Today I gave Arianna a brass and copper Sacagaewea $1 coin. We are beginning an in -depth study of the Lewis and Clark expedition. This is a new word for her word wall - expedition. We looked at a map to see how the U.S. changed after the purchase of land from France. We talked about Jefferson's desire to learn more. We will continue in our next class. Today we read "A Teddy Bear for President Roosevelt" by Connie and Peter Roop. This was a great story! At the end, we read about the true story of how the teddy bear was created. This story touched on so many other subjects we've studied. The creators of the teddy bear were Russian immigrants who were very proud to be American. We learned more about Teddy Roosevelt and his love of nature and animals, like Arianna. Afterwards, we revisited The Gilda Lehrman Institute American History box to see more pictures and read about immigrants, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. Finally, we discussed the American Revolution. Arianna already knows a lot about it. We looked at Schoolhouse Rock "No More Kings." Arianna loved it and wanted to watch it a second time. It relates the story she knows much about - the pilgrims coming to America on the Mayflower, colonization, and the founding of our nation.

Craig was absent today. He had HOMEWORK. There will be a Quiz next Friday. We will begin reading "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien and then "take a break" for a geography review unit - to prepare for standardized testing.

Arianna and I finished watching "Let My People Go" on the Superbook website. We defined new words: chariot, plague, staff. Arianna learned about God and Moses leading the Israelite slaves out of Egypt. Afterwards, we looked to posters in the Gilder Lehrman Institute American History box and learned more about immigrants, Ellis Island, and George Washington. Arianna was surprised to learn that George Washington had many slaves.

Henry did a lesson on Plymouth Colony. We reviewed the places and dates of the two previous colonies and put their dates and locations on his map. We discussed the different reasons the settlers left England and came to America and read an article on Plymouth and compared and contrasted it with the other two colonies. He watched a short video on Plymouth.

This morning we continued our Abraham Lincoln informational packet using our Time for Kids magazine for support. We added that Lincoln was married and had four children. Then he colored pictures of Mount Rushmore, a penny, and the Lincoln Memorial. Danny then listened to a passage about Abe Lincoln and answered follow-up questions. We did the same with George Washington. Danny scored 5/5 on each of them. These two passages are part of a booklet that we will create about the presidents. Danny then completed a picture sort to determine which items apply to Lincoln and which apply to Washington. He did an awesome job remembering! We had fun stamping out the letters to spell “Lincoln” on paper. We then looked at the penny and Danny used a pencil to coin rub the image of the penny on his paper several times. It gave a neat perspective of Lincoln’s profile on the penny. Finally, we ended our session by reading two more chapters of our book, Hour at the Olympics by Mary Pope Osborne. We met the woman poet who wrote the book the children need to collect. They never shared her name as it had to remain a secret, since women were not entitled any rights in that time. The children wanted to go watch the Olympics, but Annie planned to go in hiding to watch the stage play instead, as it was too risky for her to attend the games as a female. We learned that the olive tree is sacred to this culture and the winners wear crowns of olive branches (instead of medals). Jack and Plato saw the huge Zeus statue and Plato explained that the athletes promise the statue that they have trained for 10 months and will obey the rules of the games.

Today in class, Jayne learned about the Statue of Liberty, another American symbol. She read a text, "Our Statue of Liberty" and then watched a short video about the statue. Jayne gathered facts from these two sources so that she could present and teach someone else about the Statue of Liberty and its meaning to America. She then created a Statue of Liberty puppet and demonstrated her understanding of the topic by presenting a short puppet show.

Craig and I explored the Vietnam War with "HIp Hughes on History: The Vietnam War Explained" and TedEd "The Infamous and Ingenious Ho Chi Minh Trail." Craig and I discussed this. Craig answered post Quiz questions and I gave him a graphic organizer for thoughts on the TedEd video, which we will complete together tomorrow.

Charlie will have a Quiz at the end of next week. It will cover everything we've studied since our last Quiz plus vocabulary. We will review during the next week. Today we reviewed mythology and the homework assignment. We read about the Industrial Revolution and learned about Imperialism and Nationalism. We watched BrainPop about the assembly line. We also read about Napoleon, the Napoleonic Code and the influence of Englightenment thinkers. Finally, we spent some time researching Antarctica, particulary its geography and different periods of daylight in winter and summer.

Henry finished watching the movie "Nightmare at Jamestown". We discussed the difficulties the settlers had and reasons for their survival after all of their hardships. We also discussed what might have happened if Jamestown had not been a successful colony and how that could possibly have changed the world we live in today.

Today we read Abraham Lincoln by Wil Mara. We also watched the Brain Pop Jr. learning video about him. Danny scored 5/5 on the follow-up easy quiz. In both of these sources we learned that Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Kentucky and moved to Illinois. We looked at these states on the map. Danny began writing a follow-up informational packet about Abraham Lincoln. We used the previously mentioned items as well as a Time for Kids publication about Lincoln to help us. Danny wrote Lincoln’s name, birthdate and place, and that he was the 16th president. He also wrote that his nickname was Honest Abe. For his childhood, Danny wrote that Lincoln was a good student who loved to read and became a lawyer. In how he led our country, Danny wrote that he led us in the Civil War and ended slavery. We will finish up this project in our next session. To wrap up our time, we read more of the Hour at the Olympics Magic Tree House book that we previously started (to tie in with the Winter Olympics). The children had just landed in ancient Greece at the time of the first Olympics. They witnessed a play on an outdoor stage and realized there were no women around! They ran into the philosopher Plato who recognized their Master Librarian cards. He helped direct them to the writer of the secret book they need to bring back to Morgan LeFay for this mission!