Unit Study: American Revolution
During our most recent six-week semester, we studied the American Revolution together, using Blossom and Root's River of Voices curriculum. Here are the books we read:
The Felicity American Girl series, by Valerie Tripp
A Child's Introduction to African American History, by Jabari Asim
Colonial Voices: Hear them Speak, by Kay Winters
DK Eyewitness American Revolution
Paul Revere's Ride, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Ted Rand
Rebecca Rides for Freedom, by Emma Carlson Berne
Filigree's Midnight Ride, by Pam Berkman
Thomas Jefferson, by Cheryl Harness
What is the Declaration of Independence? by Michael C. Harris
Magic Treehouse: Revolutionary War on Wednesday, by Mary Pope Osborne
If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution, by Kay M. Moore
Leave It to Abigail!: The Revolutionary Life of Abigail Adams, by Barbara Rosenstock
Cloaked in courage: Uncovering Deborah Sampson, Patriot Soldier, by Beth Anderson
Molly Pitcher: Heroine, by Eileen Dunn Bertanzetti
Sam the Minuteman, by Nathaniel Benchley
Eliza Hamilton: Founding Mother, by Monica Kulling
Unfortunately, I returned the books to the library before writing them all down, so I know I'm missing a few! And much to my dismay, six weeks have passed and I have hardly taken any pictures of our school activities, but I'll share what little I have.
The topics we studied are as follows:
1. the tension leading up to the revolution
2. midnight riders, militia, and the first battles
3. the Declaration of Independence
4. soldiers and leaders
5. female patriots
6. life during the revolution
The curriculum includes many more weeks of topics, and I would love to cover more in the future, but six weeks was the perfect amount for the girls. For most learning subjects, I don't include a ton of video content, but since history is difficult to experience in the present, video content lends itself very well to this subject. We watched quite a few episodes of Liberty's Kids, and the girls became very invested in the story. As a word of caution, this series is geared toward older children, and not all of the episodes were age appropriate for us (it is about war), so we skipped several episodes. We also enjoyed Pups of Liberty, on Youtube, as a gentle introduction. Unfortunately, there aren't as many episodes in this series. We also read through the American Girl Felicity series, which is set during the time leading up to the revolution. This series helped the girls to get a good grasp on why colonists wanted to rebel, the tension between patriots and loyalists, and what life was like during that time period.
We went on two field trips, which you can find here and here, which dovetailed very nicely with this unit study.
We took some time to read excerpts of the Declaration of Independence, and decipher what it means. We printed out our own copies, crumpled them, and stained them with tea to make them look old. Sweet Pea wondered if we used tea to remind us of the Boston Tea Party. That wasn't what I was going for, but I was still pleased with the connection she made. My girls were also quick to question the idea of liberty for all, when in fact, liberty was not available to all.
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