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This post first appeared here at History Is Elementary in June, 2006 . I’m currently attending a seminar on educational law, so it seems appropriate to re-run this today. Enjoy. Earlier this month we sidestepped another effort to amend our Constitution. That’s not surprising since there have been approximately 10,000 proposed amendments since 1789. Most of them never got out committee while some amendments, the Equal Rights Amendment, for example, gained great notoriety but expired while waiting on ratification. If it’s possible to love a document then Elementaryhistoryteacher absolutely adores the United States Constitution. My American identity rests in the stability and continuity of the United States Constitution. I really get into teaching my government unit even though some of the more intricate workings of our government I’m required to cover in fourth grade are a bit too lofty for the students to grasp. However, I try. I lay seeds that I hope will sprout later. I teach students...

This post was written in June, 2006 and since Vacation Bible School season is fast upon us I thought I would re-run it. Go back in time with me to the olden days when summer was June, July, and August, kids caught fire flies while the adults talked ‘big talk’ on the porch, and my sister and I would find ourselves in our pajamas at the Dairy Queen on the whim of our parents as dusk overtook the day. Each summer morning I would awaken to an already fiery sun around nine a.m. I would lie there awake and listen to the sounds around me. Sometimes I would identify the sounds of the washing machine, the slam of our wooden screen door, or my mother speaking on the telephone. I never dressed immediately. Instead I would get up and wander about the house looking out the front door and then moving towards the back of the house to check out what was going on. I’d say good morning to mom and then fix my breakfast. Sometimes it would be cinnamon toast or my personal favorite back then….Saltines spr...

This post first appeared here at History Is Elementary in May,2007 . Enjoy! Look at my title. Balloon. Bomb. Separated each word means something very different and the concepts they represent are on opposite ends of the desirable and undesirable spectrum depending on the situation. Of course, when you place the words together the concept they represent (water balloons) can also reside on opposite ends of the desirable and undesirable spectrum. Having a balloon bomb fall on you when you least expect it is not a desirable situation. Watching a water balloon drench someone you are upset with can be a great thing. Playing with water balloons on a hot summer day is a very desirable situation for many, however, believe me when I state being appointed as the adult who gets the honor of filling 200 water balloons for a field day event is not a desirable situation Today’s 13 list doesn’t deal with just bombs, or just balloons, or even balloon bombs filled with water. The balloon bombs that are...

This morning I noticed on Facebook (yes, Elementaryhistoryteacher has a profile, but it's under an assumed name) several of my former students were commenting they just had one more week of school. Fellow educators were also giddy at the thought the school year is almost over. Can’t say that I blame them. In May, 2006 I was posting concerning end of the year awards and a letter that ALL of my students receive at the end of the year. I provide the full text of the letter and encourage other teachers to use it if they so desire. I finally managed to get our team awards done yesterday and gave them to my team members so they could verify signatures, etc. I typed up awards for all As all year in each academic area, and most improved in each homeroom. The front office prepared our certificates for all As all year, all As and Bs all year, and perfect attendance----the usual, you know. As a team we decided to give our awards tomorrow so if there is some sort of mistake it can be correcte...

This article first appeared here in March, 2006 . I write the following sentence on the board: Millard Fillmore was a know nothing. I ask students to tell me what the sentence means. “Well…..somebody isn’t too smart,” a student volunteers. Another comment is added. “That guy, Mil-, Mil-. That Mil- guy doesn’t know nothing.” I ignore the grammatical error. At this point it will just confuse them. I try to turn students in another direction. “What are nouns?” Someone regurgitates “Words that name people, places, ideas, and things.” I counter with, “What’s our strategy to find nouns?” Several seconds go by. I hold up my board marker and point to it. Several hands go up. “We look for noun markers like the words a, an, and the.” “Good, take a look at the sentence again. What do you see?” “Know nothing is a noun. It has an “a” in front of it.” “Yes. So is Millard Fillmore stupid?” “No, somebody is calling him a name.” “What else do you notice about the words “Know” and “Nothing”? After sever...

This post first appeared here in November, 2006 Is it possible to love someone through another’s memory? To love and admire someone you never met, someone you will never be able to meet, someone who at the moment of their passing caused an incredible upheaval of grief and gouged an enormous chasm of longing for things that can never be, someone who a large number of people still speak of with reverence, awe, and thankfulness? I believe it is possible. I know it is possible. I know it because I participate in this kind of love and admiration everyday for two vastly different Americans who left this Earth almost a year to the day from one another. My admiration for these two inviduals stems from my mother who shared her memories of them with me during my formative years where they became entertwined and linked indelibly in the murkiness where actual memory and grafted memories blend. I was six months old on Saturday, November 24, 1962. Naturally I have no real memories of this day. What ...

This post first appeared here at History Is Elementary in November, 2006 as a tribute to my Uncle Robert West for Veteran’s Day. His war story like so many others was almost never told. Like so many men who fought during World War II they all did heroic things, but wanted to just merely fade into the background once they returned, but my Uncle Robert could never fade anywhere… So….meet my Uncle Robert and then tell me what you think: This post is probably my longest yet. Yes, I know…..many of my posts are rather wordy. I even thought about cutting this one down a bit or even making it two posts instead of one. I decided I wouldn’t. To delete any part of it would be a disservice to the men of the 104th and to my Uncle Robert. I don’t think Uncle Robert’s story can be told without sharing details about the Timberwolves and their brave contribution to our victory over the Nazis. I remember my Uncle Robert as a quiet, sweet soul. For many years I spent at least one week….sometimes two…. e...

