water bottle biographies

coming tomorrow - a freebie for teachers to help support their ELL's in the mainstream classroom.

in GA, there are nine famous Americans that the third graders have to learn about in social studies. the people are very interesting and VERY important in our country's history, I will not argue that.

BUT... what I will argue is this - these nine people come with A LOT of standards tagged to them. we split social studies with science - so hypothetically, I have 90 days to teach these people AND the rest of the unrelated social studies standards. realistically, I end up with about 18 days. 18 days - 9 people = 2 days per person.

AND these people come from different time periods in American History - so there is little to no time to teach context.

Paul Revere is very interesting and fun to learn about. But if you don't know anything about the colonies and Britain and everything leading up to the American Revolution, his importance is lost...

Ay! I digress..

my third grade mini-scholars each took a person, researched the person, and became an "expert historian" (after we spent 18 days learning about them). 

then, we made a water bottle representation of that person (good lesson in recycling those accumulating water bottles). teachers donated a few pieces of old clothes and we were ready.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt - oh yea, he's wearing leather :)

and the army men on the lean cuisine boxes (more recycling) represent World War II

Eleanor Roosevelt - she is so fancy and bug eyed wide eyed.

and apparently Eleanor was balding too.

Frederick Douglass - he's upset because this is a pre-Freedom portrait (I think).

Cesar Chavez - check out those overalls and sunglasses ("for when he worked in the field!" says expert Selina)

Susan B. Anthony - I have a feeling she is rolling over in her grave knowing that Juliana, the classroom SBA expert, thought she might wear this outfit.

Lyndon B. Johnson - oh yea, I have NO doubt LBJ sported the Ray-Bans back in the day.

Paul Revere - (tie is coming) has to have his miniature horse :)

**coming tomorrow - additions of Mary McLeod Bethune and Thurgood Marshall

{HERE} is the modified research guide my mini-locos used to support their learning. they wrote a newspaper article to accompany their water bottle people.

GA Teachers! - {HERE} is the research guide my mini-locos used. this is different then above because it uses those standard based terms of diligence, cooperation, leadership, and courage.

my students really did learn about these famous Americans, more then I thought they would!