Veteran's Day Project

Here is our Veteran's Day project for this year. My students really enjoyed working on it and hearing the compliments we've received from people who stop to see it. Before starting the project, we did a little research on the meanings behind the colors on the flag. Once we had some words to work with, we looked for synonyms of those words. Many of my students wrote the words on red, white, or blue hearts while a few others worked on the gold fringe. The hearts were then arranged on a 3'x4' piece of paper to make the flag.

My class is so proud of this flag. The discussion over the synonyms was meaningful and memorable!

Our flag will be displayed, along with other's projects, at our local VA Hospital this year.

Time Traveling

My second graders always surprise me! This week we read a photo essay about a girl who attends a school for deaf students. We learned some hand spelling and signs. We also read a story about Helen Keller. It was after that story that my students began to ask me questions such as:

-Is Helen Keller still alive?
-How old is she?
-Did you know her?


I decided it was a great time to get out one of my magnetic timelines and help them find answers to their questions. I've never taught timelines so early in the year, but I believe in grabbing those natural, teachable moments and riding the "interest wave" as far as I can! This was one of those moments.
Through the course of the lesson, we discussed many things. Here are a few of them:

• place value and the 1000's place
• counting by tens above 1000
• counting on and back on a number line
• how long ago Helen Keller lived
• how long she has been gone
• how old she was when she died
• whether or not Mrs. Edwards was alive at the same time as Helen Keller (for 13 years!)
• whether or not Mrs. Edwards knew Helen Keller (It's a big world! and, no, I never met her.)

We now have a foundation to build on as we explore immigration, explorers, and pilgrims later this fall. At the end of the lesson, a student raised his hand and said, "That was like traveling in a time machine!" I think I have them hooked!

The Uncle Reuben Project - Year 2

Here are some end products for year 2 from May 2013's Open House.
More about the process later! It was an exciting spring!

• black and white dioramas
• canoe sketches and blueprints with measurements
• realia in the form of a 16.5 ft. canoe and two small metal models of Uncle Reuben's childhood home and school wth students to answer all of their questions
• video interview between "Uncle Reuben" and a reporter
• silent movie made by five 2nd graders
• posters about the 1920's popular culture
• photographs of transportaion from the 1920's and 30's
• posters of students' family trees that were completed at home with their families
• timelines of Uncle Reuben's life
• demonstrations of how to use the scale key on a map to measure the miles
• notebooks full of primary sources to explain to visitors
• 20 confident seven and eight year-olds proudly talking about their newly acquired knowledge
• one proud teacher who was already planning their next authentic learning experience in her imagination

Resources for Project: Uncle Reuben

Project: Uncle Reuben begins in two weeks! I'll be posting resources as I find them on this post.
Uncle Reuben was born in 1903 and traveled the U.S. from 1925-1935. At some point I will move this information to its own page but for now, I will add to it from here.

Music for Reading Fluency Practice:

• This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie
•  How about the Charleston (they could learn the dance, too)
• California, Here I Come (written in 1921)
• Happy Days are Here Again
• The Entertainer (ragtime)

Manufacturing Memory - American Popular Music in the 1930's

I now have The Uncle Reuben Project on it's own blog site.
Click here to look - http://unclereubenproject.blogspot.com/ 

Thanks, Uncle Reuben! A Teacher's Reflection

Studying the life and journeys of Uncle Reuben was such a deep and rich experience. The material gave my students opportunities to review, practice and apply multiple skills that they have learned over the year.

Skills they used and practiced:

• Working in a group
• Cooperating and taking turns
• Measuring miles on a map
• Map reading
• Adding large numbers (over 1000)
• Calculator use - adding lists of large numbers and checking their answer by comparing it to others
• Measuring distance
• Non-standard measurement
• 
  

Learning:

• Location of states in US
• Transportation of the early 1900's
• History of flight - Wright Brothers, World Flight - 1924
• Concept of time past (100 years)
• The computer as a tool
• Some uses for Word and Excel
• The size of the United States
• Putting events in order according to time
• 
  

Benefits:

• Confidence
• Knowledge of the United States
• Confidence using technology
• Motivation
• Engagement
• Ownership of learning
• 
  

Uncle Reuben's Journeys Part 6 - The Biplane

Keeping the students busy wasn’t too difficult. A group of boys made a chain of colored links the length of the wingspan on the biplane Uncle Reuben learned to fly in 1924. I thought for sure our room would be big enough but once we looked up the size on the internet and the boys got out the measuring wheel, they (and their teacher) realized it wasn’t going to be that easy. Before long, the door was open and the chain was reaching diagonally across the room, out the door and halfway across the hall.

They measured, added or subtracted links, and measured again until they were certain the chain was exactly 43 feet and 7 inches.

One concept they learned by doing this is that the chain measured the same if it was straight or curled around the desks.

 A second chain was constructed and measured for the length of the plane (27 feet).


We weren't going to be able to experience the size of the plane in our room so we carried the chains to the courtyard and put them in place.

 The kids and one of their favorite co-op students took their places on the chains and posed for a picture.

