Even teachers show great ability to develop lesson plans, they cannot be successful if they do not possess the skills to teach those lessons.  A good teacher uses strategies to draw out student's interest and motivation, vary the style or pace according to individual learners, and effectively deliver content. 

 The following lesson is a game of war and peace that simulates the conidtions of World War I.  Each student is part of a group that represents one of 6 countries involved in the war.  The game serves as a lesson on how insecurity, the arms race, and entangling alliances contributed to make for a total war.  The lesson ends in a discussion of why students made decisions that they did and why peace was so difficult to maintain.

The Gathering Storm - World War I

In the lesson below, I use a strategy that harkens back to students' elementary school days when story time was one of the most fondly appreciated activities.  It's scratch and sniff storytime with our good friends Leif the Lucky, Bjarni "Bear" Herjolffsson, and Thorvald Thorstein!  I felt this was a great way of introducing the topic of a Vikings in a way that would really draw students' interest. 

The Vikings and Vinland