AIM - Activating Inquistitive Minds

Nathan's favorite day of the week is Monday because that is the day he goes to AIM. He misses most of the regular day and has to make up that work. Mrs. Georgas is his AIM teacher. She is FABULOUS and puts so much thought into her units. This year the kids are studying the 1920s but first they are doing extensive research on immigration at the beginning of the 1900's. She e-mails every week to let us know what they did and always includes pictures. This is part of the e-mail from this week.




Dear 6th Grade AIM Families,

Today we had our “Immigration Simulation!” I was dressed up as an Immigration Officer and I took the students off of the boat and brought them onto Ellis Island. Once we were there they went through various stations to get a feel for what the immigrants actually went through when they came to this country. First they went to the baggage station. They were very surprised when the teacher and students who were in charge of this station only spoke to them in another language!! The kids had NO idea what they were saying. But they were able to figure out if they had something they should not have brought into the country by the tone of voice and by how rapidly the station leader was speaking! It was frustrating and a little scary!

At station two the kids had to take several “mental tests!” They had to read a few tongue twisters, do some simple addition, count backwards from 20-0.

At the medical station Mrs. Cheatham gave the exams. She took their temperature with a pretzel stick. Examined them for any diseases, and if necessary she put them in quarantine!!

The final station was the legal station. The students had to answer various questions about where they would be living, who would be taking care of them, did they have a job lined up. Most importantly they needed to have all of the proper paperwork (passports, etc.) and $20 in order to gain entry into the country.

Some of their bags were stolen along the way and they did not have the money to gain access into the country. Some of them were detained, while others bribed fellow immigrants or immigration officers for the money!

When we got back to the classroom we talked about the experience and what it would have been like if they had really gone through that! The students began working on the next part of their immigration scrapbook. They had to write a letter to someone back in the country they came from. They had to explain what they experienced and how they felt. After doing the immigration simulation this portion of the assignment was very easy! The students just wrote about what they had just experienced!


Mrs. Georgas dressed up, mustache and all.

Nathan loved the experience today and was quarantined.



A couple more pictures of the students working on projects. He is putting together a scrapbook of an Italian immigrant family including a historical fiction story and Italian artifacts.