Field Trip to Gettysburg

Next Friday, the class will be taking a trip to Gettysburg. I've had a few parents volunteer already, but we could still use two more parents to come along. If you would like to chaperone, please send Miss Giunta or I an email at sgmk@hpsd.k12.pa.us. We will be departing at 8:00 a.m. so students and parents should arrive at the school no later than 7:45. We will be returning at approximately 4:45 p.m.



On the field trip, students will be given a tour from a Gettysburg tour guide and will be able to explore important areas of the battlefield such as Devil's Den, Pickett's Charge, Big/Little Round Top, Culp's Hill, and many more locations. At each site, students will be asked to tour the area and take notes about facts they heard from the tour guide or saw on the information board posted at each location.



After exploring the important areas on the battlefield, the class will be shuttled to the Information Center where they will be able to look at and research clothing, objects, writing, cannons, etc. while completing an activity sheet. This will be a great opportunity for students to see real life artifacts dating back to the Civil War. This trip is an absolute wonderful experience for the students, and I'm sure they will have a fun and rewarding time at Gettysburg!

Union or Confederate- What Side Are You?

A few weeks ago, students drew from a bucket a position in which they would be fighting. They could have been a Union or Confederate soldier battling it out in the great Civil War. Today, depending on their position, students were asked to research information of why they were fighting for their cause. Besides researching information, students were also asked to find and print out pictures of soldiers or objects pertaining to their side. After completing both tasks, students created a brochure to try and persuade towns' people to join and fight for their cause. The brochures will be arriving home at the end of the week. Take a look at these persuasive brochures which included pictures from Flickr or Picassa. Underneath each picture, you will read some facts about when and where it was taken and what the picture illustrated! Once again, the class did a terrific job! Parents should be really proud!

Abraham Lincoln!

Did you know Abraham Lincoln had a good sense of humor and liked to make jokes?

See the "business card" below that he created as a joke:

Today in class we learned more about Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States and an influential man during the Civil War. To learn more about one of our most famous presidents, the students went on a web quest to search for information. We explored http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/lincoln/aa_lincoln_subj.html to learn more about Lincoln as our president and his entire life.

Check out some of these informative sites to learn more about Lincoln:

http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/index.html

http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/lincoln

http://www.alplm.org/

http://sc94.ameslab.gov/tour/alincoln.html

We Made a Timeline!

Today in class, we discussed how understanding the timeline of the Civil War can help us to understand the outcome and impact on our country. We also learned how to use a new online resource, a social bookmarking site called http://delicious.com/. Ask your student to show you how it works, it's a great way to look-up information on almost any topic!

Instead of having every student complete their own timeline, we worked together in pairs to complete a class timeline. Each pair researched a time period and provided the class with information, images, and sources on our class document. We use Google Docs in class frequently so that everyone can work together on one document. Once we were all finished, the students went through the timeline briefly explaining their events in history and how they impacted our country. I think this activity was an important one in our unit on the Civil War. Learning about events in history has a greater meaning if they are in proper context.

Hear Ye Hear Ye! Lincoln Gives the Gettysburg Address

Today in class, we discussed the "Gettysburg Address," given by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. In order to make this an interactive experience for everyone, students were asked to draw a piece of paper from a bucket containing the name and position of a person living in that time period. Whoever the student drew (union soldier, confederate soldier, or towns person), the student would become that character for the lesson. Then, the class was split up into groups of two and were asked to research using Wiki sites some information that could be asked in interview questions related to the Gettysburg Address. A sample question could have been, "What do you think of the Gettysburg Address? Do you think Abraham Lincoln will keep his promise of freedom?" After students came up with questions that they wanted to ask each others' character, students conducted interviews while using the flip cameras. I will be posting some of the interviews that were done in class. It's amazing the differences of opinions between the students!

Hello comrades!

Today in class we learned about some of the terminology used by both the Confederate and Union soldiers during the Civil War era. We had the opportunity to use our computerized clicker system to learn many different slang terms from that era. Some of the words we learned were "Smoked Yanks," "Gallinippers," "Company Q," "Mule," "Greenhorn," "Jawning," "Fit to be tied," "Fit as a fiddle," "Bread basket," and "Seeing the elephant." Ask your student what these terms mean - it's really cool to be able to talk in period!

Some of the questions we also discussed were:

*What do you think it was like to be a soldier during the Civil War?

*How do you think Civil War soldiers spoke?

*What does slang mean?

*What slang words or terms do we use today?

After we discussed many slang terms, students chose a photograph of Union or Confederate soldiers and created a postcard. The postcards were written to fellow soldiers and used different terminology of the period. Check back on our blog soon to see them posted!

For more information about Civil War Slang, check out these informative websites:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/gettkidz/soldslang.htm

http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/manswar/pages/slang.html

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~poindexterfamily/CivilWar.html

Underground Railroad- Would you Stay or Flee?

The confederate army was on the move, leaving students the decision to stay or go. In order to figure out their best chances of survival, students were given the opportunity to research on wiki sites the experiences of slaves during the underground railroad. Then, as a class, they were asked to help fill out a chart of the risks and benefits of staying or leaving on the smartboard. After deciding that the class would flee, using Google Maps, students plotted out their escape route. Following the activity, students were asked to complete a narrative answering the following questions:

1. What do you bring and why?

2. What do you have to leave behind?

3. Would you ever return to Gettysburg? Why or Why not?

4. If so, when would you go back?

5. If you stay behind in Gettysburg, how will you hide? Where will you go? Whom do you trust and why?