To say that my 9-year-old was not pleased to be looking at the American Revolution is an understatement! He wanted to do more medieval British history. Well, that got me off to a great start! But I persevered, knowing that if he just gave it a go he would really enjoy it and I was right. Of course, I was, who wouldn't enjoy learning about the American Revolution? Here are some of our highlights.
Liberty Kids was an instant hit here. We have free computer time first thing in the morning and then later in the day and my son made his way independently through all the episodes and would frequently ask if he could watch another if we had time. Although that meant he knew more than I did when it came to working through the unit of work which made him giggle.
Our next highlight was the timeline. It wasn't anything fancy, just a strip of lining paper that he tore roughly at the edges to make it look more like a scroll. I drew the long line through the middle and helped him occasionally with the writing. He found a number of timeline resources and after the first two entries which I helped with, he spent days going back and adding more on his own. Then deciding it looked a little boring he finished off by adding some illustrations. Now my son has trouble with pencil grip, it is common for those with EDS or if a person is hypermobile. I would say that his writing is still immature, it is a work in progress and, generally, he loathes having to write anything so this was a real win. Writing practice, spelling, research and historical skills development all rolled into one activity. In the end, he proudly displayed it on our hallway wall for everyone to look at and loves questioning all the family to see if they have read it all!
HAMILTON!!! We are now huge fans of the musical which was not on my official plan. My 14-year-old daughter had watched it and suggested we watch it together as a family. A warning here, there are swear words in Hamilton but we discussed this before watching, discovering that my son had made it to the grand old age of 9 and did not know a swear word (I'm taking the parenting win here). There was a version on Disney Plus that seemed to have been censored a bit so we went for it. Cue Hamilton on repeat for the whole term, on the TV, on the speakers, in the car...! He now knows nearly every rap off by heart covering memorisation, music and poetry - rap is a form of poetry with very obvious rhythm after all - he then decided to write a biography for a number of the characters in the musical. He used Canva to design his own sheets which he printed out and filled in. Click on the links to get them. So, I would say watch the musical yourself and then decide if it is appropriate or not for your child. I also purchased him a copy of this book and stashed it away as a gift for some time in the future.
The Boston Tea Party was read numerous times until he could recite the whole book himself. He then recorded himself reading the book to send to one of his younger cousins. He was so pleased with himself that he could recite a whole book!
He enjoyed studying this period in history so much that he has asked if we could do the French Revolution next and it just so happens that the next unit of history I had planned was the French Revolution! If you want to see the unit of work follow the link below.
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