Note: If you try this yourself, remember that the chain tangles easily and needs to be carried stretched out instead of bunched up. We learned the hard way!

Uncle Reuben's Journeys Part 3 - Counting the Miles

Lucky for us, Uncle Reuben kept a journal during his traveling years. We divided his journeys into 30 parts and started mapping them out with colored yarn. We used brown for train travel, red for motorcycle, green for car and blue yarn for steamship and canoe. The questions kept coming! 

Teamwork!

Lots of discussion!

The next step was to figure out how many miles he traveled. That was a big job but my students dug in and, enthusiastically, got to work! They each made a “map measurer” using a gift ribbon and a marker. They marked 100 miles 10 times according to the legend on the map giving them 1000 mile measuring ribbons.The first group began measuring using their estimating skills. One person stood at the board and wrote the miles for each leg of the journey. Another group measured the next day and either agreed with the measurements or wrote their miles next to the first miles. A third group settled 2 measurements by measuring again. The discussion I heard as I passed these groups was wonderful! I was so happy to see evidence of their growth as learners and inquirers!

Measuring and Recording Data

Another group determined the type of transportation for each trip and coded it with a letter; c for car, ca for canoe, m for motorcycle, etc., on the board.

Transportation Team

By this time I was ready to have my board back so I decided to set up three laptops facing the board and assigned students to type the information we had compiled into Excel. Each typist had a partner to check, point and help make sure they weren't skipping data. Some traded places after awhile.

Working in Excel and adding up the miles.

When they were finished, I combined the three files into one. The class was excited when we put the data up on our Smartboard and I showed them how Excel lets us sort and filter. They used their calculators to add the miles of each mode of transportation. When we were finished, they had figured Uncle Reuben traveled about 19,200 miles between 1924 and 1934. Now they could display the miles according to transportation!

[As a side note: I was curious to find out how close they got to the actual miles with their little ribbons. I took the data file and compared it to actual miles using http://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-is-it-between.htm . I just about fainted when I finished adding them up for myself. They had gotten within 200 miles of the actual mileage! I don't think the kids actually understood how cool that was but I'm sure they recognized the look of pride on their teacher's face!]

Uncle Reuben's Journeys Part 2 - The Journeys

Reuben with his sisters

     Uncle Reuben was born near McPherson, Kansas in 1903. He loved to read and must have had an adventurous spirit because at 20 years old he began 10 years of traveling the country.  He started his journeys in 1924 when he went to Chicago to attend flight school. A year and a half (and one plane crash) later he returned to Kansas to help his brothers with the farm. Before too long, he borrowed his brother’s Indian motorcycle and took off on a thousand mile trip south to help his parents with their new farm in Alamo, Texas. His continued to travel this way, crossing the United States in all directions until 1934, when he finally settled back in Chicago for awhile.

Here is the data we had to work with for the map.

Uncle Reuben's Journeys:

McPherson, Kansas	Chicago, Illinois	Train
Chicago, Illinois	McPherson, Kansas	Train
McPherson, Kansas	Alamo, Texas	Indian Motorcycle
Alamo, Texas	McPherson, Kansas	Indian Motorcycle
McPherson, Kansas	Canada	Model T Ford Coupe
Canada	Yellowstone National Park	Train
Yellowstone National Park	Salt Lake City, Utah	Train
Salt Lake City, Utah	Phoenix, Arizona	Train
Phoenix, Arizona	San Diego, California	Train
San Diego, California	Los Angeles, California	Train
Los Angeles, California	Chicago, Illinois	Car
Chicago, Illinois	Detroit, Michigan	Bus
Detroit, Michigan	Buffalo, New York	Steamer across Lake Erie
Buffalo, New York	Portland, Maine	Train
Portland, Maine	New York City, New York	Train
New York City, New York	Chicago, Illinois	Train
Chicago, Illinois	Illinois River	Car
Illinois River	Mississippi River	Canoe
Mississippi River	New Orleans, Louisiana	Canoe
New Orleans, Louisiana		bicycle shop
New Orleans, Louisiana	Baton Rouge, Louisiana	Canoe
Baton Rouge, Louisiana	New Orleans, Louisiana	Canoe
New Orleans, Louisiana	Chicago, Illinois	Harley Motorcycle
Chicago, Illinois	Minnesota	Harley Motorcycle
Minnesota	North Dakota	Harley Motorcycle
North Dakota	Tucson, Arizona	Harley Motorcycle
Los Angeles, California	San Francisco, California	Harley Motorcycle
San Francisco, California	New Orleans, Louisiana	Cars and Boxcars
New Orleans, Louisiana	Chicago, Illinois	motorcycle

This is what our map looked like when we were finished mapping it out.

Uncle Reuben's Journeys all mapped out! The colors of yarn stand for the mode of transportation.

So many questions and deep thinking came out of this task. Is Texas bigger or smaller than California? Why did he decide to go to flight school? How many states did he go through? How many miles did he travel by motorcycle? Why did he sell his motorcycle in California? How many countries did he visit? Do you think he ever went to Mexico? How long did it take him to get from Chicago to New Orleans by river?
Some questions could be answered and others not, but all of it was interesting!