5th Grade Civil War Unit

As I always do when finishing a new unit, I will post the content here as a post within the main pages of my blog. Unit 5: The American Civil War, which includes topics on slavery, the war, two nations, Abraham Lincoln, and reconstruction, exists as a page that is called Fifth Grade Civil War Unit. It is also listed in my subject listing under Social Studies. For those of you who like to get what you came for, you can find that entire post in its entirety listed below:

My fifth grade unit on the Civil War attempts to take students through the topics of slavery, including the roots of slavery, horrors of slavery, and the Underground Railroad. From there, we talk about the political beginnings of the Civil War, and spend the majority of the unit in a timeline taking us through the major battles, important people and events, and ending with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

SLAVERY IN THE CIVIL WAR

I like to start the unit with the portion on slavery. I have two posts in my old literacy blog titled Teaching A Unit on Slavery in Intermediate or Middle School (Part 1: Picture Books), and (Part 2: Literature Selections) that you can refer to for some great ideas. I have a few books that I enjoy reading aloud to the students, and that they learn a lot from.

I always start the unit by reading From Slave Ship to Freedom Road, a Julius Lester book that, while it is a picture book, is definitely hard hitting and doesn't hold back. It's a great way to set the tone for teaching about slavery if you intend to show the horrors and injustices of slavery in a way that will get through to elementary students but won't overwhelm them. (there aren't really any "free" versions of this book out there, but it's definitely worth the $6 or so that you'll spend getting it on Amazon or through one of the links on Google shopping).

I also read Under the Quilt of Night by Deborah Hopkinson. This story is a great, appropriate for almost any age telling of a family on the run on the Underground Railroad. This book is available in my schools library, and might be available in yours too, it's a common book (it's in the easy section). Finally, I read Almost to Freedom by Vonda Micheaux Nelson, it's a great story of a runaway girl and her family told from the perspective of the little girls doll. This book actually stuck with many of my students more than the others for some reason.

Now, granted, the topic of slavery is deserving of its own unit, and I will eventually get there. I always expand on this unit when we get to the civil right era. I've found that my students in 5th grade seem to understand the complexity and importance of slavery in the United States when I pair it up with the civil right era. Because honestly, more than half the class always thinks that Martin Luther King Jr. ended slavery before I teach them differently. I'm going to list a few of the more high quality resources about slavery here, that you can use as part of a Civil War unit, it's own unit, or like me, a mixture of Civil War and Civil Rights.

• The Underground Railroad Interactive on Scholastic.com: A high quality interactive that takes students through an escape, full with characters and a telling of events. There are passages to read or have read aloud on the computer. 
• Pathways to Freedom: Maryland and the Underground Railroad: This neat little interactive is highly educational and plays out a little like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books. It's well done and very educational. 
• The Listing of Slavery and Civil Rights Resources Available on PBS: It is what it says, there's stuff here on the slave trade, Jim Crow, Civil Rights, and more. 
• Timeline of Slavery Throughout World History: This is helpful if you wish to discuss the overall scope of slavery, dating back all the way to 6800 BC.
• Map of American Slavery at NY Times: A great little map with some specific areas to focus research on. 

Now, let's move on to the Civil War itself. In my class, I want students to understand the causes of the Civil War, the difference between the Confederate Army and Union Army, the basic timeline of events, and how the world recovered afterwards. With that being said, let's move on to some great resources:

THE CIVIL WAR

• American Civil War Resources: A listing with online quizzes and games. There's another listing of great resources at surfnetkids. 
• The Civil War for 5th Graders: A great little site done by a teacher. It plays out kind of like a web quest, with some good, kid friendly information presented in an easy to understand format. 
• History Channel Civil War Interactive: You can always count on the History Channel to have great interactives of the highest quality. I'm using this one as students learn more about the differences between the two armies, battles, etc. It's all here, and it's well done. 
• NY Times Civil War Interactives: There's a few great resources here, some about the war, some about life during the Civil War, and some about Lincoln. 
• Battle Casualties Map: Hosted by the Washington Post, it's a great map that shows casualties on a map in a timeline format. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

