Bay of Pigs Invasion Lesson Plan

To introduce students to the Bay of Pigs Invasion, I had them work as a class to brainstorm what they thought the Bay of Pigs was. After writing down the student's ideas, I used a brief PowerPoint presentation to explain what the Bay of Pigs was. To end class, the students compared their hypothesis list to what they learned. For the second day, I reviewed the Bay of Pigs through a simulation activity. Students were broken up into several groups. The groups were: World Leaders, Cubans, Cuban Exiles, and CIA Agents. Once students were in their groups, students acted out the events leading up to the invasion.

Tunnel Rats Activity

This was a 40 minute, Social Studies 8 lesson on the Vietnam War. For the first ten minutes of class, students read a brief excerpt from a Vietnam War veteran, describing the conditions in Vietnam. Students also looked at a map of Vietnam before beginning the day's lesson. After the bellringer, students were organized into teams to navigate "tunnels" filled with booby traps, simulating the job of the tunnel rats during the war. Using the desks, I created a maze and used sheets to cover them. Throughout the "tunnels," I placed objects that made various noises when bumped into to represent a person hitting a boobytrap. To make the activity more challenging, students had to make it from one end of the tunnel to the other to get a "relic," showing they completed the maze, but if one student hit a "booby trap," the entire team lost. Once all the teams completed the activity, students reflected upon their experience and compared that to how they thought the tunnel rats in Vietnam felt completing this task.

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Lesson Plan

Current Events Political Cartoon Bellringer

For this bellringer, students analyzed a political cartoon on the BP Oil Spill, as that was the major event taking place at that time. Students used a process called "DRISH" to interpret the cartoon. DRISH stands for "Describe," "Read," "Interpret," "Synthesize and Hypothesize." At the first step, students described the visuals in the cartoon without guessing what the visuals represent. Then, students read all the text. Third, students interpreted what the visuals and text represented. Then, students synthesize and hypothesize as to what message the artist is trying to present. The purpose of this activity was to provide students with a process for analyzing cartoons as well as give students an opportunity to practice examining cartoons so that they could be prepared in the event that a political cartoon appeared on their state test.

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State Test Review:  European Exploration and Columbian Exchange

This lesson was part of a final review unit before the state test. As the state test covers material from both 7th and 8th grade, the purpose of the review unit was to go over topics covered in 7th grade. This lesson in particular focused on European Exploration and Colonization of the New World. At the end of each class, students played a review game about the material covered that day.

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