Monday, November 28, 2011

Rosa Parks tissue box: a 3rd grade assignment


Rosie's classmates were each assigned a historical figure to research, write about, and then put the facts up on the four panels of a tissue box. Panel one was to be an original drawing of the historical figure. I was impressed that Rosie just drew the illustration of Rosa Parks in the photo above, with no reference whatsoever. Probably helped that she was assigned Rosa Parks before, by her first grade teacher. She drew the bus, then I suggested that she draw the Presidential Medal of Freedom that Mrs. Parks received from President Clinton, and I helped her (only a little, with basic outlining) draw from a photo on Wikipedia.

Panel two was a four-point timeline, panel three was five important facts about Rosa Parks, and panel four was a two-paragraph essay, compiling everything she'd learned into prose form. We had a note from her teacher that THREE paragraphs would get you an outstanding grade, so Rosie went for three.


I was just congratulating Rosie on turning the project in a day ahead of time, when I read an email from another parent in Rosie's class. Their teacher sent them home with a biography study guide today (Rosie forgot her folder at school).  It is over two pages of biographical details on 20 historical figures! AND, their test is next Tuesday!?! Thanks for no advance notice. Wouldn't it have been nice to have been able to leisurely go over different factoids during the lazy hours of the Thanksgiving break? Tossing in a story about Thomas Jefferson or Cesar Chavez at bedtime would have been nice. But now, we have to cram it all in over the next week along with all her other homework AND Dash's (he has a fractions test on Friday). The teacher is hoping that all the tissue boxes all over the classroom will help the kids absorb the stories.


How do parents with more than two kids manage all the homework? Hats off to you, I mean it.

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