Differentiating Instruction with Menus: Social Studies »

Laurie Westphal learned science, as well as most other subjects, in the same manner as other students—through the use of chapter reading and questions and copying notes. After questioning this practice, she decided to break the mold when she entered the classroom as a teacher. She was given the freedom to develop engaging, product-based lessons and activities, that encouraged choice, the kind of teaching she missed as a student.

She used this method of teaching science for 14 years, both overseas and in the U.S., as well as presented staff development and worked in gifted education. She currently works as an independent gifted education and science consultant. She currently resides in Houston, TX, and has made it her goal to share her vision for real-world, product-based lessons that help all students become critical thinkers and effective problem solvers.

Differentiating Instruction With Menus offers teachers everything they need to create a student-centered learning environment based on choice. Addressing the four main subject areas (language arts, math, science, and social studies) and the major concepts taught within these areas, these books provide a number of different types of menus that elementary-aged students can use to select exciting products that they will develop so teachers can assess what has been learned instead of using a traditional worksheet format.

Each book contains attractive reproducible menus, each based on the levels of Bloom's revised taxonomy, for students to use to guide them in making decisions as to which products they will develop after studying a major concept or unit. Using creative and challenging choices found in Tic-Tac-Toe Menus, List Menus, 2-5-8 Menus, Baseball Menus, and Game Show Menus, students will look forward to sharing their newfound knowledge throughout the year. Also included are specific guidelines for products, rubrics for assessing student products, and teacher introduction pages for each menu.

This book includes menus that teach students about ancient history, American history, government, U.S. documents, people in history, and geography.