Biographers Blossom At Sandy Hook

By Tanjua Damon

The courtyard at Sandy Hook School came to life last week with Blooming Biographers from Ms Pachniuk’s fifth grade class, who had researched various people who made history.

The fifth grade students began their presentations with a song that they created with the assistance of their music teacher Mr Beierle that provided an interdisciplinary lesson for the students.

The students came up with words and phrases, according to Mr Beierle, then combined them into a song.

“They had to do the studying themselves, but present it in a different way,” he said. “The students created the music and the lyrics.”

Harriet Tubman, Hellen Keller, Willie Mays, Ronald McNair, George Washington Carver, Clara Barton, and Nat Tuner were among the people the fifth graders researched for their Blooming Biographer projects.

Ronald McNair traveled to space several times. He was a member of the Challenger flight that blew up before reaching space, according to Chuck Brooks.

“I like space,” Chuck said. “He went up into space and orbited around the earth.”

Hellen Keller caught the eye of Cate Waterhouse for her amazing accomplishments of learning sign language while she was both blind and deaf.

“She was famous for her deafness and blindness,” Cate said. “She actually learned more than 400 words being deaf and blind.”

George Washington Carver worked to help farmers learn about changing crops around so the soil would not be ruined by just one particular crop – cotton.

“He was really interesting. One day I want to be a scientist when I grow up,” Kyle Hensel said. “He was a really cool scientist and teacher. He worked for more money for farmers who grew cotton because cotton ruined the soil.”

Baseball player Willie Mays hit 660 homeruns during his sports career, according to Blooming Biographer Cody Cullens.

“He was a baseball player and I really like baseball,” Cody said. “He was the first black man named captain of a major league team.”

Matthew Kuruc found Nat Turner an interesting man who helped free African Americans from slavery.

“It was kind of interesting to see someone who had an impact on history. In some positive ways and some negative,” Matthew said. “He lead the first successful rebellion. He just wanted to be free and help lead his people to freedom.”

Clara Barton of the American Red Cross even made an appearance at the Blooming Biographers through Katherine Kelleher’s project.

“I wanted to figure out what the first nurses did in the war,” Katherine said. “I thought it would be interesting to write about her. I also thought she looked interesting.”

The students had to research their own people. Then they had to present them in written and oral form, according to Ms Pachniuk. This was an opportunity for students to learn an interdisciplinary lesson and present it in a different form.