• Abraham Lincoln's Life Timeline: Hosted by Lincoln's Library and Museum. PBS also has a great Lincoln Timeline. 
• Abraham Lincoln's Crossroads: A challenging game about Lincoln's presidency that would be great for your highly intelligent students desiring a challenge. 
• Lincoln's Major Speeches: If you're going to teach about his inaugural speeches, or the Gettysburg Address. 
• History.com Interactive on Lincoln's Assassination: Good stuff!
• The Lincoln Memorial: The listing for the Lincoln Memorial on the National Park website, there's a few great panoramas and discussions of Lincoln's importance. 

Finally, as we go through the unit, I have students complete a 6 part "history web," a little project that I will post more on as we finish them up this week. It's a great small project.

I will also have my students complete a "gallery walk," an idea I took from Lessons With Laughter. I will also amend this posting with more information on that when it's completed. 

Our Finished American Revolution Video (A Masterpiece)

As I discussed in my plans for Social Studies Unit 3: The American Revolutionary Period, the entire unit revolves around a video that students work on that includes re-enactments of various major events from the American Revolution (click that link up there for more information). Well, the video is done. Now, a little disclaimer on this. The video making software I use is not free, and takes some technical know how to master (it's called CyberLink Power Director). I did most of the video editing on my more powerful desktop computer at home, and the student clips and sounds were all filmed on, believe it or not, my smartphone (sadly, it was my phones swan song, I went and got my new phone just a few days after we finished filming). The videos that I added in, and songs as well, were taken from Youtube. It's a grey area in my opinion, taking copyrighted material and using them in educational videos. It's a discussion I want to see out there more often, but in my own opinion, there's no profiting from the video, it's simply educational, and students loved this one.

I used a few websites to assist me here. For the songs I needed, I found them on Youtube, and converted them to mp3 using Youtube to Mp3. It goes without saying that I deleted these files when the video was completed.

Also, for the Youtube clips, I used KeepVid, a great tool that lets you download videos from Youtube in high quality.

Later this week, we have invited parents to join us for a showing of the video, which will be shown in the cafeteria on the big projector screen.

I wanted to show off this little gem here as well. I'm adding it here from my Google Drive, the file itself is a 1.3 gigabyte .mpg file, but it should stream. Check it out! Thanks go out to everyone who created the material we researched and borrowed from for this great learning experience.

5th Grade Colonial Life Classroom Book Project

Unit 2 in our 5th grade social studies (which covers basically all of American history, as you can see in the 9 week plans HERE) is titled The Discovery and Founding of North America. It is a fairly quick unit, because I like to spend a lot of time researching the American Revolutionary War era, so I have to borrow time from other places. In the unit, I reference a classroom project called Colonial Living, a research book that the class collaborates on.

Student research took place in groups, and covered the following topics:

• Colonial Towns: Buildings, layout, variety of towns, defenses.
• Journey by Sea: How the colonists / pilgrims reached the America's, including challenges, living conditions, etc.
• The 13 Colonies: A quick research on the original colonies, including founding dates, and a map of the original 13.
• Crime & Punishment: The crimes that were most common, and their punishments.
• Native Tribes: A quick research on the native tribes of the area, and their interactions with the colonists.
• Religion in the Colonies: How religion influenced life and politics in the colonies. Also, what religion meant on a day-by-day basis to the colonists.
• Colonial Food: How they grew food, and what the typical colonial meal looked like.
• The Lost Colony of Roanoke: This topic fascinates many students, so I have a group take a look at its history and present some pages on it.

It was a frantic week of research and producing work. I would like to point out that it's not always about producing a fantastic, amazing work. In this case, the book came out pretty well, but some students are great artists, others not so much. There was a lot of variety in the book, and it's gotten a good response from passers by. The images below show some of the finished book. It's a great project, simple, easy, and it really promotes group synergy and team work:

This first image shows our book hanging out in the hallway by a lanyard that I looped around a metal brad. It's a simple setup, but it works. 

