Our 3rd graders are currently in their final stages of studying about Lawrence history. During this unit, students learn about topics such as pioneers, Quantril's Raid, slavery, the Underground Railroad, and various types of Lawrence house styles from the late 1800's and early 1900's. During a recent field trip, students were able to visit old homes and cemeteries in town that had direct ties to each of these topics. As a library tie-in, we read The Drinking Gourd and discussed its correlation to other components of what they were studying. After completing a few activities with the book and song in our first lesson, students then had the opportunity to incorporate technology and coding into our second lesson. Students followed adapted lyrics to Follow the Drinking Gourd, called Follow the Dashing Code, to use clues in the song to code a Dash robot within their team of three. Their overall objective was to have their Dash successfully follow our Drinking Gourd map based on the clues the uncovered through The Dashing Code song. Although students got to code and watch their Dash move, they only had one chance to test their coding on the actual map. In the end, some student teams were successful, while others were not. This led to a great conversation about how all slaves who tried to follow the Drinking Gourd might not have made it to freedom and allowed us to also talk about what may have happened to those who were caught. Students further came to the realization that while our activity made some of them a little nervous as they went to test their code in front of the class, it was in all actuality a very small risk compared to what slaves trying escape may have felt in what, for them, may have ultimately been a life or death situation. Take a look at one of our successful coding activities below.
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CategoriesJenny WilliamsAfter 8 years in the classroom, I'm very eager and excited to be in my 5th year as Library Media Specialist in the Learning Commons of Langston Hughes! Archives
April 2019
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