I keep several little reminders of my past on my desk at school. I have three small clay bowls I made in elementary school that at one time or another I presented to my mother for Mother’s Day or her birthday. One of the bowls stayed on a table in our living room for years with a small dried flower arrangement in it. On a picture stand I have a small picture I drew when I was a child that was glued to a piece of ply board and then covered with a clear glaze. I have a mold of my tiny hand made in second grade painted shimmery gold. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Smith, telling us to make sure we had signed our names to the bottom so that they would be true works of art. Today when my students explore my room at the beginning of the year they oogle my relics and ask, “Did you really make this when you were little?” I point to my handprint and proudly tell them, “Yes, and if you don’t believe me look at the name on the bottom.” In my home I have a coffee table that Mom and Dad had in their ...

Lesson Planning 101 teaches that students must be engaged in the lesson for learning to take place. Charlotte Danielson of the Educational Testing Service states students should not simply spend “time on task” but should be actively involved in the curriculum. She calls it “minds-on learning.” In fact many researchers have shown that teachers who are most successful develop activities with students’ basic psychological and intellectual needs in mind (Ames, Alderman & Midgley, and Strong, et. al.). Those statements sound good to me. I agree with them, however, I often feel as if I am doing a frantic tap dance attempting to keep everyone focused and learning at the same time. Spinning plates is the best way I know how to describe delivering instruction in a classroom that has quite a menu of interruptions from loose teeth, unannounced visitors, and the ever squawking intercom. From time to time the content I teach actually gives me aide and comfort and makes my tap dancing steps a li...

The following post first appeared here at History Is Elementary in September, 2006 and is titled A Typical Day . This particular post was picked up and printed in its entirety for a USA Today article regarding teachers who blog. This post deals with testing and how testing weeks can turn a school upside down…..how a typical day can become anything but typical. The picture posted here is my classroom as it appeared in 2006. Today, a lovely friend of mine has custody of MY room, and I’m glad she’s the one keeping watch over it. So if you came to my classroom this week or next would you see a typical day in Elementaryhistoryteacher’s classroom? Unfortunately you would miss out. It simply wouldn’t happen. My school has entered the realm of CRAZY SCHOOL which is a parallel universe created by all of the education stakeholders across America. CRAZY SCHOOL is where you take a smooth running machine that has been in operation for some five weeks and throw it to the four winds. The result is a ...

Augusta, Georgia is front and center this week as the golf infamous and elite arrive to play the much heralded course at August National. President Eisenhower loved August National…..this post relates a little about his experiences there, and there are a couple of links at the end to other posts I’ve written concerning the course. David Eisenhower became a member of the August National Club in 1948. Prior to becoming president he managed to visit the course five different times. Ike loved golf. Estimations go as high as 800 regarding the number of rounds of golf Eisenhower played during his eight years in office visiting various courses. Some of those rounds were played during the 29 visits he made to Augusta National. a Golf Digest article advises President Eisenhower loved golf so much he installed a putting green on the south lawn of the White House and during inclement weather he hit long irons into a net in the basement. With the help of donations from club members a cabin was bu...

This is a true story I wrote in 2006 ……while it deals with my memories about the death of my great-grandmother, it is also a humorous story regarding a very old-time southern funeral, the Easter Bunny, and what can happen to your gum on a very, very warm Spring day…… Enjoy! I’m sure, dear reader, you are familiar with the definition of sticky as it refers to candy. Did you know that there is now a cyberspace definition for sticky? It has to do with how well your site attracts traffic. Sticky sites have high volumes of traffic, especially the returning kind. Has your mind ever returned to a memory due to a sound you’ve heard, a smell, or even a particular holiday? I guess we could call those memories “sticky” because we keep returning to them. Yesterday morning as I awoke I remembered that it was Easter Sunday. My mind instantly returned to a memory that is sticky in more ways than one. My father’s family buried his grandmother on Easter Sunday. She was 102; I was 6. Every Easter I reca...

I wrote the following blog post in March, 2006. Enjoy! Introducing American History to children isn’t always easy. I employ the “take two steps forward, one step back” method. I constantly review. I constantly connect old content to new content. Over the last several days we have become knee deep into the American Revolution. During our review of taxes, taxes, and more taxes we were making a list of the different ways colonists protested the taxes. As they volunteered I wrote-----boycotts, smuggled goods, letters to Parliament, petitions, and violence. A young man volunteers, “The Sons of Liberty.” Immediately a girl speaks up and says, “Daughters,too----the Daughters of Liberty!” I make separate entries on the board to please the masses. I say, “I think we have them all. What about important people who spoke out about the taxes?” Students rattle off the following names---James Otis, Mercy Otis Warren, and Patrick Henry. “There’s one more that we’ve talked about, so far,” I prompt. A ...

The following post first appeared here at History Is Elementary on January 28, 2006. It involves a lesson where I used a series of questions to help students discover new material…..linking old knowledge to new ideas. Read on…..YOU might learn something interesting about history and what goes on in your child’s classroom. Remember….this is the season of the mulligan here at History Is Elementary (see my explanation post HERE ). I’m re-posting some past efforts for your enjoyment while I’m off working on other projects. Questioning students of any age is a great way to assess and gauge your success, but I like to use questions to guide students to discover information on their own---information that I want and plan for them to discover. Discovery is an important tool in the classroom. I can provide text pages, notes, and lecture to them all day. They might be able to regurgitate information back at me, but has transfer of knowledge really occurred? Discovery, on the other hand, gives a ...