Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Collectable Cards Make Classroom Learning Come Alive
Description
They may not be learning about baseball legends like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, or Reggie Jackson, but some fourth-grade students at Jordan Ridge Elementary School had their own fun with collectable Utah history trading cards in the classroom.
On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside Jennifer Romriell’s classroom where students made their own trading cards based on someone or something in Utah history. It was a lesson that made learning about people and the past really come alive.
Audio Transcription
[Music]Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They may not be learning about baseball legends like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, or Reggie Jackson, but some fourth-grade students at Jordan Ridge Elementary School have their own fun with collectible Utah history trading cards in the classroom.
On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside Jennifer Romriell's classroom, where students make their own trading cards based on someone or something in Utah history. It was a lesson that made learning about people and the past really come alive.
[Music]We're here with Jennifer Romriell talking with her about her fourth-grade class and their project on Utah history trading cards. I have loved being in your class. I've only been in there a few minutes, but it's really been fun. You have them very well organized and trained, by the way.
Jennifer Romriell:
Yeah. Thanks.
Anthony Godfrey:
It was it was obvious that you create a space very intentionally for them to prepare to be successful in an assignment, ask their questions, share their ideas, and then you throw it out to the whole class. What do you think? Is that an idea that's going to match up? I really admire the way you have your classroom organized and your class procedures and you're obviously making the most of your time with the students.
Jennifer Romriell:
Thank you.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, yeah, it's and every student I talk to loves being in your class and that's no surprise. Tell us about this particular assignment and what you've been learning about Utah history.
Jennifer Romriell:
So I'm not a native Utahan and so I actually am learning just as much as the kids are as I'm learning about Utah history and all the connections.
Anthony Godfrey:
I'm not a Utah native either so I've always felt behind.
Jennifer Romriell:
Yes, yes, and then I came to fourth grade. I was in the district for a while and then moved overseas and then came back and I was thrown into fourth grade being like I've never– I don't know Utah history. I have to teach it now. Then one way to throw yourself into it is I volunteered to be part of the state social studies curriculum that are writing the lessons. So that forced me to learn more about those historical events.
I think history is an amazing fun part of learning and to make it more fun is to connect it first. To use primary sources and then to see if they can create something out of it. So essays are one thing we use for creating, but we've done comics, we've done poster boards, we've done movie trailers, we've done plays. We've created our own plays. So today, because we're summarizing all of the strands, I wanted to just kind of do a good summary before we move on to the now and do trading cards. I don't know about the rest of the state, but fourth grade they're kind of dabbling into Dungeon and Dragons is like this big thing.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, right.
Jennifer Romriell:
I'm trying to connect to the kids. I have some sporty kids that do hockey, baseball, and soccer and they have trading cards for sports. So one way to connect with them is to do a trading card for history.
Anthony Godfrey:
Pokemon cards are a little bit of a trading card also.
Jen