Revolutionary War

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Home : 2003 : January : 20

Revolutionary War
By Anneliese

There are so many wonderful picture books related to the Revolutionary War. I use them with my fourth graders every year and they really help the students to get a feel for what it is like. One of the books is called Charlotte's
Trunk about a young patriot boy who saves a loyalist girl. I can't remember the names of the other two books that I use. I haven't gotten that far yet. There is also an incredible book called Toliver's secret that either works as a guided reading book or a read aloud. I have created a whole packet of materials to go with this book. I also assign the students a character from

the American revolution and we do biographies. This doesn't have too involve too much writing as it could be as simple as completing resumes for the characters but it does wonders for personalizing the war for students. They really perk up when you talk about their character. There is a wonderful resource for this project called Heorines of the American Revolution that is currently in the Social Studies section of Scholastic book clubs.
I also use a simulation game near the end of the unit where I divide the students into groups of three or four. Each student secretly receives a card that identifies them as either a patriot or a loyalist. One patriot is chosen to deliver a message to the next group. If the student succeeds in finding another patriot then the message gets through. If the message is passed to a loyalist then the students is captured as a spy and another student must try to get the message through. I follow up this activity by asking the students to write about how they felt while they were participating in the activity and how they feel it must have felt to live during the time of the American Revolutionary War.