Day 101- Mrs. Delk, how do you know everything?

That was seriously a question that one of students asked me today.
My answer was, "I'm a teacher. I'm supposed to know everything."

The question came from this soldier here:

 

We had just watched a BrainPop video on the Underground Railroad to review what we learned about Harriet Tubman yesterday. One of the things mentioned was how escaping slaves would use the stars and constellations to help them with directions. I mentioned the Big Dipper, and how it was called the Drinking Gourd, and I sang a little of the song Follow the Drinking Gourd.

This soldier said, "Mrs. Delk, how do you know everything? You always have a song to sing when you teach."

I told her, "This is a real song. I didn't make it up!" And I decided to show my students that I wasn't just telling stories. 

I plugged in my laptop to the Promethean, got on to Google, and typed in Follow the Drinking Gourd. Up popped lots of links! {THIS} is the one we looked at. We listened to some of the different recordings and my students now have another song stuck in their heads. :)

Here is one version that I found on youtube. Enjoy!

My students wanted to share the link with their families at home, so we went to our blog and posted  link to what we found, during class! You can check it out {HERE}. When I got home, I did a little more digging and I found a video to add. Have fun!

My students are fascinated by the life of Harriet Tubman. They stayed focused on the BrainPop Jr. video we watched and they made some insightful comments when we talked about the difficulties that Tubman and other escaped slaves must have encountered. Since I know my students want to know more, I found this video from the Biography channel.

It's inspiring what one person can accomplish! I don't know if my students fully understand the impact that Harriet Tubman made on American History, but I know they understand the bravery it took.

For our writing prompt, we took our prompt from yesterday and tweaked it a little. Instead of being a conductor on the Underground Railroad, we pretended we were escaping slaves who had just learned the song Following the Drinking Gourd. Students were to write about a day in their life as they escaped to the North.

 We hide at day. We walked at night. I walk to the station. A station is a home for people. Some body is following me. 

 The police tried to get me! The police got me! I am in jail! Love mom! I love you!

(I love that he is writing  letter to his mom!)

 One day I was outside. I go to walk. Then I see some body. Then I take him to my house. Then I see another person. Then I take him at house. 

 I will follow the drinking gourd. I will sing the drinking gourd. I will give money. 

(We talked about how some abolitionists in the north supported escaped slaves by giving them money for their new life.)

 I will sing in the day. I will be safe. I am going to Canada. I will get punished. I will get caught. 

(It started so optimistic!)

I am getting chased by dogs. One bit me. I got to run. I am almost safe. My day was bad. 

(I focused on the picture because he really went into detail!)

** If you'd like to see how other students celebrate Black History month, and learn about the Underground Railroad, check out {THIS} blog post from SubHub.** 

In reading we read a story about the rain forest and watched  BrainPop about it. I math we talked about making estimations using the 100s grid. Basically, we learned bout rounding. We'll get more in-depth with it in future lessons. 

Here are literacy center pictures:

 Poetry/ Fluency, Buddy reading/ Graphic organizers

 Spelling texters/ Word wall, Word Work

Again, we had recess inside. *SIGH* I know my students want to go outside soon, but we can't until the County comes and cleans. (When it rains and we flood, the geese really make a mess of things.)

Our Daily Brain