Teaching the History of North American-Slavery

Such a difficult topic to teach well, thoughtfully, and accurately.  Lately there have been some picture books and young adult literature that describe and depict slavery in a lens that shows the inhumanity, interactions and repercussions behind slavery.

Triangular Trade Route:
Ted-Ed talk overview by Anthony Hazard.  A five minute overview, told with creative and beautiful artwork. Dense but comprehensive.

 

Read Alouds:

Picture Books:

Henry's Freedom Box

Chapter Books:

Sophia's War

Chains

Resources:

Teaching Tolerance: Lies My Bookshelf Told Me: Slavery in Children's Literature- an article that discusses the topic and slavery represented in children's literature.  A good read before planning a unit.

Letters for Geometry

To practice flips (reflections), slides (translations), and turns (rotations), I make the first letter of the children's names, and the students cut them out.  We then use these letters as manipulatives, so that they can demonstrate each movement on their desktop, as I call them out.

These letters can lead into another activity:

Activity link

Decimal Letters

The kids used 10 by 10 grid paper (100 squares any size) to color the first letter of their name.  They then recorded a fraction and decimal to show how many squares were colored out of one hundred.  

Greek Mythology

After adopting the Common Core State Standards, the fourth grade curriculum changed to include aspects of Greek mythology (mostly entomology).  One lesson I used when teaching Greek and Roman myths is below.

After a series of read alouds, from mythology books available at local libraries, each of the students chose a god or goddess to research.  They then created a large scale drawing (I have seen this lesson done on butcher paper with life size figures) of their god/goddess.  They are given a graphic organizer and each limb and part of the body houses a different teaching point.  Obviously you can tailor this the ability and needs of your class.

Hints:  many resources need to be read or previewed.  Mythology can be gruesome and is not always age appropriate for fourth graders.
Some good and readily available titles were: A Child's Introduction to Greek Mythology The True Stories of the Gods, Goddesses, Heroes, Monsters, and Other Mythical Creatures, and D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths.

Organizer on chart paper

Whole class teacher model

Student work

Organizer for Research

Title:  The name of your god or goddess: 

Head:  Adjectives describing your god or goddess (at least 6).

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Torso:   Choose one myth that your god or goddess is in.  Summarize the myth below:

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1 Arm:  Write about your god or goddess' personality: 

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1 Arm:  Write about what your god or goddesses created: 

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Feet:  Draw symbols of your god or goddess.