History Day at the Middle School

Today is History Day at the middle school.  What this means is that for days on end, my middle schoolers have been spending almost all their spare time working on the laptop and the computer in my office finishing up research, locating images and quotes, and writing the student composed writing that they needed for their History Day project.

In our school, seventh graders have to complete a History Day project as part of their social studies grade.  But this year, my eighth grader and my sixth grader both elected to voluntarily join History Day club and do a project to compete at the school history day.  I’m so happy they decided to tackle a History Day project, because I really believe that History Day projects are the bee’s knees in educational project based learning.  They have to develop and use so many skills to do a History Day project that they will be using for the rest of their academic life:  researching primary and secondary sources, finding quotes and facts and images to prove a thesis, write informational text, complete a process paper outlining how they completed their project, and compile a very specific annotated bibliography in MLA form.  My English teacher heart just soars over History Day.

The Banana researched Shinichi Suzuki and how the Suzuki Method impacted music education worldwide.  The Devious Snail researched the Osage murders, and how they impacted the formulation of the FBI.  The Banana created a three-fold display for History Day.  The Devious Snail designed and wrote a great website.  They both did a really great job, and I’m so proud they finished.

Best of all, I’m so exited about some other things I noticed while they were working so hard this weekend.  I’m so impressed that The Devious Snail decided to do a History Day project this year, when he experienced what hard work it was to complete a project last year.  And guess what:  I did not nag him about getting his History Day done at all.  It was all him, and he was really ambitious about getting his project just right.  I’m so impressed that The Banana finished her project.  It’s not an easy task for a sixth grader who is just learning to type and research.  She stuck with it! What really made my Mama heart glow, however, was how her siblings came along side her and encouraged her and cheered her on yesterday, when she still had so much to do to complete the project and was so overwhelmed.  It would have been easy to get discouraged.  I think she was discouraged from time to time, but YaYa jumped in and said, “Hey!  Can I help spray paint your board and find some colored paper that you can use as borders for your text?” and helped get a bunch of things prepared for her.   The Devious Snail finished his project at nine o’clock at night, but stayed up four hours waiting for The Banana to get to the point where she was ready to start working on her annotated bibliography, which he knew she’d need a little help figuring out.  Then the two of them worked in my office figuring out that annotated bibliography until 3:00 a.m, even though everyone wanted to be sleeping and in bed by that point.

I get a little teary eyed just thinking about it.  (I’m also tired because I was also up until 3:00 a.m. helping with questions about punctuation, spelling and grammar).  I just kept bringing them snacks to keep them motivated.  Hot chocolate at 11:00 p.m.! Candy at midnight! Cheese sticks at 2:00 a.m.!  Hooray!  Seriously, I’m super proud.