A closeup of the cover of the book. It was "laminated" using tape.

The rest of these pictures show various pages from the book. Click any photo to view it larger:

 

 

 

5th Grade Social Studies Unit 2: Discovery and Founding of North America (Colonists)

5th grade Social Studies unit 2 is about the early American colonists and pilgrims. This unit focuses on the journey, hardships, and early society that was developed when founding the initial colonies in America. This unit is listed in my Social Studies 9 Week Plans page, and has its own Unit Page. For convenience purposes, I will post the entire text of that unit here as well:

Unit 2 of 5th grade social studies covers the discovery and founding of America, focusing heavily on the colonists and pilgrims.

For me, time is usually a focus on this unit, because I like to spend more time on the American Revolution, and the 19th and 20th centuries.

With that in mind, I provide three days of instruction on the front end, familiarizing students with the topics and major events of this time period, then I hand over the learning to my students for some project based research.

The project students work on for this unit is a whole class collaboration that is presented in book form and titled "Colonial Life." The project is done in pairs, with each group preparing two pages "textbook style" on their topic.

What I mean by textbook style is a stylized presentation like that of most textbooks, in which the content, photos, illustrations, graphs, etc. all exist in the pages together.

I do not write up any student information handout for this, and they are graded on the simple research rubric that we utilize throughout the year (access the simple research rubric in either .pdf and .doc format).

The topics that students cover in their research include:

• Colonial Towns: Buildings, layout, variety of towns, defenses.
• Journey by Sea: How the colonists / pilgrims reached the America's, including challenges, living conditions, etc.
• The 13 Colonies: A quick research on the original colonies, including founding dates, and a map of the original 13.
• Crime & Punishment: The crimes that were most common, and their punishments.
• Native Tribes: A quick research on the native tribes of the area, and their interactions with the colonists.
• Religion in the Colonies: How religion influenced life and politics in the colonies. Also, what religion meant on a day-by-day basis to the colonists.
• Colonial Food: How they grew food, and what the typical colonial meal looked like.
• The Lost Colony of Roanoke: This topic fascinates many students, so I have a group take a look at its history and present some pages on it.

I'm going to present a few links to assist teachers and students alike in research or teaching of the colonial era of American history:

• America 1607: Jamestown Interactive: This fantastic interactive map on the National Geographic site, which is a companion piece to a feature the magazine did on Jamestown in 2007 titled America, Lost and Found, is the best place to start if you want students to learn about how the first colonies were built, and the challenges they faced early on.
• Colonial Williamsburg: The site is full of resource and catchy visuals, including a tour of the town, period specific recipes, and a kids zone.
• Interactive Map of the 13 Colonies: Each colony is clickable and provides more information.
• Tour the Mayflower: This site, hosted by Scholastic, is another great visual with easy to grasp information.
• The Lost Colony of Roanoke: Start with Discovering the Lost Colony, and show the Lost Colony of Roanoke. 

Finally, watch these videos in succession. These are taken from the America: The Story of Us documentary series.

Again, we normally pace this unit fairly quickly. Each group of students is responsible for a two page contribution to our "Colonial Life" book. Finally, if you like how your books turn out, head over to Student Treasures, and order a few free publishing kits. This company will make a free classroom hardbound copy of the book, and your only obligation is to send home a letter to your parents asking them to buy a copy of the classroom book. There are no buying requirements, and the classroom hardbound copy is free regardless of how many parents order. It's a great opportunity that we'll be taking advantage of.

Famous Individual Project: A Great 5th Grade Research Project With Tons of Activities and Rubrics

Recently, our students in 5th grade completed their first oral project presentation of the year, presenting their individual state posters, the project they did in the 50 states unit,

in front of other students. We asked students to dress for the occasion, and graded them on everything from their posture, the volume of their voice, and the way they dressed. This ended up being a great experience, and we've decided to build on that during the school year.

