Black History Month

February is Black History Month, and in 2nd grade we're spending some time researching important African American leaders in our country's history. We started by introducing students to biographies, and helped them each pick a biography about a different person from the LRC. Rosa Parks, Bessie Coleman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jackie Robinson are just a few examples of people that my students chose to research.

After picking a person, we need to research to learn more about them! The students used their biography they checked out from the library, as well as online resources such as Pebble Go and World Book Online, to complete this research. We were trying to find out why this person is famous, when were they born/when they passed away, and other interesting facts about them. Students wrote a report on their findings, and shared with partners as well as the class.

As a final piece, we generated a list of characteristics all of these people have in common. We came up with words such as leader, brave, kind, helpful, etc. After that, I had students generate a list of characteristics that describes themselves. Each student took a picture of them self, and used an app to edit the picture by adding in text surrounding themselves with these positive characteristics. It was great to see students reflect and pick out their own positive traits!