learn comes from notes and slides I create. Now, I'm wanting to share my work with others. My focus has always been about trying to help 10-12 year old students grasp the often difficult content found in Ancient World History, while also getting them to find confidence in realizing what they know. We don't waste time on memorizing dates, but instead we find really interesting stories that we can enjoy and dig into. I set out to create a narrative for each unit of study, so that students could incorporate skills learned in Language Arts classes. You aren't going to find a lot of cutesy things here, but you will absolutely find tons of material that students can dive into as they learn Ancient History. I'm the kind of teacher that cares less about how "pretty" things look and WAY more about content and the experience of the classroom. I had a lot of success in the classroom over the years with a wide variety of students from different backgrounds, with different needs, and year after year they found joy and triumph in my classroom. My hope is that by uploading some of my materials to this website, other teachers can use them as a springboard to achieve the same level of student engagement and success. All the best, KeelClass

NO TEXTBOOKS HERE! Interactive, simulation-based, Paideia/Socratic Seminar focused. To see an example of how I teach, check out this link to videos I made when we had to go on lockdown at the end of the school year: https://youtu.be/AYkmFECf9jw In class, we have to cover 3,000 years of history in only 8 months (while also getting time to review before end-of-year testing). I plan everything in advance before the school year even starts, working backwards to make sure I have time for Ancient Greece and Rome, which covers about 40-50% of testing materials. For notes, we highlight and students read out loud. They work in their interactive notebooks. I don’t do homework very often, if at all. Their homework is to STUDY, and I absolutely love teaching study habits to middle schoolers. Often, my class is the first class students EVER have to study for in their learning lives, and my class is set up for them to achieve genuine success.

- Blue Ribbon Award Winning Teacher - Achieved highest growth scores in my district, and almost in the state - Social Studies Content Lead - Helped write district Scope and Sequence for Middle School Ancient History standards.

Yet to be added

I don't update this TPT thing like I should. As I'm sure you know, the school year is just so dang busy! But I'm working on it!