Books, Books, and More Books!!!

As soon as we finish up with the Salem witch trials, we will be moving to the events leading up to the Revolutionary War.  The Salem witch trials have always been an interest of mine.  This book is great and gives five possible reasons that the witch hunt and trials took place.  Jane Yolen has written books on several other unsolved mysteries, as well.  All of them are interesting. 

Over the years, I have collected a huge plethora of books on the time period of the birth of America. I can not wait to delve into them with my children.  We will be slowing down and taking as much time as it takes to get through this stack of books and the many projects I have lined up.  This period of time is so rich with information, and I want to let them soak it all in.  I do need to still track down info on the French and Indian War, as well as my missing books on Benjamin Banneker.

Our Books (in no particular order) ~

• Shh! We're Writing the Constitution , Jean Fritz
• If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution, Elizabeth Levy
• And Then What Happened, Paul Revere, Jean Fritz
• Let's Ride, Paul Revere!,  Peter Roop
• Paul Revere, Jane Sutcliffe
• Mr. Revere and I, Robert Lawson
• Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Betsy Ross Designer of the Flag, Ann Weil
• The Flag Maker, Susan Campbell
• Where was Patrick Henry On the 29th of May, Jean Fritz
• Magic Tree House Revolutionary War on Wednesday, Mary Pope Osborne
• The Battle of Bunker Hill (You choose the ending), Michael Burgan
• If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution, Kay Moore
• Kids Discover 1776 Magazine
• The Winter at Valley Forge, James E. Knight
• The Mount Vernon Coloring Book
• When Washington Crossed The Delaware, Lynne Cheney
• George Washington's World, Genevieve Foster
• We The Kids The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, forward by David Catrow
• Meet Thomas Jefferson, Magazine Apple Seeds
• Who Was Thomas Jefferson?, Dennis Brindell Fradin
• A Picture Book of Thomas Jefferson, David Adler
• The Declaration of Independence The Words That Made America, Inscribed by Sam Fink
• When Mr. Jefferson Came To Philadelphia, Ann Turner
• Great Colonial American Projects, Kris Bordessa
• The Ben Franklin Book of Easy and Incredible Experiments
• Ben and His Pen, Emily Fischer
• Who Was Ben Franklin?, Dennis Brindell Fradin
• The Matchlock Gun
• A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin, David Adler
• Singing America Poems that Define a Nation, Edited by Neil Philip
• From Sea to Shining Sea A Treasury of American Folklore and Folk Songs
• Can't You Make Them Behave, King George, Jean Fritz

For music we will be learning several Colonial songs.  I was fortunate to find all of these traditional songs on Youtube.com.  I think the kids will really get a kick over "Revolutionary Tea".

• Revolutionary Tea
• Yankee Doodle
• Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier
• Jennie Jenkins

Our audio-visual extras are shown below as well as our unit study on George Washington that I will use loosely.  The DVD that does not show up well is the musical 1776.

We are planning to do the projects below, some of which I've already started.

• use a quill pen
• use wax and a seal to seal a letter
• make a Ben Franklin thermometer
• make an electroscope
• make a lemon circuit
• measure energy flow with our lemon circuit
• make marbles
• how to pass secret messages
• make a tin lantern
• make pomanders
• cook some Colonial dishes

Blessings,

Dawn