Fact and Opinion: George Washington Carver
Found A Peanut Activity

Welcome, I teach second grade at a Title 1 school.  A couple of years ago we got new reading resources.  We were fortunate to get Pearson Reading Street materials for grades Kindergarten through Second.  However, I felt the weekly focus skill needed more reinforcement than the materials provided.  Therefore, I brainstormed several ways to make this possible with many of the stories.  I like to implement activities that allow my students the opportunity to move around. After all,  I want to make sure that I offer something for all learning styles, especially movement for those kinesthetic learners.  Which is how this activity, Fact and Opinion: George Washington Carver was born.  

A Weed is a Flower Story

My second Graders read a story, A Weed is a Flower.  The focus skill for this story is fact and opinion.   In case you are not familiar with the story, it is about George Washington Carver.  Carver discovered over 300 ways to use a peanut.  Hence, my inspiration for this activity.  Abracadabra! Fact and Opinion: George Washington Carver activity:

•  created a simple peanut template using PowerPoint. 
•  typed in facts and opinions about him and his life. 
•  decided to  print those out on brown paper to give it a more peanut vibe.   
•  laminated those and cut them. 
•  hid the peanut cut outs around my room. 

Class Groups

 My class runs on a house system.  This year I had five groups. 

• Each house has an assigned color.  I made two columns on my whiteboard with each house color going down in a column. 
• I labeled one column Fact and one Opinion.  (See: A picture of the board and columns below)
• Students search for the peanuts. 
• I stood at the whiteboard and placed the discovered peanuts (with tape) under the column each group member specified for Fact and Opinion: George Washington Carver activity.

Fact and Opinion George Washington Carver Class Discussion

We conduct a whole group discussion once all the peanuts are found.  A student centered discussion occurs, in which the students evaluate rather the statements are correct or not.  The students impressed me with their ability to provide evidence for why a statement was correct or incorrect.  In closing, I also noticed their reflection process.  Several times my students would quickly say, “Oh that is wrong, we should have put it here because…” *Note: I just don’t see that kind of thinking when they complete a page in a workbook.  Overall, they demonstrated mastery of fact and opinion on George Washington Carver.

Fact and Opinion Game Reflection 

On this day I felt “Kagan like”…where my students were doing the work and I supervised.  Yes true, my work was behind the scene with the preparation of the activity.  It was worth it!  The whole class was engaged and focused.  I must say well behaved too!  On a side note, to give this activity a more fun feel, I also played the song, “Found a Peanut” in the background while they searched.  I felt really old because very few students even knew that song.  

I decided to add this product to my TPT store.

Fact and Opinion: George Washington Carver activity incorporates all learning styles to some level.

 For example,

• Visual: the peanut materials
• Auditory: the background music and peer readers
• Verbal: written statements on the peanuts and whole class discussion
• Logical: calculating the total number of correct responses for each team.
• Intrapersonal: the ability to search individually on their own for a peanut (team members could split up to search)
• Interpersonal: the ability to search in a group with other class mates
• Kinesthetic: moving around the room searching for the peanuts

I sincerely hope that this product helps reinforce these skills for others. 

Please check out my Dollar Tree Compound Word Activity.