Lesson 2

Title:  Lincoln’s Childhood:  From Sarah Bush to New Orleans

Grade Level and Time Frame:  3^rd grade students, 45 minutes

Broad Goals:  The students will appreciate the life of Abraham Lincoln and some of the challenges that he faced as a teenager.  The students will know what events occurred in Abraham Lincoln’s life from the ages of ten through eighteen.

Social Studies Standards:

National:  II.  Time, Continuity, Change c.  Compare and contrast different stories or accounts about past events, people, places or situations, identifying how they contribute to our understanding of the past.

State:  16.A.2c.  Ask questions and seek answers by collecting and analyzing data from historic documents, images and other literary and non-literary sources.

  Lesson Objective:  Third grade social studies students will complete a fill-in-the blank worksheet and timeline that identifies events that occurred in Abraham Lincoln’s life from age ten through eighteen with complete accuracy.

   Resources: 

Scholastic.com:  Timeline of Abe Lincoln’s Life

Freedman, Russell (1987).  Lincoln:  A Photobiography.  New York:  Clarion Books.  pages 11-16.stcott’s worksheet titled Lincoln
:  a child on the frontier 

Think Lincoln!

http://www.lincolnsjourney.org/flatboatschedule.cfm

Images: 

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/artwork/rivers/ohio.gif

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/artwork/rivers/mississp.gif

http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Thomas1.jpg

      Focusing Activity:  “Before we begin our lesson today, I want us to review various questions to see what we remember from last week’s lesson.” 

I will use the worksheet titled Lincoln:  a child on the frontier that Mrs. Westcott created and used in last week’s lesson.  I will ask each question going straight through numbers one through ten, making sure to provide additional comments as needed.

     Content Knowledge:  After I have finished asking the students questions from last week’s lesson, I will transition them into the next phase of Lincoln’s life:  age ten through eighteen.  I will hand out the worksheets that I created and have the students fill in the blanks to the worksheet as I read along from Lincoln:  A Photobiography by Russell Freedman.  (pages 11-16)  As I read, I will pause and ask the students if they recalled what I read and can answer the question on the worksheet.  I will read:  “He returned in a four-horse wagon with a widow named Sarah Bush Johnston, her three children, and all her household goods.  Abraham and his sister were fortunate, for their stepmother was a warm and loving person.  Let’s look at our worksheet.  Can we answer the first question?  ____ will you read the question for me?  Does this tell us the name of Lincoln’s stepmother?  (show the picture of Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln)  Let’s read on.  For twenty-five cents a day, the boy dug wells, built pigpens, split rail fences, felled trees.  So to answer the next question, how much money did Lincoln make?  By the time he was sixteen, Abraham was six feet tall--  So how tall was he?  A local merchant named James Gentry hired Lincoln to accompany his son Allen on a twelve hundred-mile flatboat voyage to New Orleans.  Does this sentence give us a clue as to where Lincoln went when he was eighteen?  (show the picture of a flatboat and describe what kinds of things were carried on one—store goods, produce, packages; show the maps of the Ohio River and the Mississippi River and where they merge, hand out a map of the United States rivers and allow the students to trace the route that Lincoln took from Kentucky to Louisiana; Lincoln traveled from Owensboro, KY all the way through 8 different states to get to New Orleans, LA.)  Abraham earned twenty-four dollars—a good bit of money at the time—for the three month trip.  _____ could you read question number five to us and see if we can figure it out?  Now, lets see how much Lincoln made each month to earn his total amount.  We are going to have to do some division to find the answer.”  I will read the sentences again if the students did not catch the answer the first time.  For the questions and reading pertaining to Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln,  Lincoln’s flatboat journey, and the location of the voyage to New Orleans (down the Ohio River which turned into the Mississippi River and the states that he went past), I will provide visuals so that the students can put a picture to the information that they are being given.  After that has been completed, I will hand out the baggies (containing the pre-cutouts of events) and blank timeline so that as a group, we will be able to make a complete timeline of the events in Lincoln’s early life.  I will have a pre-made example for the students to see what their finished product will look like.  “Let’s take out the cutouts from the baggies and try and decide from what we know about Lincoln and his life, which events happened first, next, and last.  Does anyone think they know what occurred first?  Thomas Lincoln went to Kentucky to find himself a new wife.  Let’s glue this to the very top of our Lincoln hat.  (continue this process until all events are glued down in chronological order)  “Lincoln first saw a slave auction in New Orleans.  He did not like it at all and never forgot the sites he saw there.  Have any of you ever been to an auction?  What happens at one?  Can you imagine seeing slaves being auctioned off like items or animals?  Lincoln did not agree with this at all and wanted to change this.”  After the timeline is complete, students will be able to visually see the events that occurred in Lincoln’s early life.  Some of the things that the students will learn about are the name of Thomas Lincoln’s wife (Sarah Bush Lincoln), how much money Abe made a day when he worked with his father (twenty-five cents), how tall he was at the age of sixteen (six feet), where he took a flatboat voyage to when he was eighteen (New Orleans), and how long the trip to New Orleans was (three months).

Conclude:  The conclusion of the activity will be shown when the students write two meaningful sentences stating what they learned from the lesson.  This will be completed and put into their Lincoln booklet that our group has created for the use at the open house.

.  Required attachments:  copy of blank timeline (6), copy of cut-outs (6), copy of questions used for focusing activity (1), copy of reading from Lincoln:  A Photobiography (pages 11-16) (1), copy of fill in the blank worksheet (6), copy of picture of Sarah Bush Lincoln and Thomas Lincoln (1), copy of picture of a flatboat (1), copy of pictures of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers (1, both on same page), copy of picture of North American Rivers (6)

~ Invented by: Lauren Meyer