Five Ways to Organize Information

1. Alphabetical (dictionaries, phone books)
2. Time (fiction, histories)
3. Place (atlases, travel guidebooks)
4. Category (types of rocks, school subjects)
5. Continuum (most to least, numerical)

Setting Up Your "Classroom"

1. Alphabet cards -- use for activities with alphabetical order as well as for handwriting.
2. Time line -- hang it high where it's visible at all times. Make your own time line with rolled paper or wide adding machine tape and mark in 100 year increments. Introduce B.C. and A.D. as well as the key eras and events in history listed below. Test students again and again until they've memorized the basic outline of western history. As you study events in all areas of the curriculum, refer to the time line to place them in context. If you study a historical unit, such as American History, make a vertical time line and add events as you go. Save time lines from various units and place them side by side to make comparisons and look for patterns. Vertical time lines can also be used in a unit on inventions. Build one time line for transportation inventions, one for communication, one for clothing, food, health, etc. Look for patterns and see which ideas led to other ideas.
   • Ancient Egypt, 3000 B.C. to 715 B.C.
     Picture of Sphinx or Pyramids
   • Ancient Greece, 800 B.C. to 300 B.C.
     Picture of the Parthenon
   • Ancient Rome, 500 B.C. to 455 A.D.
     Picture of the Colosseum
   • Birth of Christ, c. 1 A.D.
     Nativity scene
   • Middle Ages, 476 A.D. to 1450 A.D.
     Pictures of castles
   • Columbus, 1492 A.D.
     Drawing of Columbus' ships
   • USA began, 1776 A.D.
     Picture of the Liberty Bell or U.S. flag
3. Maps -- preferably large ones, visible at all times. Put a map on the kitchen table and cover with a clear plastic tablecloth, hang maps in the halls, even put one on the floor (under plastic). Use these maps to teach place names in a five-minutes-a-day activity that builds over time. First week practice continents, second week continents and oceans, third week continents, oceans and major mountain ranges, etc. Add something new each week and keep reviewing and testing everything previously learned. After awhile, start a map game. Put slips of paper containing place names students have studied in a can. A student draws one and tries to find it on the map within 10 seconds. Suggested maps to have visible at all times:
   • World Map (Natl. Geographic, 70"x49").
   • U.S. Map (Natl. Geographic, 70"x49").
   • Large map of your state. Check with U.S. Geological Society.
4. Possible additional reference resources:
   • Set of encyclopedias. I recommend The World Book.
   • Almanacs -- preferably one for each child. I recommend Facts Plus.
   • Dictionaries -- preferably one for each child. I recommend the HBJ student dictionaries.
   • World atlas
   • Large calendar
   • Guinness Book of World Records
   • Thesaurus
   • Cookbooks
   • Chronicles
   • Travel guides
   • Telephone books
   • Yellow pages
   • Globe

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Ideas for Integrating the Curriculum Using Reference Books

1. Take advantage of current events. Have children use their almanacs to find out more about countries in the news. Compare their statistics with those of the U.S. or other familiar countries. This is a great opportunity to work "real" math problems.
2. Build background for reading. Look up information about the locale of a story, the time frame in which it happened, the famous people involved, etc.
3. Provide flexible mixed review. Try the Facts Game: make game cards with facts you want students to remember forever in any subject area. For example: the capital of the U.S., the number of quarts in a gallon, the parts of an atom. Make up games and use these cards for continual review. Add cards throughout the year as you teach key concepts in any subject. Use any game board or have children make up their own games and rules.
4. Teach a cross-curricular unit on space. Have students color and cut planets and make a solar system on long black paper (reproducible pattern in PDF handout). On this scale, the sun would be six feet in diameter. Next, pretend to shrink the sun to just 1/8 inch in diameter to keep the scale accurate for the following activity. Go outside to pace out the relative distance between planets: Sun to Mercury, 3/4 pace; Mercury to Venus, 1 long pace; Venus to Earth, 1 1/3 pace; Earth to Mars, 1 1/4 pace; Mars to Jupiter, 14 paces; Jupiter to Saturn, 16 paces; Saturn to Uranus, 35 paces; Uranus to Neptune, 41 paces; Neptune to Pluto, 34 paces (on average). On this scale, the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, would be 13 miles away.
5. Memorization challenges: Gettysburg Address, manual alphabet, countries of South America, etc.
6. Passport activity: students get stamps in their passports for doing research on self-selected countries.

Recommended Reading and Resources

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