American Revolution....My FAVORITE!!!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!! (did you sing that as you read it?)  The American Revolution has begun in my classroom and I am SO excited.  I LOVE this unit.  I think I teach history all year long *just* so I can get to this unit.  There is just something about the story of these little patriots going up against big bad England that gets me every time (I know, I know...not that simple, but it is fun nonetheless)

Anyway, I thought I would share with you a few of the things we have been doing in class over the past week or so, just in case you are working on this unit too.

To begin, I had the students think about what they have learned about colonial times.  Since the Revolution takes place in the colonial era, I thought it was important to bring up some of that knowledge.  They created this foldable as a way to jog their memory and search back into their Social Studies book.  My kids did it with plain paper, but I created this "cheat sheet" for you.  You can actually copy this back to back and it will fold the same way.

Since I am using this not only as a history unit, but a language arts as well, I have been doing quite a bit of comprehension work with the stories and books we are reading.  We read On the Road to Revolution (Scott Foresman Social Studies Readers) (affiliate link) by Ann Rossi.  While the kids were reading, they had sticky notes.  On these notes, the students took notes about the events leading up to the war.  I had them focus on the major things that were causing the colonists to get upset.  Since I *love* Thinking Maps, they took their notes in Flow Map form.  (so sorry for the HORRIBLE picture!!)

Next, we began to read If You Lived At The Time Of The American Revolution.  (affiliate link) We have only started, but this helped us, in combination with the first book, to lay out some of the reasons for the war.  The students then created a multi-flow map listing the causes for all of the Acts and taxes by Britain, and all of the effects those acts had.  (We are currently working on a Cause and Effect essay in class using this.)



This was followed by a fun little diddy known as the "1776 Hand Jive" by Jim Marshall.  It is just a poem that has been put to music.  The kids really enjoyed this and were doing some great movement.  We then dissected this simple poem, looking for the hidden and more complex meaning in each pair of lines.  The kids are working on a foldable right now in which they have to write the historical facts behind the fun poem lines.   This one isn't complete (it needs to be colored) BUT you can get the idea from the picture.

Today, we focused on the Boston Tea Party.  I read the students a graphic novel, The Boston Tea Party (Graphic History)  (affiliate link) and they worked on their listening comprehension, as well as note-taking skills.  As I was reading, the students created a divided Circle Map, again focusing on the cause and effect relationship of what was happening politically to drive these people towards rebellion.   They really enjoyed listening to this "different" sort of novel, which showed in the discussion we had afterwards.  The internalization of the causes was great!




One last thing we are doing.  The kids are currently on a search for "artifacts" related to the Revolution.  They can be creative (i.e.: bring in a tea bag to represent the Boston Tea Party, or a dollar bill with George Washington's face on it) or literal (a replica of the Declaration of Independence).  They haven't come in yet, but since it was part of the unit opener, I thought I would give you the sheet too...just in case you wanted to do it.  :)

So there you have it folks.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  For more ideas, here is a post I did with things from farther on in the unit last year.  I really am having a ball in my class right now.  I only hope the kids are enjoying it as much as I am!

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