I will never forget where I was when I first found out about the horrible attacks that our country suffered on that Tuesday morning.
I was a 7th grader and we were at a Pep Rally because our football teams had a game that evening. I remember our principal asking us to observe a moment of silence and his cell phone ringing in the middle of it. It was the mother of an 8th grade student who was calling to let her daughter know that her father was okay. He worked in the North tower but had not gone to work yet.
It is still very hard for me to watch footage from that day because of the tragedy that happened. Too many men, women, fathers, mothers, grandparents, teachers, and children lost their lives way too soon. Even though so much was lost that day, I believe that the United States is even stronger now because of the events that took place on that day.
I knew that I wanted to do something with my 6th grade students about September 11th because they were only 1 or 2 when it happened. At first I was not sure how I wanted to handle it, but it turned out to be a great lesson. On Friday we began by taking our weekly selection and vocabulary quiz. As students finished I had them fill out a KWL with what they knew about September 11th. I quickly discovered that many of my children had no knowledge of the events of that day. As they finished the K on their charts, I had them pick up a special section that our newspaper put out this past week for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. It was a great resource for my students and it was geared towards kids.
After they had an opportunity to read the section, I then read September 12th: We Knew Everything Would Be Alright to my students.
Even though it was written by 1st graders, my students still loved it! Once we finished the book and had an opportunity to share what we knew and what we wanted to know, we watched a 50 minute video that I found on Discovery Education. It was more about United Flight 93 and the Heroes that saved so many lives by what they did. My students could not believe everything that happened that day and they were full of so many questions.
While I was doing this lesson with my 1st and 2nd period class, the AP walked into my classroom just doing normal walk-throughs. At my campus we have either the principal or AP walk through our room every day which I am glad for. He ended up staying in my room for almost 30 minutes because of my lesson. When he was getting ready to walk out he came and told me that he was so glad that I did this with my students. At the end of the day he also made an announcement on the PA telling all students about the events that took place on that horrible day and we observed a moment of silence for all of the victims.
I am so grateful to be living in country where we can unite together and become even stronger when tragedy hits us!
