Play Ball! Encouraging Critical Thinking Through Baseball Questions

Materials and Technology

Printouts

Websites

Preparation

 

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY

• Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man by David A. Adler (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997)
  
  
• Computers with Internet access
  
  
• Chart paper and markers
  
  
• LCD projector (optional)

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PRINTOUTS

• Baseball Booklist
  
  
• Play Ball! Encouraging Critical Thinking Through Baseball Questions Observation Sheet

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WEBSITES

• All-American Girls Professional Baseball League
• Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns
• Baseball as America
• Baseball-Quiz for Kids
• Baseball Fun Facts
• Blackbaseball.com: Negro Baseball Leagues
• Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
• Science of Baseball
• Yahooligans! Ask Earl
• Jeopardy Template for Teachers

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PREPARATION

1.	Familiarize yourself with the Jeopardy Game format, in which contestants are given answers that they must give the questions for. (You might want to visit the Jeopardy! website for more information.) Create a template you can use to play the game with students. Templates are available at Jeopardy Templates for Teachers. Once you have found one you would like to use, right click on the template link, click "Save Target As," and download it to your computer.
2.	Arrange to use a computer with Internet access and a projector during Sessions 1 and 3. If you do not have a projector, you will need to create a Jeopardy Game board (see the end of Session 2). Students will do research online; if you do not have computers with Internet access in your classroom, arrange to conduct Sessions 1 and 2 in your schoolxs computer lab.
3.	Obtain and familiarize yourself with Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man by David A. Adler (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997).
4.	Visit the baseball websites listed in the Websites section and decide which ones will work best for your class; you might choose specific pages to share with students. Bookmark these websites on your classroom or lab computers. You might also choose to collect some print resources relating to baseball to have available for student research; the Baseball Booklist contains some suggested titles.

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