Monday, March 5, 2012

Famous African Americans

This week we learned about famous African Americans.  We began our week with George Washington Carver.  We read a biography about him and learned that he discovered many things that you could do with peanuts, including peanut butter!  We thought this was so interesting!  
Then, we learned about Duke Ellington, a famous jazz piano player.  We read this beautifully illustrated book by Andrea Davis Pinkney and then we listened to some of Ellington's music.  I gave each student a piece of paper, so that they could draw while they listened.  They described Ellington's music as smooth and beautiful.  This was shown through their drawings as well.  



Next, we learned about Harriet Tubman.  We read a biography about her and learned all about the Underground Railroad. 
On Friday, we learned about Garrett Morgan.  He was an African American inventor who invented the automatic stop sign, known now as the stoplight.  For our special snack, we made stoplights using graham crackers, strawberries, bananas, and kiwi.  Yum!  Thank you to everyone who sent in items for this snack!  


During writing this week, we learned about autobiographies and write our own.  We worked very hard on these!  On Friday, we shared our work with each other during an author share time.  They were so proud of their hard work!  



One of this weeks homework assignments was to create a timeline.  They turned out wonderfully!  We had such a great time seeing how everyone had grown and changed!  It is hard to believe that they are almost first graders!  



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