Archive for March, 2009

South to Florida

Last week during Spring Break many Okies journeyed south to the beaches or north to the ski slopes. I actually went both ways—to Florida and then to Colorado. Although George Washington probably never snowboarded or sunbathed on the beach, he did make trips to both the northern and southern states while he was president. He even made a separate trip to Rhode Island once they finally decided to join the Union. Washington took a BREAK in the SPRING of 1791 to journey south. He left on March 21, 1791 with Major Jackson and an entourage of only FIVE people (that is a lot less than President Obama travels with when he picks up Sasha from school and all of them probably weighed less than my two suitcases and snow gear!). His southern trek took almost three months through a region of notoriously bad, sandy roads (*Freeman 592) so the General planned the trip meticulously (My jaunt to Florida on four-lane interstates took 18 ½ hours). One of his reasons for the expedition was to ascertain firsthand what the people thought of the new government (I went south to Florida and north to Colorado to have a good time!).

Continue reading Washington (and the GW Ambassador) takes a Spring Break »

One of the winning George Washington Birthday Cake winners, Comanche, recently celebrated the General’s birthday with Martha Washington (Ok, really it was the George Washington Ambassador).  The First Lady visited with the students while all were enjoying cake and ice cream. The participating students and educators were very inquisitive about the Washingtons’ lives.  Martha loved visiting Comanche even though her blue silk dress was a little tight after eating all that cake!

It was quite a day in Ms. Dugger’s class at Fairview Elementary in Moore.  Walking down the hall with all her materials in hand, the George Washington Teaching Ambassador was welcomed by a sign made especially for her in the social studies hall.  As the ambassador began relating stories about Washington it was evident that the students were enthusiastic learners; so we decided to attempt to recreate Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of the first President with. . . SHAVING CREAM!  You must realize that Ms. Dugger and Jan McClaren must both be a little crazy to allow 75 fifth graders loose with cans of shaving cream (I prefer to think we were teaching responsibility and demonstrating trust—two traits of the General).  In a very short amount of time (ten minutes) the students created a dazzling display of “heads full of suds” portraits.  It was a lot of fun . . . So teachers, grab the shaving cream!  Please send me any “shaving cream” depictions of our first President that your students create and I will try to put the frothy visual renderings on my Blog.