Freedom Study

The Freedom Study is our final study of fifth grade. Through this study, we are learning about out nation's history, more specially the Underground Railroad. Each student is using a 3 ring binder to keep all of their learning and thinking in one place. 

To kick off our study, each student brought in an artifact that represented freedom to them. We shared our artifacts with the class and then created a documentation piece that included our artifacts and what they represented. We documented key words that represented our artifacts such as the freedom of speech, religion, choice, equality, and voting. Those are the freedoms that we experience on a day-to-day basis.

The next step in our study was to identify questions that we have about the Underground Railroad. We documented our questions and spend time researching answers to our questions and shared those with the class in order to have some background knowledge about the Underground Railroad.

I then introduced the following words to the class:

Cooperation
Courage
Empathy
Perseverance

We wrote down what each of the above words means to us individually and we will connect these words as we continue to learn more about the Underground Railroad.

We read several books that have helped us gain knowledge about the Underground Railroad. We read a very powerful book titled Unspoken by Henry Cole. Unspoken is a wordless picture book that follows a young girl who knows about a runaway slave hiding on her parent's property. She does her part in helping the runaway slave by not saying anything to her parents and brings the runaway food at night. This book led to several deep, thought-provoking conversations. It also brought up many questions. 

We worked in pairs and analyzed different parts of Unspoken, as well as documented our questions. 

Our reflections from Unspoken are now hanging in our classroom.

Throughout our study, we began to notice several physical things that represented freedom to the slaves and abolitionists during the Underground Railroad. We spent some time documenting and learning more about the symbols of freedom, many of which are different than the symbols that represent freedom to us today.

Quilts were a symbol that kept reoccurring in our reading and we spent some time learning more about what quilts represented during the Underground Railroad. We learned that many safe houses hung quilts outside of their homes to tell runaway slaves that they had reached a safe house.  We also learned that the patterns used on quilt squares could also signify freedom and safety. We decided to create our own quilt as a class. First, we dyed coffee filters with liquid water color.

We then used pattern blocks to create a plan for our individual quilt squares.

Once the coffee filters were dried, we used the pattern blocks to trace the coffee filters and carefully cut out the shapes for our quilt squares.

We then arranged the shapes on the quilt square.

After gluing the squares on a piece of burlap (which was used by slaves to make quilts during the Underground Railroad) we then sewed our quilt squares using a needle and yarn.

The finished product turned out beautifully and is now displayed outside of our classroom!