My students need historical novels to read such as A Lion to Guard Us, If You Were There in 1492, & Sign of the Beaver in order to learn more about our countrys history.
"The challenge of history is to recover the past and introduce it to the present." -David Thelen. Each day my students embark on a journey to unravel the past of their country. By using historical novels as a learning tool, they will gain much needed insight into their country's unique history.
My fifth grade students are a hard working set of kids.
From the first moment they enter my class they become historians and become intent on finding out all they can about their own and America's history. Most of them come from hard working households where their parents have little time or money to devote to helping them learn. Despite any set backs in their home lives, they come to school and work hard to learn.
It seems that each year their opportunities to really learn become smaller as our school budget shrinks. I often find myself supplementing their learning from my own pocket.
My students have diverse backgrounds and educational experience. They include students with special needs as well as students with advanced levels. My students, who have reduced opportunities outside the classroom, deserve a chance to really excel inside the classroom. One way they can do this is with great learning materials.
My Project
My project will help my students develop a meaningful understanding of history by providing them with class sets of historical novels. By having a class set of each novel, every student can connect with the print by having their own copy to read, learn, and work from. By reading If You Were There in 1492, my students will be able to gain a better perspective of what the world and America was like when Columbus sailed. They will step into the shoes of two young children living in Jamestown in A Lion to Guard Us. In the Sign of the Beaver, they will interact with early Native American tribes as they try to survive in Maine in 1769. These resources will help my students who have grown up never knowing a world without computers or cell phones, to begin to truly understand the past. In addition to learning important history concepts, my students will also be gaining vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension skills all in the context of an intriguing historical novel.
So many adults remember history as a boring subject.
My project will help my students develop a knowledge of the past through fun and relevant novels. Instead of just reading from the textbook, my students will be able to jump into the story and gain true knowledge. It will help them develop a love of history and asking questions about the past. This project will help my students gain much needed materials to give them the opportunities to learn that every student deserves.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Bateman and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.