Happy Birthday, Dear Abe

I hope you all know that today is Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. I teach at a school named for him, so we went all out for his birthday. I was on the Lincoln Day planning committee and wrote the assembly that 7th graders performed. All the kids (in the whole school) dressed as either Abe Lincoln or Mary Todd Lincoln, we had a very patriotic Abe-centered assembly, we had birthday cake for Abe, and a stamp design contest. A few news stations came to document our celebration. I wore a dress with a hoop skirt, making me much wider than usual. It was such a fun day,and I really hope the kids remember it.

My friend Kristin and me sporting our Mary Todd Lincoln get-ups.

a Lincoln top hat was a tad too big!


Our Principal Lincoln

For a part of the assembly (kind of like a show) I wrote an arrangement for a choral reading of the Gettysburg Address. The kids memorized the whole thing and it was done in different parts. It was so stirring seeing 80 kids, dressed as Lincoln, recite one of the most important speeches in American history. I am so glad we had them memorize it because I memorized it, too. I feel more hopeful that "this government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth." If you haven't read the Gettysburg Address lately, do. If you haven't read it since high school, give it another look with adult eyes and understanding. Reading the Gettysburg Address intensively these last few weeks makes me so appreciate the message and the man. This speech helped recommit the United States to the ideals it fought for in the American Revolution and stated in its Declaration of Independence. Lincoln helped Americans in 1863 understand that their "dead should not have died in vain" and that they should be committed to the "proposition that all men are created equal." We should, too.

Here's a link to my kids on the news reciting the address:

You have to scroll on the side bar to "Students Read Gettysburg Address." For the record, they weren't reading it; they had it memorized!