Presidential Knowledge

My students (4th graders) had to do reports and presentations on an assigned president. Here's some knowledge that I acquired. Gotta' love it! Did you know that...

• "John Adams made a piece of Great Britain with the help of his friend 'Frank' "... I think he meant made peace with the help of Benjamin Franklin. I didn't know that he was ever called Frank. (according to Isaac)
  
• "Harry S Truman was a slave in World War I." I started laughing out loud when he was conferencing with me about it. "What, Alfonso?!" Then I realized what he meant... "Do you mean that Truman served in World War I?" :) Apparently, not all 4th graders know that "serving" and "slavery" are not the same things, even in terms of serving in a war. We cleared that up right then and there. (Alfonso)
  
• "Herbert Hoover's the man!" (Ricardo)
  
• "Theodore Roosevelt died when he was shot at home when he was president." Teddy Roosevelt actually died in his sleep at home (technically from a coronary embolism). (Jonathan)
  

More reports tomorrow... we'll see if there are any additions to this. (From the looks of it, my 8 girls are more accurate than my 12 boys. haha) Here's something I just found. It's a site listing all of the ways that our presidents have died. No, I'm not just morbid... it's actually pretty interesting. Some of them are kind of funny (especially Zachary Taylor's).

And here's another anecdote from about a month ago: "Martin Luther King was the president and a king. He got married and had 2 children with Rosa Parks." I laughed out loud with that one too and before we cleared that one up as well. Gotta love the life of a teacher!