Project Based National Symbols Unit

National Symbols

Research for Primary Grades

My students loved our research based National Symbols unit this year. I started the unit by reading a letter to the class from the National Park Service Rangers. The letter tells the students the park rangers are in need of new teaching materials at each location. As a class we decided we could complete the projects the park rangers needed, but first we would need to research each National Symbol.

I showed my students this video to get them thinking more about National Symbols and what they are.

Statue of Liberty

We started with the Statue of Liberty. I modeled how to close read the text. I projected a teacher text of the Statue of Liberty. We coded the text, answered text dependent questions, and took notes together. The Park Rangers were in need of a brochure for the Statue of Liberty. The students used their brochures to pretend to be tour guides. They loved dressing up as the Statue of Liberty for the tour.

The American Flag

Next we researched the Flag. The National Park Rangers needed help teaching visitors how to respect the flag. Together we read, text coded, answered text dependent questions, and took notes on the Flag so we could write a “How to Respect the Flag” for visitors. The students loved having their own books. My students acted as tour guides and taught the “visitors” how to respect the flag.

America Flag research ideas for primary grades

Liberty Bell

Next we started our research on the Liberty Bell. The National Park Rangers needed a documentary about the Liberty Bell. Students read, answered text dependent questions, coded the text, and took notes with partners so they could write an accurate script for their documentary.

My students used their documentary script to present their documentaries to the class. They turned out so cute! I was able to easily assess speaking standards during each presentation using this simple checklist.

The Liberty Bell documentary presentation

Bald Eagle

Our last National Symbol was the Bald Eagle.I had my students complete the reading, text coding, and note taking independently. I printed off differentiated text so they could all be successful. The students really loved this project. The rangers needed informational trading cards about the Bald Eagle. After we learned all about the Bald Eagle they made these cute cards informational cards and acted as tour guides. The tour guides told “visitors” facts about the Bald Eagle as they handed out the informational cards. To finish up we painted a Bald Eagle.

Students assessed their own writing for this project.

We understand that it can be difficult to come up with ideas on how to teach the cores standards throughout your day. You don’t have to do it alone! We have made it easy for you to teach these lessons in your classroom. If you’re interested, we’ve written lesson plans, text dependent questions, and assessments to go along with these writing activities. We also included instructions for art projects. If you want to try this in your own classroom you can purchase each symbol individually or all of them in a bundle from our TPT store.