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Resources for Learning about George Washington Carver

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March is Peanut Month, so it’s a great time to spend some time learning about the life and legacy of George Washington Carver. While he is known as a scientist who explored many different uses for the peanut, he also worked to help diversify agriculture among Black farmers, encouraging crop rotation and natural fertilization methods to enrich the soil.

He “creative chemistry” methods resulted in more than 280 products that could be made from peanuts as well as more than 150 made from sweet potatoes. You can read a full bio and learn about some of these products from Tuskegee University. This slide presentation covers his early life as well as his work in agriculture, science and has some activities like fact/opinion, similarities and differences and a quiz for kids to take at the end.

Calm and Wave has a unit study for George Washington Carver on Teachers Pay Teachers, but their blog post has some good information and resources, too.

Another great mini history lesson found on Teachers Pay Teachers is from Look We’re Learning. Her blog post goes into a lot of detail about what’s included.

The Mailbox has a mini booklet you can print that has space for kids to draw picture related to his life.

If you want to get into peanuts, you can plant peanuts and learn more about how they grow, or make this paper plate peanut plant craft from Happy Toddler Playtime.

Here are a few more quick projects and printables to use when you’re doing a George Washington Carver unit:

My blog post linked at the very top has some books you might want to check out to learn more about him. And if your kiddos can handle peanuts, throwing in some peanut themed snacks would be a great way to round out a GWC day!

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

Reflecting on the Past Year with Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

  • Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
  • NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
  • Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
  • The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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