A Classroom Calendar Correlation

During my years in the classroom, I always liked to teach to the calendar-----meaning I preferred to build a unit or present a topic in a timely manner with an actual event, holiday, celebration, season, remembrance, etc. Since a feeling for history is hard to establish for young children, it makes more sense to talk about, for example, the Pilgrims at the actual time of year for harvesting and preparing for winter-----not say in May! If you want children to have an understanding for the direness and gratitude felt by the Pilgrims, then the children need to have some concrete connections to the events. Appropriate seasonal weather conditions have the power to cement concepts read about in books or heard about in stories.

Holding to my belief in following the calendar for the classroom, I used a day subbing with a group of 6^th graders after their EOG's as a way to explore three calendar events---a full moon combined with Friday the 13^th, Flag Day, and Father's Day. Using my efforts to make their time as interesting as possible while waiting for the other classes to finish the Science EOG's, I honed in on the fact that it is the 200^th Anniversary of the STAR SPANGLED BANNER. I found information and an interactive website in the June issue of the SMITHSONIAN, the magazine for smithsonian.com.

Luckily, the school is equipped with Wifi, a laptop, and a projector, so I was able to share the interactive website with the entire class. Since they have an American flag on display in their classroom I started the discussion off with having everyone stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Next we proceeded to read the information on the interactive website with a game that the class had taught me called “popcorn.” The students take turns reading until they are tired which then calls for the reader to say “popcorn!” Hands then go up for volunteers to be called on to continue the reading. At the end of each section of the informational reading on the website was a question to be answered before they could move on to the next section. It was amazing to see how engaged they were about getting each question correct in order to read more about the history surrounding the song and the flag.

After finishing the website, I presented the class with examples taken from the SMITHSONIAN magazine which showed artworks that were inspired by the flag which had been seen by Francis Scott Key. There were examples by painters, poets, musicians, cartoonists, and weavers. Of course the one to catch the attention of these 6^th graders was the piece done by the team at Ralph Lauren's studio. Next I challenged them to create something red, white, and blue to represent how they felt about the STAR SPANGLED BANNER and that original flag which has been enshrined at the the Smithsonian since 2008. I put out piles of red, white, and blue scraps from many old projects---paper strips, foam punch outs, wire, tissue paper, ribbon, stickers, etc. In the accompanying pictures are some examples of projects that were created by the students.

Since these students are going to be the class to lead the singing of the STAR SPANGLED BANNER at the school graduation ceremony, I asked them to practice the words. Again using the SMITHSONIAN interactive website we heard the music and saw the words. An interesting discussion occurred when they realized that the words for the STAR SPANGLED BANNER were actually piggy-backed on another popular British song. They saw that it was like singing a nursery rhyme. They all knew that the ABC song (which was based on a Mozart tune) which then became the basis for “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” which is the same tune as “Baa, Baa Black Sheep.” After several attempts to sing the STAR SPANGLED BANNER, I realized only one girl in the class knew the words and tune. I am going to have to print off copies for everyone to practice next week.

Happy Flag Day and Happy Birthday to the STAR SPANGLED BANNER!!!