Next up, we will be doing a Famous Individual project. In this project, students will be completing research on a famous individual of great character. They will be analyzing their individual according to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a program that my school began following this year. Below you will be shown the requirements for this project, including links to all necessary forms. To download everything in one packet, click here:

DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE FAMOUS INDIVIDUAL PROJECT IN PDF FORMAT HERE

This project will ask students to:

• Choose a famous individual, either living or dead, who is not fictional. Once they have chosen their famous individual, they must complete the Justification Page to explain why they believe their individual showed good character and lived a life that benefited others. 
• Once the students has successfully justified why they have chosen an appropriate person for this project, they will begin research. Students will be taught how to properly cite sources and create a bibliography (this is a big step for 5th graders, but they can do it). First students will learn how to take notes and keep track of sources. I came across a great packet online to help with Note Taking that I will be utilizing. They will use the blank bibliography cards to cite sources, and then will be given the biography outline packet, which will guide their research. Students research papers will be scored based upon the 5th grade research paper rubric.
• Next, students will be creating a computer based presentation that will supplement the speech they will be giving. We will be doing these presentations in the computer lab with the assistance of our schools computer lab instructor. They will be scored on their computer presentation based on the computer presentation scoring rubric.
• Finally, in the final step of this project, students will create a short speech to go with their computer presentation, and they will be presenting these projects before other students, parents, and community members. The speeches will focus on the character of their person, their major accomplishments, and how they fit the 7 Habits. The speech will be scored based on the oral presentation scoring rubric. 

I am very excited to see our students continue to step up. They did a great job on the 50 state projects (as you can see HERE), and I expect great results on this project. 

I have all of these forms available in Microsoft Word format, if you would like any of them, please let me know and I'll get them to you. As always, this is available freely, I believe that teachers should share our resources with one another free of cost if at all possible, and will continue to share everything I make without cost to anyone.

Our Annual Mesilla Plaza Field Trip

If you teach in Las Cruces, hopefully you're aware of a fantastic historical opportunity right in our own backyard. I'm talking about Mesilla. Mesilla is a window into the past.

Its plaza quite literally takes you back into the 1800s, being more or less frozen in time. If you're like me, and you work close by, you can take free walking field trips over to the plaza area. There are many opportunities available there, including the San Albino Basilica, J. Paul Taylor Museum, and the Fountain Theater, not to mention opportunities like touring La Posta de Mesilla and the Double Eagle Restaurant. Each of these locations offers its own historical opportunities.

Each year, I take my grade level on a short walk from our school to the plaza. We are met on the plaza by Mr. Taylor and the people from the monument that will exist in his house eventually. Our students head off in groups to tour San Albino Basilica, and discuss its history (we strictly discuss the history of the building and the surrounding area, no mention of religion is made during this discussion). Students enter the house of Mr. Taylor, and are taken back through the many rooms of this vast home, which will be a state monument in due time. We also tour the Fountain Theater, the oldest movie theater in the state of New Mexico. Finally, we eat lunch at La Posta, discuss the history of its building, and complete a scavenger hunt on the plaza.

This day is one the kids remember, and one we prepare well for. In 5th grade, we study United States history, so the discussion of the Civil War era height of Mesilla, and the long and storied history of the buildings and happenings in this area fit right in with what we teach.

So this year we will make our way over there in late October. The weather is usually great that time of year.

I realize that this post and the attached document will mean little to 99% of the teachers who read it, but I am putting it on here regardless, even if it ends up being for my own future reference.

What I'm including here is a two page reading about the history of Mesilla, a pdf document you can access HERE, and a 4 page scavenger hunt of Mesilla Plaza, which you can access in pdf format HERE.

My Latest Unit of Resources: World Wars (World War I, Great Depression, World War II)

My most recent update to my units is Social Studies Unit 6: World Wars. This unit includes World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II.

My resources for World War II are much more in depth. You can access that unit by clicking the link or the picture.

