Rick Roll Stealing the Constitution's Thunder

Each year, our school puts on a special assembly for Veteran's Day. This year, I was recruited as a part of the planning committee and, somewhere along the lines, ended up assigned to sing a duet with our school music teacher. (I'm honestly still not sure how that happened.) Anyway, my kids had been hearing about the upcoming assembly, so I planned to talk with them briefly during Morning Meeting on Wednesday about why we celebrate Veteran's Day. My hope was that with a little refreshing they'd be ready to celebrate with full gusto during today's assembly.
Almost immediately, our discussion was lead to the concept of freedom. Going with the idea, I said to my students, "Raise your hand if you have heard of the Constitution." Blank stares. So I repeated the question, "Raise your hand if you have ever heard of the Constitution." More blank stares, a few bewildered looks.
"Oh.
my.
gosh,"
I thought to myself. "They have no idea what the Constitution of the United States of America is. At all. They haven't even heard of it. And they're in THIRD GRADE."
That means in four years of school the Constitution has scarcely, if ever, been mentioned.
Scary right?

In that moment, I made an executive decision to trash whatever curriculum I had planned for the day and instead focus on bringing my kids up to speed before the assembly. I mean, in my mind, this was a justifiable emergency. I memorized the preamble to the United States Constitution in the second grade - and I still remember it!

I went immediately to the closet in my classroom to retrieve the replica copy of the Constitution which I purchased in DC when I was 14. Yes, I still have it. (In that moment, I was SO thankful for my pack-rat tendencies!!) It's one of those old-looking crinkled paper copies that looks totally legit. My kids loved it.
From there we had a great discussion about freedom and how our armed forced have helped to keep us safe and free. We decided to write letters to veterans and, although I had to give them sentence starters on all four sentences because they literally cannot write a complete sentence on their own, their letters turned out really great! I was genuinely impressed by their thoughtfulness :)
Afterwards, we read through the Preamble to the Constitution together several times and practiced singing it with the School House Rock version. I found the School House Rock video online - thank you YouTube. I noticed there was a video posted that had the words of the preamble included. I thought, "Great! This will be perfect to help them sing along!" I projected the video on a big screen so all the kids could see, and it was great. Just like the good 'ol days ;)
We're all singing along, wrapped up in Preamble bliss when
BAM: I got Rick Rolled!
If you are unfamiliar with what it means to be Rick Rolled, you'll soon find out :)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling


Ending on a more serious note, my kids enjoyed the Veteran's Day assembly today; and I feel they were better able to appreciate the meaning of the holiday thanks to our day of unplanned patriotic discussions and activities. I was even able to recruit a member of both the Air Force and Army to come in uniform to speak to my kids after the assembly today! What a treat!

P.S. I sent home copies of the Preamble with my students on Wednesday with the challenge to have it memorized by the next day, and THREE of them were able to recite it by heart! One of them even sang it School House Rock style :)

P.P.S. A specials thanks to Ra for devoting your day to volunteer in my classroom!!! I loved having you there!! :)