Brilliant Biographies

For the last couple of weeks, we have been reading about amazing people in our reading groups. We had the inquiry question, "What can we learn from amazing people?" Through our biography reading, we have learned about amazing people like Rachael Carson, Ellen Ochoa, Ben Franklin, the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and more. The students loved to share their biographies with other classmates and their reading made them even more curious about amazing people in history.  Luckily, the children's curiosity, our study of biographies, and Eagle Cliff's third grade hero fair all came together.  We decided for our Unit 5 inquiry project that we would interview famous people from throughout history.

Before the interviews the students had to come up with a list of questions.  Together, they decided on asking history heroes at the fair the 5 W's and a WOW!  So on the clipboards the students had: Who are you?  What did you do?  Where did you live?  When did you live?  Why were you important?  and What is one WOW fact about your life?  The third graders did a great job answering our questions and the students learned a ton!  You should have heard the discussion when the first graders returned.  They were so excited.  Here are a few more pictures from the interviews because I can't just pick a couple to post!

These smarties still weren't done. They had a whole new list of history heroes that they wanted to know more about. The children used our online subscription to world book to find more information. The articles in World Book kids and World Book student include kid friendly text, videos, diagrams, and photographs.

You can access this wonderful online encyclopedia at home as well! It is a safe search engine for all those interesting first grade questions. From a computer, students can click on the text and the computer will read it to them. Here is the link and login information. You can also access the link from the top button bar on the blog. Please check it out!

Worldbook Online

Log-In ID Home: eagleciffshome 

Password: eagles 

 When we finished researching, some students picked one amazing person to write a poem about. The poem was a triangle poem. The first line answered "Who?" with one word. The second line was two words for "Where?" and then three words for "When?" Last, four words to describe "How?" and five words for "Why?" The students really had to synthesize the most important information to write the poems. Here are a few great examples:

Ben

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

From 1706- 1790

Printer, Scientist, and Inventor

His inventions helped many people.

Franklin

By Drew

Rosa

Tuskegee, Alabama

From 1913-2005

She helped black people.

She would not give up.

Parks

By Olivia

Helen

Tuscumbia, Alabama

June 27th 1880

Helped the blind children.

A famous author and speaker.

Keller

By Savannah

Abraham

White House

From 1809-1865

He helped free people

He led the United States

Lincoln

By Scotty