Normally, for convenience, I would post the entire text of the unit here so that you don't have to go clicking through my blog. My unit pages were organized the way they are for my own purposes more than anything else. However, in the case of this unit, there are many links, and a few Youtube clips embedded, so it's faster in terms of loading time to just click over to that page.

My 5th Grade Unit on Westward Expansion

In my subject specific static pages within this blog, I have posted resources and plans for teaching a unit on Westward Expansion (the frontier, California Gold Rush, the many trails that brought pioneers out West, etc.).

You can access that unit on my blog, it's titled Unit 5: Westward Expansion. It is my hope that there are links here that are useful to other teachers, most of this stuff is appropriate for grades 2-7 with adaptations. There are many links for kids, and teachers, including lots of print ready pdf documents. Everything is free, so that's always a plus!

I have also taken the exact page and removed all teacher resources from it. When my students begin research in this unit, they will use the page Social Studies Unit 5: Westward Expansion Student Links Only.

My 5th Grade Unit on The American Revolution

In my subject pages, I have completed a page with resources for the unit I teach on The American Revolution.

This unit includes information on life under British rule for the colonists, the growing tensions between the colonists and England, the war itself, and some bits on the reconstruction afterwards. The page is titled Social Studies Unit 3: Revolution. There are dozens of links to sites, documents, lessons, and videos.

Mission US: An Interactive Game About the American Revolution and Underground Railroad

I am currently going through my subject specific pages, trying to add material for units that will be taught this upcoming year. Tonight I've been thinking about my Social Studies plan for the year, working on my Unit 3 Social Studies page. While planning this out, I found and chose a fantastic website with an interactive game that teaches two lessons, one about the American Revolution, and one about the Underground Railroad. Mission US is free and highly engaging. Here is an excerpt from Mission US about the two missions that are available:

Mission 1: “For Crown or Colony?” puts players in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a printer’s apprentice in 1770 Boston. They encounter both Patriots and Loyalists, and when rising tensions result in the Boston Massacre, they must choose where their loyalties lie.  

In Mission 2: “Flight to Freedom,” players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky.  As they navigate her escape and journey  to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act brings disaster. Will Lucy ever truly be free?

 I tried out the games, and they are impressive. I will be utilizing this game in my class this year, having students play through both when we are studying each. I think that this interactive experience will deeply engage students in the content, much more than reading about it in the Social Studies book. 


The site even has educator guides available with good classroom ideas, vocabulary, etc. 


You can also view a post made by Richard Byrne on his blog Free Technology for Teachers about Mission US. I didn't find this site there, but in trying to find other resources for the American Revolution, I came across his post and he has good information.

All About Our City: Las Cruces

With this post, I think I pretty much let the cat out of the bag on the fact that I live in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I've lived here since 2000, and love this great little city in southern New Mexico. So for my students, this means that you'll spend some time during the school year learning about Las Cruces and the Mesilla Valley. We will study Las Cruces and the Mesilla Valley as it is now, and the history of the area.

When studying Las Cruces and the area, you'll need to first focus on some facts. Let's start with demographic information. What I mean by demographic information is data about certain portions of the population. In kid words, I mean that we need to find facts about people living in Las Cruces (like how much money they make on average, or what percentage finished college, etc.). Use the following websites to find some good demographic data about Las Cruces:

Sites with demographic facts about Las Cruces:

• Las Cruces Real Estate Guide
• 2010 Census Information
• Las Cruces Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Las Cruces areaconnect
• Wikipedia

Hopefully you notice right from the start that the data you find one each of these sites isn't the same. Why might this be? It's because some of the data is older, and some of it is just estimations while others are based on certain studies. Look for the numbers to be close to know that they're correct.

