To review and pre-teach content material, this fun and engaging 100th Day of School activity is a great way to get students interested in the major historical events of the last 100 years. To begin the activity, the teacher will either write on the whiteboard or announce that today the class is going to assume the role of Historical Investigators, revealing the most exciting events in history over the last 100 years. The teacher will then group the students into groups of 2-4 based on the class size. The teacher will pass out the investigation sheet, and direct students to open the Google Slide presentation. The teacher will model how to select and research a given historical event using credible sources. 

In twenty-first century American society, childhood is popularly understood as a time of innocence, learning, and play. At the end of the nineteenth century, however, children made up part of the country’s workforce, and labored on farms and in factories. When they were not working, they enjoyed great independence in leisure activities—be it in a loud city street or a peaceful country lake. Often, children were far from adult supervision. Reformers during the Progressive Er—a period of social activism and political reform across the United States between the 1890s and 1920s —took a great interest in child welfare. Through organizations and legislation, they sought to define what a happy and healthy childhood should be in the modern age. Immersion in nature was central to what the Progressives prescribed, and children’s organizations and camps offered a suitable combination of supervision and open spaces. The formula for a healthy childhood was further refined in postwar America. Children were given a distinct place in the family and home, as well as within the consumer market with the emergence of teenage culture and buying power. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA's Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from the Digital Library of Georgia and Georgia's public libraries.

The student will use the poetry of Phillis Wheatley, Jacqueline Woodson, Countee Cullen, and Amanda Gorman to draw conclusions about the historic eras in which they wrote.