Edward Said:

Where can I find lesson plans on "the Trail of Tears"?

We Answered:

The events of of the early 1830's to Native Americans is a very dark and tragic subject. I'm not sure you can really convey this period to 9 yr olds without either boring them or scaring them.

Rounding up residents in U.S. and "putting" them somewhere isn't a 19th century notion. Some of your students may be illegals so that notion is very real and personal to them.

Incorporate the relocation of Southeast Indians briefly, highlighting their tribal identities and unique contributions. The Cherokee websites are great about identifying the alphabet and education of their ancestors. (www.cyndislist.com is a good genealogy/info website)

Also the Smithsonian Institute just opened a new Native American Museum - it's awesome. Access their website and perhaps you can get materials from them...

Anita Said:

5th grade sciene nuclear energy lesson plan questions..help!?

We Answered:

There are many good sources, check out the links. The fact that slowed down neutrons are required for U-235 to fission. To slow down a neutron it needs to transfer it's kinetic energy and that transfer is best when the mass of the particle it is bounce off of is equivalent to the neutron. What would be good to use? Show the periodic table - Hydrogen is an obvious choice. H2O is good as a moderator and a coolant, when it is hotter (less dense) it slows fewer neutrons - there are fewer fissions, less heat produced, making the reactor naturally stable. Control rods absorb so many neutrons, not enough are left to keep the chain reaction going and the reactor shuts down. Good luck, there are many good questions, lots of good basic science, of course nuclear power for 5th graders!

Julie Said:

WWII 5th grade lesson?

We Answered:

I did WWII with my fifth graders last year and it was fabulous. What I did was just go to the library and pulled a ton of books covering everything from Hitler to the Holocaust to Japanese Internment - anything WWII. We read a book together that was called World War II but I cannot remember the author...I would recommend reading together one book that goes through the basics and then letting them investigate the things they found interesting.

One thing my kids loved was to watch the bombing scene in the movie Pearl Harbor. We didn't watch the whole thing but they really got a good idea about what that incident was like by watching the movie. I highly recommend this.

A great book is called Faithful Elephants - it's about the animals in Japanese zoos during WWII. We also read Milkweed which is an amazing book by Jerry Spinelli.

One great activity we did was to make a huge timeline of the war. We did 1939-1945 and each year was about a meter long. Each group of students were assigned one year and then they looked up important events in their year and put them on the timeline. At the end we put all pieces together and it looked amazing.

I visited the Anne Frank House last year and brought home some really great information. If you would like copies of any of this, please let me know.