Salty and Messy!!!

What's better than playing with playdoh? Getting messy in it! Working in groups we were instructed to pick a country, construct it out of the homemade salt dough and research the country we chose. My group decided to investigate and build Switzerland, a country none of us really knew anything about. Working and building the map was definitely one of the highlights of this project. For someone who is tactile, like myself, being able to manipulate the material you are working with, gives a greater sense of accomplishing the assignment and you feel good about the masterpiece you've made! Researching the country was also good because we were able to learn some new things about the country. We were given broad areas to research and we were able to take those areas and find many different things under those categories. Looking into areas like government, agriculture, history and a few other random things that our group liked to throw in, we were able to find out much more about this country. In thinking about the different things we learned from our country, we were able to make connections to where we live. Students would be able to see differences and similarities between the country they live in and they country they choose to research. This kind of activity is fun and engaging because students have the chance to get down and dirty!