Fifth Grade Revolutionary War Projects
Your 5th graders may have difficulty remembering the many battles that took place and the characteristics of some of the leaders in the Revolutionary War. Like most historical events, 5th grade kids can relate to and remember information better if you actively engage them by having them do a project. Projects focusing on the historical consequences and the actual motivations and fears of the Revolutionary War heroes involved can help cement the information they've learned in class.
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Write a Newspaper
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After your lessons on the Revolutionary War, split your 5th grade students into groups and ask them to create a newspaper about the war. Assign a specific time period, such as after the battle of Concord or Lexington. Ask the students to write about the events in reporting style, in news features, obituaries and editorials, or opinion pieces. When they write editorials, have them also write an opposing piece from the colonists' point of view. News events can include eyewitness accounts of events like the Boston Tea Party or the Crossing of the Delaware. Some students can even draw political cartoons. You can have the students type the articles at home and compile them into a newspaper. For greater effect, have the students paste their articles on a tabloid-size piece of newsprint.
Dressing Up
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Students can understand a Revolutionary War character by dressing similar to him. In one project, assign each student an important person who lived during the war, such as George Washington's wife, Patrick Henry or Henry Knox. Ask the students to research the life of the person and his role in the war. Students will then present their portrayals to the class in first-person point of view. Ask children to focus on what their character wanted and why it was important to them. To extend the lesson, ask the 5th grade students to try to convince the class of their point of view while wearing their Revolutionary War apparel. Later, students who wish to can debate each other. Ask students to bring any props aside from weapons.
Have the 5th grade students prepare skits in groups. They can act out major events or try to reproduce what happened during meetings like the Continental Congress. Ask them to use their imagination and try to recreate what the different characters might have said or done.
Riker Elementary School also suggests that teachers ask the 5th grade students to present their characters while pretending to be on a television program, which you can videotape. Ask students to debate while another student moderates like Larry King or another news personality. Or, ask a reporter to "come onto the scene" as a major Revolutionary War event is unfolding. The reporter can interview some of the other students as "eyewitnesses" to the events.
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Understanding Inner Struggles
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Some 5th grade teachers like to accompany Revolutionary War lesson plans with a reading of the book "My Brother Sam Is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier. This book tells the story of young Tim Meeker, the brother of a Revolutionary War soldier, Sam. Tim is torn between Sam's rebellious beliefs and those of his father, who wishes to remain neutral. This book helps students understand the people involved as real, everyday humans who had families and reasons for what they did, right or wrong.
While reading, ask students to keep a list of the reasons that both brother and father provide for their positions in the novel. Ask students to imagine reasons of their own, based on the lives and situations of both men as well. After reading and discussing the novel and war, ask students to imagine themselves in Tim's place as well as in roles such as a soldier's parent or a doctor. Ask students how they would feel and why. For a project, students can present these thoughts by dressing up and presenting each person with a personal plea on his behalf.
After this project, Discovery Education recommends that you ask students to write a monologue in the persona of a particular colonist. In each monologue, ask the student to present the person with an eye to details and points of view that others may not have thought of. Ask the students to think of things that only somebody in that position might notice or find important. Ask your students to present these thoughts in the form of a monologue, a live performance, a videotape recording or presentation of his choice or as a reader's theater presentation. In this project, students learn that events leading to wars occur from many points of view and are less simplistic than people think.
Timeline and Simulation
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When you are just beginning your lessons on the Revolutionary War, help students understand the frustration of the colonists by simulating the environment that was created by "taxation with representation." Before beginning the unit, give each student tokens for good behavior, participation and correct answers. Students can buy candy with their tokens at day's end. After a few days of this activity, announce to students that you will begin taxing their bathroom breaks. You will also tax them for raising their hands, sitting in their chairs or not referring to the teacher as "King" or "Queen." Finally, tell students they must pay one token to receive a "royal" stamp on all assignments. Tell them that assignments will not be "legal" without the stamp and will not be graded. To better simulate the war environment, tell students that they can repeal any "tax" by creating a petition signed by every member, or by staging a protest without the teacher's knowledge. Ask students to make notes about how they felt during each stage of the process. Keep the notes for a later activity.
When you are finishing the section, ask students to create a timeline of events for the war. Sample events can include the Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party and the French and Indian War. Divide students into groups. Assign each group a few events, and ask them to represent the event with a picture and write a description. Apply these events to a large timeline on the wall or onto large poster boards. Before pasting or stapling each event onto the timeline, the groups should present the information. Ask them to also tell which events reminded them of which acts that they simulated in the "Taxation Without Representation" activity.
A Map
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Divide the 5th grade students into groups and give each group a poster board. Assign each group the site of an important battle or event in the Revolutionary War. Ask students to research what happened and create a representation of what happened at each place with a pasted picture or markers. Students should also title the map and present to the class what happened. Additionally, after everyone has completed the project, ask each group to hold up their poster boards and arrange themselves in chronological order.
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References
- Photo Credit George Washington Monument image by Grünig Frank from Fotolia.com
