Happy Birthday Ben Franklin!

1/17/2015

If you are a history teacher and have not heard of the courses offered through NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities), I highly encourage you to look the program up (see link above). Opportunities for a wide variety of topics in American history are available. I had the good fortune to be accepted as a participant and study Benjamin Franklin for an entire week in his town, Philadelphia. The week brought educators from across the country together to learn about this amazing man and bring that back to our own classrooms. This week changed me as a teacher. The panel of experts that shared with us and the presentation of primary sources gave me a new appreciation of how important teaching social studies truly is. The group of cohort teachers continues to amaze me over four years later as many of us have kept in touch.

To this day, I LOVE teaching about Ben to my first graders. I have developed activities looking at primary sources for Ben including his invention of bifocals, political cartoons and the Declaration of Independence. I combine these with photographs of Moffat and utilize the large collection of children's books available to bring him alive in the classroom. The kids love it!

Please take the time to look at the attached links. I have included some of the resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers. Don't forget to look up the classes offered this summer through NEH.

Button Text