Must Read Mentor Texts: George Washington's Socks

Today I'm linking up with the Collaboration Cuties- Must Read Mentor Texts. I'm super excited because this week is Social Studies Mentor Texts. Since I started teaching Reading last year, I have found tons of books to use in Reading that fit perfectly with what we are studying in Social Studies.

One of my favorites that my students just finished a few weeks ago is George Washington's Socks by Elvira Woodruff. In this book a group of kids travel back in time and wind up right in the middle of the American Revolution.

My students love that is isn't just a simple Historical Fiction, but has an element of Fantasy with the time travel.

This book does have a second book called George Washington's Spy about the same group of kids. One of the activities I have my students do with this book is to create an idea for another book for this same adventure club. They have to pick an event we have learned about in class, create a short plot, and a title for their new book.

 

I love the teacher and student guides that came with the novels. They have activities, comprehension questions, and vocabulary study from the novel.

 

 

 

I number all my novels I use in class, and the students have to use their number. It helps so much in tracking down who has each of my books.

I would greatly recommend this book for any wanting to get kids interested in novels about history.

The Infamous Mr. Washington Part Two

Surveying: Washington Style

In addition to learning about George Washington as a President and farmer, I also taught my students about Washington's first career as a Surveyor.

I used a WONDERFUL lesson that I found from George Washington's Leadership Lessons.
http://www.gwleadershiplessons.org/uploads/6/6/4/9/6649768/2b_lesson.pdf
The lesson included a PowerPoint to use to introduce Surveying as well as great worksheets to use while surveying. It's so nice to be able to take a great lesson and run with it!

Basically I split my class into groups of four. Each student had a particular job, but they had to work together to accomplish their survey. We then went to the playground and each group chose an area to survey. They then used the gunter's chain I had made from yarn to measure each leg of their survey. I did add having the students use a compass into the lesson by having them determine and mark down the direction for each leg of their survey. I did a quick 5 minute demonstration in class on how to use a compass before we went outside. Once they had measured each leg, they then had to find the perimeter, area, write a description, and map the area.

 

 

Overall the groups did FANTASTIC. I did of course have to steer a few in the right direction, but they picked it up pretty fast. After the lesson I had them vote on how hard of a job Washington had, and most of them decided his job was pretty hard.

My kids and I really loved this lesson. It tied Social Studies, Writing, Science, and Math all seamlessly together into one lesson. Best of all the kids didn't care that they were writing and doing math problems. They loved it!

 

Lessons Learned:

I made my gunter's chains out of tan yarn, which became hard to see in the pictures. Also, the tied on yarn moved if they got pulled on, so I was glad I had marked the yarn with a marker as to where each string went so they could be fixed easily.

I modified some of the directions from the lesson, but didn't realize that they wanted the map drawn to scale. That was a little advanced for my students, so I had to reassure them to just draw it to the best of their ability. When I do this next year, I will either remove that direction or be sure to really review the kids on drawing to scale before this lesson.

Take a Tour of Mount Vernon

Having taken such a fabulous trip to Mount Vernon, I also took an entire lesson to show them pictures I had taken while there. I made the pictures into a PowerPoint and added important information to each slide. Since Mount Vernon doesn't allow pictures inside the Washington house, I took my kids on the Mount Vernon Virtual Tour . I was nervous about how well the kids would really pay attention, so I had them take notes on something new they learned about Washington or Mount Vernon from the slides. I told them to write down at least ten things. Halfway through my first class, I realized my fears were crazy as they were all intrigued by the pictures. When the slides were finished I had students with forty or fifty new things they had learned! I also had many of them tell me they were going to try to convince their parents to take them to Mount Vernon this summer!

If you teach or love history, I would greatly encourage you look into the Mount Vernon Teacher's Institute. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity that will change the way you think about Washington and change how you teach our first President's life. Also, if you teach in a school anywhere near Virginia, please take your students to Mount Vernon. My Oklahoma kiddos wish we were close enough to take a field trip there...

The Infamous Mr. Washington

This last summer I got the WONDERFUL opportunity to get to attend the Mount Vernon Teacher Institute. While at this institute, I got to spend an entire week at Mount Vernon learning about our first President. To say I came back with many ideas is an understatement. I came back with more ideas then I will EVER be able to have time to teach.

I start teaching about Washington during the French and Indian War. We then continue to learn more about him as a leader during the American Revolution. We also compare him to King George III as the Revolution draws to a close. Finally, we talk about him as President under the new Constitution. These discussions of George Washington are done through the lens of other events. This year after testing, I decided to teach a unit just on George Washington.

George Washington Leads the Way

At my teacher institute, I got the opportunity to meet Bentley Boyd, the author of this fabulous comic about George Washington. George Washington Leads the Way tells the story of Washington's life while tying his life to seven leadership traits. This comic is great, and my students loved it!

I broke my students into groups of three or four and each group read about one leadership trait of G.W. They then reported back to the whole class what they had read and at least three examples of how Washington displayed that trait during their reading. All the students wrote down at least one example for each word. I changed the directions slightly from what the worksheet below asks.

We then took a few minutes to discuss our School Creed and the things they vow to do every day as a student. They then used our School Creed as a guide to write a creed for George Washington. They were required to use all seven of the qualities we read about. I'm actually pretty proud of how these turned out.

 

Lessons Learned: I really only planned one class period to do this lesson, but it took two. We didn't have much time for them to be able to read them to each other. Next year, I will allow more time so we can share. Also, I would have loved to have enough copies of the book so each student could have their own. The seven words would have also made a great vocabulary lesson. Maybe instead of doing it all in one lesson, to do seven smaller lessons. Introduce the word, read the comic, summarize how he showed that word, and maybe do a vocabulary card for each word.