Civil War

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Archive : 2004 : April : 9

Civil War
By Bec ky

Not sure if this will help you, but here it is. I did this with my 2nd grade class this year and they really enjoyed it. We focused on the Underground Railroad during our study of The Civil War. First I told the students
that we would be studying about the Underground Railroad and asked them to draw their prediction of what they thought the underground railroad was. As you can imagine most drew a train going underground. Then we read a book on the life of Harriet Tubman. We either changed or confirmed our predictions with another picture. We then drew off a map of the Eastern United States and "traced"

a slave's road to freedom on the map. The students made homes, barns, stores, etc.. from paper to show where a slave might have stopped along the way. They showed details in their drawings such as the quilts people hung out to let the slaves know that it was safe. We got online and did a seach for slavery songs and learned the meanings behind the lyrics. To close the unit we wrote from the point of view of a slave as they made their way to freedom. I hope that this will be helpful to you. Of coarse just adapt it to your grade level.Good Luck!