Next up, let's learn about the history of the Mesilla Valley. Use the following websites to find some good historical facts about the area:

Sites with historical information about Las Cruces and the Mesilla Valley:

• Las Cruces Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Special Documentary on Las Cruces made by CLCTV.com
• Doña Ana County Historical Society
• Las Cruces History at City-Data.com
• History of Old Mesilla
• Las Cruces Convention and Visitors Bureau (history of Mesilla)

Finally, we're going to use this information to create a profile of the area. I made a video about eight years ago that showed historical photos of the area alongside newer photos of the area. Using the Rio Grande Historical Collections, we are going to find photos that we can match to their current locations. I will make a trip to take photos of what these areas look like now, and we will make an updated version of this video, which I will then post to this blog (how fun!). 

Using your information, as well as some photos from the collections linked to above, you have a few options:

1. Head over to Prezi, and create a 15+ slide presentation about the area. 

2. Create a 15+ slide Animoto about the area.

3. Print the information, and make a poster board with at least 10 facts and 5 photos.

4. Write an 8+ paragraph research paper synthesizing your findings. 

Finally, we are going to create a large reproduction of a map of Las Cruces and Mesilla, and place some major landmarks on it. These landmarks include: our school, city hall, NMSU, the district, magistrate, and county court houses, Mesilla Plaza (and in Mesilla Plaza, La Posta, Fountain Theater, abnd San Albino Basilica), downtown, five restaurants, five favorite places of entertainment, and ten major roads).

We are going to use Google Maps, and will project this map of Las Cruces on the board for everyone to see. 

Westward Expansion of the United States Tech Tools

Every year, we do a unit on the Westward Expansion of the United States in the mid 1800s. There are two technology based activities that go with this unit that are always rated the highest by students. I also have a group/individual activity that student must complete as part of this unit. You can access that as a pdf document HERE. These two activities are playing Oregon Trail (yes, the original version) and watching The Donner Party documentary made by PBS awhile back. I have attached links to both here:

To play Oregon Trail online, follow the link, and make sure you've loaded up disc one on the site. It's an exact emulation of the original version that was played on Apple IIe computers way back in the 80s.
Play Oregon Trail 

Next up is The Donner Party documentary, an American Experience documentary from PBS, which you can access HERE or by playing the clip below.

 

Watch The Donner Party on PBS. See more from American Experience.

Presenting 9/11 to 5th Graders

I believe that by 5th grade, students are old enough to understand the gravity of the events of September 11, 2001, and discuss it with all of the emotion and historical significance intact. However, with that being said, we're still talking about young children, and with that in mind, I've developed some activities (with a heavy emphasis on borrowing ideas from other great teachers out there) that go well with teaching about 9/11.

I normally teach United States history chronologically, but I do teach about 9/11/01 on the anniversary or near it if it falls on a weekend. I invite parents to join us for a discussion and remembrance time, and this is how the afternoon goes:

I start with a video that gives a run down of the events of that morning, and play it in its entirety. I usually mix this up quite a bit, and there are hundreds of these videos out there, so I've just chosen the clip that I showed this past year:

After the video, I like to open it up to parents to share their stories of where they were that day. It's interesting to note that with this upcoming group of 5th graders, it will be the last group of students I teach that will themselves have been alive (most of them) on 9/11/01. This is a good chance for parents to connect the events to us here, and usually their stories are pretty routine, including where they were when they heard, what they did for the rest of the day (watched TV), etc. 

This past year, ESPN Outside the Lines showed a small 13 minute piece titled The Man in the Red Bandanna, the story of Welles Crowther, a heroic man who died in the World Trade Center collapse. This story gives a human face to this tragedy. When you tell kids that 2,996 people died that day, they have a difficult time imagining it and the emotions that are tied to that. But this fantastic documentary has been extremely well received. I even had a student opt to do their social studies Individual in American History research project on Welles Crowther.

Once students have watched the video, I invite them to take a copy of a blank bandana, color it red, and write a one paragraph statement about what it means to be a hero. The bandana I use (a large 3 megabyte JPEG file) can be accessed HERE. 

