Presenting our...

Several weeks ago, we started an amazing reading unit of study about overcomers... literary characters who exhibit great strength to overcome unique challenges and contribute to their community or world in big ways.  We transitioned into learning about "real" overcomers from history and the children worked in teams to research the lives of:

• Jane Goodall

• George Washington Carver

• Sally Ride

• The Wright Brothers and...

• Christopher Columbus

The writing connection for this unit culminated in each of the children making their own biography poster to highlight important facts about these overcomers.  The criteria for the project included:

• a character map with at least describing word and evidence

• two WOW facts

• three relevant vocabulary words

• a "before and after" feature explaining their impact on the world

Take a look at a few pictures highlighting the work they did on creating and presenting their posters.  During the presentations, their peers evaluated their work and recorded their new learning.

Delaney shares her biography of Sally Ride with Isabella.

Isabella waits to share hers about George Washington Carver.

Isabela listens as Kate teaches her all about Christopher Columbus.

Grace just finished talking about the Wright brothers.

Now it's Juan's turn to tell her some amazing facts about Jane Goodall.

Teacher-Kate teaches the class about Mr. Columbus and his brave explorations.

We learned many interesting facts about George Washington Carver from Angelina.  It's bad for the soil to have the same crop planted year after year.  Mr. Carver suggested replacing cotton crops with peanut crops and then spent years experimenting with peanuts to see how many products could be made using this food.

Sean rates Kate's project and then records what he learned.

Taylor checks off everything on the rubric for Kate.  Good job, Kate!  :)