Curious Colonial Punishments

As an end of the unit activity on the American Colonial Era, we had a round-table discussion on common colonial punishments.  In advance, I researched and compiled a list of historical crimes and punishments that had happened or typically happened in the 13 American colonies and put them on slips of paper.  Each student had to choose a slip, then read their crime and their punishment for said crime.  Some of the crimes include:


"You will be set in the pillory for delivering false dinner invitations and for being the author of a rough practical joke."

 (The Pillory)

"You were caught gossipping...you are sentences to wear the 'gossip's bridle'.  This was a sort of heavy iron cage, that covered the head; a flat tongue of iron, sometimes spiked, was thrust into the mouth over the criminal's tongue."

(The Gossip's Bridle)

"You stole a pair of breeches in 1638 and are sentenced to 'sitt in the stocks on the next Sabboth day...from the beginninge of morninge prayer until the end of the Serman, with a pair of breeches about your necke."

(The Stocks)

The students LOVE this activity! Their fascination probably stems from the fact that in pre-Constitution times there was no such thing as protection from 'cruel and unusual punishment' so the punishments they received were very interesting!

New England or Chesapeake?

As a quick review and as a way to practice classifying information, we played a matching game where teams of students had to place images onto one of two colonial figures.  One figure was a Puritan who represented the New England colonies and the other was a picture of John Smith, who represented Jamestown and the Chesapeake region. 

The pictures represented characteristics of each place.  A school house, for instance, represents the high level of education of citizens in Puritan New England, while the cigarettes represent the fact that tobacco became the number one cash crop in the Jamestown settlement.

The teams competed with one another to see who could classify the pictures the fastest with the least mistakes. This is a great review because the students have to do the same type of classification on the end of unit assessment and having the visuals in the game helps them recall information.

The Jamestown Draft

This year we've been able to add additional instructional time to our schedule in a period called Enrichment.  During this block, we do activities that enhance and 'enrich' what we are learning about in our core U.S. History class time.  It allows me to create and implement many new activities and lessons that I haven't had time for in past school years.  One new activity that we recently completed was called the "Jamestown Draft". 

I modeled this loosely on the concept of a sports draft, like that of the NFL, to get the kids engaged in the activity.  Each student randomly chose a slip of paper with a description of an occupation really held by one the settlers in the Jamestown colony.  Two 'team captains' were picked to be the leaders of two new fictitious American colonies.  The team captains had to decide, based on the 'value' of each occupation, who they wanted to draft into their colony.  The object was to build the strongest colony of workers and thus survive longer than the opposing colony. Here are two teams of colonial workers who have been 'drafted':

In the end, each team had to convince me why they were the strongest by explaining the value of each of their occupations.  It was a fun way to debate and learn a little more about colonial America!

Our Theme: Freedom

Our overarching theme for this year in U.S. History comes from a quote by President Franklin D. Roosevelt:

“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

We spent our first enrichment class discussing this idea and what it means to each student.  We'll be pulling examples from each unit of study that we will connect to the idea that freedom in America had to be earned by American people from the very settlers to the citizens of modern day. 

Welcome to a New School Year

Welcome to the 2011-2012 school year! I'll be updating the blog with new posts as soon as I get things settled here at school! If you're new to the blog, you can learn a little about me HERE. I hope you check back often to see what my students are up to!

Summer

A Class Divided

We are in the midst of our Civil Rights unit in U.S. History where we are exploring the histories and struggles of various groups who've faced discrimination and oppression. As part of this unit, we do a segregation simulation where the students are divided into two groups based on some arbitrary characteristic (eye color, hair color, etc.). One of the groups must wear special identifying necklaces strung with noodles so everyone knows they are in that group.

For two class periods (four days) students in each group must follow a certain set of rules. I've loosely based the rules on certain codes of conduct that dictated society's rules during the Jim Crow period in America. The simulation is also loosely based on one that a third grade teacher, Jane Elliot, conducted with her students shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, the primary difference being that the students knew this simulation was coming and therefore knew it was pretend.

At the end of the simulation, the students were asked to watch a documentary about Jane Elliot and her students called A Class Divided, which I would encourage you to watch here. It is fascinating and arguably one of my students' favorite films of the year. Although they usually feel somewhat uncomfortable while the simulation is happening, year after year they say that it is a very good learning experience and think it is a valuable lesson. I think it fits with the 'learn by doing' philosophy, which is a sentiment the students echoed in our 'debriefing' class discussions.

All That Jazz!

We are studying the history and culture of the Roaring Twenties and have had the chance to have a little fun!  We sung All That Jazz from the musical Chicago, then analyzed the lyrics to find examples of slang terminology from the '20s.  We read some background information about the Charleston, a popular dance of the age, then cleared the dance floor and tried it out:

 

We concluded our study by researching and writing biographies on famous figures of the 1920s, otherwise known as Character Sketches.  Students were required to research, write a properly formatted essay, then present to the class.  Instead of having each student present in the third person, the students were asked to come to class dressed as the person they researched and present in the first person.  I dressed up as a flapper to inspire them and they had some fantastic and creative costumes of their own!

Pictures from the Character Sketch presentations:

 

"Spring Sphere" Hunt

Before going away for April Vacation we concluded our unit on the Populist & Progressive movements by taking an exam:

With the last half hour of class I decided to have a little pre-vacation fun by hiding eggs all around the room for the students to find.

Of course, like most activities I plan, there was a twist!  Each egg contained a little prize as well as a U.S. History trivia question taken from all of our previous units of study:

The students had to correctly answer the question before they could keep their prize!  It was a fun way to relax, review, and kick off vacation!

HAPPY SPRING!

Abe Lincoln is My Homeboy!

It was this week in 1865 that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.  A new movie came out yesterday chronicling the aftermath of the assassination....The Conspirator.  I had tried to organize a vacation week History Club outing to see this film but sadly it only came out in limited theaters, none of which are convenient for my kiddos to access.  Oh well!  I am going to try to see it anyway and maybe we'll watch it as a class at the end of the year??  Here's one of my students modeling an awesome History Club t-shirt:

Sure does beat the Jersey Shore t-shirts I've seen around school lately! :0)