Researching Our School

Over the past school year, the fifth and sixth grade students and I have been researching the history of our school and the land where it was built. I work at two schools and will be starting this same project over at my other school next year because it was really engaging for the students and we learned a lot about research and things like primary and secondary sources. We also met people from our community who had information about our school. I thought I would write up something about what we did so I can have it as a reference and so other people can do the same if they are interested. 

Here are some picture books that work for talking about the history of the land:

This Land: The History of the Land We're On story by Ashley Fairbanks pictures by Bridget George

I am on Indigenous Land story by Katrina M. Phillips pictures by Sam Zimmerman

Here are books for talking about the building and naming of schools and one room schools in the U.S.:

School's First Day of School story by Adam Rex pictures by Christian Robinson which led to questions about Frederick Douglass (since that's the name of the school in this book) and led to discussions of how we name our schools. Of course we also had to go on a side quest to learn about Frederick Douglass to know why people would name a school after him. 

Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story story by Shana Keller pictures by Kayla Stark

Hornbooks and Inkwells story by Verla Kay pictures by S.D. Schindler - this pertained to us specifically because the family of the person our school is named after donated land to the school district in the 1800s for the first school in the southern part of our community and it was very near our current school.

The land where our school sits at one time had a silkworm company and lots of mulberry trees, so we also read a book about silkworms:

El gusano de seda by Ron Fridell and Patricia Walsh. (We are a bilingual Spanish/English school)

At my other school the kindergarten students had been raising silkworms so I was also able to bring some over to visit in the library.

The students had a chance to interview a few people including the first principal. I was also able to meet and talk to the first secretary who was very helpful. We got to interview the artist who, with the help of his Chicano Studies students, painted the huge mural on our multipurpose room wall. I have also been in contact with the head of the naming committee. 

Librarians at our county archives helped us to get digital copies of old maps and aerial photos of the land and articles and excerpts from books about the land and school dating back to the mid 1800s. There are two books about the history of our county that aren't written for such a young audience, but the students just looked at a few pages that were pertinent to us. 

Once people knew we were doing the project, a current administrative assistant gave me old newspaper articles and photos that she had found in a file folder in the office and the principal gave me artifacts that had been in a drawer. Those included a slate lap desk like this one in the National Museum of American History. It has been a fun time of discovery and has definitely been a group effort. You can check out some of the videos we've made using the information we've learned about our school on our school history page.