Great States: Virginia, Mother of Presidents Letitia Tyler: Law, Politics and Govt
Skill: Elementary School Time Required: 1 class day
First Lady Letitia Tyler, wife of the tenth president John Tyler, was born at Cedar Grove Plantation, New Kent County, Virginia. Virginia was the first colony settled by the British at Jamestown in 1607. It was a Virginian, Richard Henry Lee that proposed the resolution for Independence to the Second Continental Congress. It was a Virginian, George Washington, who led the Continental Army in our war for independence and later became the first President of these United States of America. In fact four of the first five presidents were from the state of Virginia. And it is Virginia that has the honor of being the state that has produced the most United States Presidents.
The students will use a search engine to find specific information on the internet; will identify all presidents from the state of Virginia; and will list specific information about each of the presidents from the state of Virginia.
1. The teacher will begin this lesson by discussing how to use a search engine to locate information on the internet. A good place to begin is to ask the students if they know what a search engine is and then to have them name some such as Yahoo, Google, Bing etc. The teacher will also make sure the students know how to search using key words to help them. There is a good site to convey this information called Internet 101: Search Engines and Strategies listed as #1 in the linkable resources section of this lesson plan. Going through this brief tutorial using a multimedia projector and a screen or interactive whiteboard would be a good strategy to introduce this concept.
2. The teacher will then tell the students that they are going to conduct some research on the internet to locate specific information regarding United States Presidents. The students should be split into pairs or small groups to accommodate this activity. The teacher will then pass out the Presidents from Virginia Work Sheet and the students will work together to complete this. If there is no access to computers this activity could be assigned as a homework assignment for individual students.
This lesson could be extended by having the students use a search engine to locate any other specific information. The students will refine their searching skills with practice. Once they understand how to sift through the tremendous amount of information it will also be important to help them understand how to find the most accurate and reliable resources of information.
Websites
Internet 101: Search Engines and Strategies
Virginia: Mother of Presidents
Credits:
This lesson was developed by Robert McClelland, Cleveland Metropolitan School District.
