A Great Day at the Indiana State Museum!

Today was a fun and very informative day! We spent the morning at the Indiana State Museum learning about all of the cool things that they have to offer and all of the resources for teachers and students. I gained so much knowledge from the visit and discovered so many ideas and tools that I would love to use in the future. I think it would be an awesome experience to bring students to the museum. There are so many different things that they can learn about there that relate to so many topics. And to top it all of, the Museum provides state standards that certain things meet! They have theatre programs, workshops, and reenactments that students can take part in. One of the really great things that we learned about is the teacher trunks that are available. The trunks are themed and the one that we saw was based off of Abraham Lincoln. The trunks are available to teachers and have lesson ideas and great hands on materials and activities for students to do. I will definitely be using this resource in my future classroom!

We got to tour the museum and brainstorm how to bring the museum to the classroom. There were so many things that sparked my creativity. It would be really neat to do a unit on comparisons of size and weight with students. In one exhibit there were ice age mammals and the teacher could weigh students as a group and then as a whole class and compare that weight to the weight of the animal. You could also compare size of fossils, teeth, and any part of the body. Another idea would be to do life size shadow drawings of the animals on a big piece of paper. All of these ideas help make it a reality to the students showing them the difference between the animals and themselves.

Later in the day we got to take part in a civil war reenactment. This was such a cool experience and something fourth graders would love! Nicole gave us background information on the civil was, showed us what the soldiers wore, how they lived, what they ate, what training was like, and really made us feel like we were in the war. Students would love taking part of this and would learn so much from the hands on activity.

It was a great day at the Museum and I will keep everything I learned in mind for my future students!!