Revisiting my Time Machine or Reformation Visitors

If you have followed my blog for long, you may recall that when I taught second and third grade, I told my kids I owned a time machine and then used it to send my friend Fritz the Frog to Ancient Egypt. (Ok, so you probably won't recall that, but it did happen--true story.) I'm the 4th and 5th grade history teacher, and this class happened to be those 2nd and 3rd graders (plus some newbies).

In history we have been studying the Reformation, and a CISP 4th and 5th tradition during this unit is having different speakers come in for each reformer. We've had visit from Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, and John Knox. So, when my kiddos began to question how Martin Luther could show up in our classroom (looking strangely like the secondary history teacher), I could just tell them I brought him to visit in our time machine. :D

It's been a fun unit (even teaching Calvin, since I am by no means a Calvinist), and I'll confess here that I have enjoyed not having to prepare lessons for Thursdays. (It really has cut down on lesson planning time.) It's also been a great refresher in church history for me, as well as a great introduction to someone I had never heard of before--Ulrich Zwingli. So, here is just a glimpse into what my classroom had looked like on Thursday afternoons:

Martin Luther began by trying to nail his 95 Theses to our classroom door

A rousing game of "Soldier, Priest, Gun" ( think "Rock, Paper, Scissors" or "Gorilla, Man, Gun")

Ulrich Zwingli even brought snack for our class.

John Calvin and his impressive beard came to visit.

John Knox was willing to sign autographs.