I end with two tribute videos, to further attach the emotion of that day to our discussion. It's not my goal to evoke tears from my students, but it is a common reaction. I might actually play the tributes before the Welles Crowther video this year. This first one is one of the most emotionally moving things I've ever seen, and will definitely evoke a strong response.

This second video is one I show every year and kids remember and enjoy. 

My goal is to give them a reason to care, and to attach meaning to this singular event that has had a huge impact on the world ever since, the most important day in American history over the past 30+ years, and definitely the defining moment of this century.

Student questions that follow can be quite deep, and some are just curious. I get a lot of questions about people jumping out of the buildings, about the terrorists, and about if it will happen again. This is why it's great to have parents in the room while the discussion takes place. I've done this talk each year for the past 7 years, and have always had a great response from both students and parents. It's a goal of mine for children to understand and remember 9/11, and I look forward to doing it again this year. 

If you're a teacher, and you work with students who are old enough to comprehend and discuss the events, I hope you too will teach your students, and take the time to sit and talk with them, and possibly their parents. 

American Revolution Video Project

Each year, my students are asked to create a small video based on one of the major events of the American Revolution. I have included a quick overview in this document. These topics include, but aren't limited to:




- Boston Massacre
- Boston Tea Party
- Signing of the Declaration of Independence
- Battle of Bunker Hill
- Battles of Lexington and Concord
- Shot Heard Around the World
- The Stamp Act
- First Continental Congress
- Signing on the Treaty of Paris


I have the class begin by splitting up into groups of no more than four (this could change depending upon class size). I like to have at least five of the above topics included in the final product. After each group conducts research and films their video, all of the videos are edited together, relevant clips from Youtube videos that give an overview of each topic are added, as well as music and titles, and we have a great classroom project.


Let's begin by looking at some places to get some great, kid appropriate research:


TimeRime timeline of the American Revolution (a great interactive timeline about 10 major events of the Revolutionary War)


The Chronicle of Revolution (PBS.org) (a site that includes tons of information on topics relating to the American Revolution)


Teaching American History (interactive lessons divided into chronological sections; 1775-1778, 1778-1781, and the Treaty of Paris in 1783)


National Archives pictures of the Revolutionary War (the best source I've found for images about the Revolution)


Revolutionary War Animated (animated battle maps from the Revolutionary War)


Now that we have some resources, we can move on to the content itself. Here are a few videos that really get the kids going and thinking about this great topic in American history:

Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration - This video is a spoof of the One Republic song "Too Late to Apologize," and is the single favorite thing that I present to my students each year, they LOVE this video.

A Schoolhouse Rock song about the Shot Heard Around the World

John Adams (HBO special) Boston Massacre scene: It's a little bloody, but very to the point in presenting the brutality of this event.

Obviously there are thousands of videos on Youtube and elsewhere on the internet that you can use, these are just a few that I have found kids to really enjoy and understand easily.

I hope this is enough to get any teachers interested started, or at least hopefully there are a few resources here that you can use.

Timelines Online

Teaching involving the concept of time can be a tricky thing. Many kids don't understand the concept of time. We will start out by taking a look at the timeline of quite literally everything by using ChronoZoom. This site really drives home the point that we're very small, and our time in the universe is very short. Of course, I don't want my students to make a timeline of the entirety of the universe, but more along the lines of one major era in history.

Now, in 5th grade, we study United States history, but early in the school year, we talk about the history of the America's from the time before Christopher Columbus' expedition, an era we call "pre-columbian" history. This is a good place for us to start, and in my class, we always start by studying some of the cultures that had a major influence on the area, including (but not limited to) the Maya, Inca, Aztec and Navajo. I will make some more specific posts about this unit. I wanted to start off with this concept of time, however, and specifically the use of a timeline. So before we get into what has become known as "The Maya, Inca, Aztec Project," we will be making timelines using TimeRime.com. 
Using the website, each group will create a timeline of Pre-Columbian American history leading up to Columbus' expedition. Remember, Columbus didn't discover the America's, they were here, and millions of people lived here. All of the things you find must be from the time before 1492.