Day 5

DAY 5: LET’S CHOOSE TO CELEBRATE!!

Objective: The students will celebrate their knowledge with a choice of activities.

Time needed: 45 minutes

Materials Needed: Cardboard, costumes, magazines, microphone, markers

For Game Show Option: - microphone, costumes, 5 chairs

For Collage Option: magazines, large roll of poster paper, markers

For Board Game Option: - Spinners, markers, cards, game board cardboard

Activity 1: Game Show-Students will role play a conductor, an Abolitionist, a fugitive slave, A Quaker stationmaster, an overseer, a plantation owner and an “Oprah”. Each student in this group will write three questions for each of these characters on a separate piece of paper. A mini-lesson on question design may be needed. No yes or no answers are allowed. These will be given to “Oprah”. The characters will be introduced and seated on the stage. After a grand introduction, Oprah will ask the questions given to her. Each character will respond appropriately. Audience participation will be encouraged. Additional audience questions will be welcome.

Activity 2: Freedom Collage- Students will design a collage entitled “FREEDOM!” They will use pictures and words cut from magazines and/or draw them freehand. (I do prefer that they find magazine pictures if possible.)

Activity 3: Harriet Tubman Game Board- The detailed game board may move from the “Start” of Harriet’s life to it’s “End,” or from the “Start” of the UGRR in the South to it’s “End” in Canada. Students will write the object of the game, the directions, how many can play, and they will make materials (for example, spinners, markers, board and cards.)?

*The Most Fun-but oh-so optional-not for the students-but for YOU-(because it may make you pull your hair out )--You will want to use this activity as a week-long culmination to the unit-----or not.....!?!?

Activity 4: I'm Out'a Here!-In this week- long activity, your classroom becomes a plantation. You ( the teacher) assume the role as plantation owner. On Monday morning students draw "roles" from a hat. (You may be clever and use a gourd.) On the card will be written a day of the week. This indicates the day they are allowed to escape. ( You would lose your mind if you let it become an escape "free-for-all"-believe me!) I usually record these for safe keeping. Also, each day from Mon.-Fri. each student draws a second card. If this card has a big red X on it, that signifies that they are the Overseers that day. The other cards are blank. If ,by chance, they are also scheduled for an escape on a day they choose an overseer card, they may decide which role to accept. These are kept secret! In a room of 25 students you will want a ratio of 20 slaves to 5 Overseers. The object of the activity is for the slaves to "escape" your room without being seen. You may want to specify a time frame in which escape is allowed. You may not want escape attempts occurring during a Guided Reading Session! In advance, you have hidden a homemade "Freedom Scroll" ( I usually decorate mine with a huge gold seal) somewhere in the school building. The bottom of the Lost and Found Box worked very well!

Here's where it gets complicated. Throughout the building you have placed slave catchers and armed them with big red STOP signs. I have used the librarian, custodians, even the principal! I use five catchers each day. It is helpful if the catchers are familiar with the 5th graders. Of course, they have been asked far in advance. Students are instructed to never enter a classroom or bother a working adult. Most never make it out of the room because if an Overseer in the classroom spies them sneaking out, he or she simply yells, "Stop Slave" and that is the end of it! I allow only one escape attempt per child for the entire day. If the slave makes it out of the room he is on his way!! Where is he supposed to go, you ask?

I tell the class in the morning that somewhere in the classroom is written the name of the first "Station-master." Sometimes I make it obvious, but sometimes I am sneaky. Once I wrote it in frost on the window. If the slaves can't find it they are out of luck. Also, in advance I have appointed five "Station-masters". After a slave spies the name in my room he or she now knows which "Quaker" to run to first. That master demands a password before divulging the name of the next master. I whisper the password to one 5th grader per day. It is his or her responsibility to get the word to the other students via the "Grapevine telegraph." If the word doesn't get around-that's life as a slave! You see, this is NOT easy! A slave's life was NOT easy!

If the slave should make it to the first station without seeing a dreaded STOP sign being held up in front of him by a Catcher, this first master will direct him or her to the next master. This Conductor will also demand the password and send him on his way to the third master/conductor. I usually have five Conductors in place. If the slave is fortunate enough to make it to Conductor number five-it rarely happens- this conductor will tell where the Freedom Scroll is hidden. The Slave then grabs the scroll and attempts to make it back to our classroom. Of course, the Slave-catchers are still on watch! I have had only three slaves find freedom in five years!

*Students are instructed to be respectful to a catcher. They are to quietly and immediately walk back to class after being apprehended. NO ARGUMENTS!

* You will need to change the hiding place if a scroll is found. Word travels fast.

* I always set a time limit of 15 minutes on the run. (The first year I had a slave avoid a catcher -in the bathroom- for 30 minutes! Not good!)

* Of course, you may modify this activity to suit your style.

*The purpose of this activity is to allow the students to empathize with the slaves difficulty in escaping. It is meant to be exciting, but not necessarily "fun". I try to maintain a proper mood throughout.

Assessments: The students will ENJOY these activities. Their evaluation is participation and enthusiasm.

RESOURCES:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html/

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/

Auten,Violet. Bridges. Doylestown, Pennsylvania:Scholastic,1988.