Current Events in the Elementary Classroom

When I was in elementary school, my teachers always assigned current event projects.  We were required to bring in an newspaper article and present it to the classroom.  We learned about the news but it was not engaging.  In college I had a professor who reviewed news articles from each country as we studied where they were located.  This was interesting and provided us with a perspective of what society was like in that location.  I loved this activity and found it to be very enjoyable.

After reviewing the websites our professor suggested I found a lot of intriguing ideas to use in the classroom.  I particularly liked this website that provided many engaging ideas of how to bring current events into the classroom.  The website suggests to challenge the students and ask them to identify why the news article is news.  Some of the suggestion they provide are:

Timeliness—News that is happening right now, news of interest to readers right now
Relevance—The story happened nearby or is about a concern of local interest.
Magnitude—The story is great in size or number; for example, a tornado that destroys a couple of houses might not make the news but a story about a tornado that devastates a community would be very newsworthy.
Unexpectedness—something unusual or something that occurs without warning.
Impact—News that will affect a large number of readers.
Reference to someone famous or important—News about a prominent person or personality.
Oddity—A unique or unusual situation.
Conflict—A major struggle in the news.
Reference to something negative—Bad news often "sells" better than good news.
Continuity—A follow-up or continuation to a story that has been in the news or is familiar.
Emotions—Emotions (such as fear, jealousy, love, or hate) increase interest in a story.
Progress—News of new hope, new achievement, new improvement

I like the idea of examining the news on a deeper level and have to students question this.  This activity promotes critical thinking skills as it has them constantly questioning and thinking. Another idea this website poses is to have the students create historical newspapers.  The students would chose a historical happening and answer Who, What, When, Where and How.

After thinking about these different activities,  it would differ what you can do with each grade.  I feel that a teacher would be able to allow the students to explore more independently in sixth grade as compared to first grade.  In first grade I would provide more guidance and structure for the students in what they are exploring in the news.  

In my classroom I would love to use a map and use yarn to link the articles to the location.  I also would have the students preserve the news articles as suggested in the blog featured above.  The students then could create books with all the news articles from that year.  The books could then be kept over the years for students to look back into history.  I feel with current events there is so much room to be creative in the classroom.  I am excited to use these ideas in the classroom.