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Boston Tea Party

Today marks the 238th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party!  This is one of my favorite lessons that I taught.  I taught it with the Boston Massacre.  I started off by dressing up as different people who witnessed the Boston Massacre.  We talk about how the story changes depending on who is actually telling the story.
I showed this picture and then talk about the details from the picture and talk about which side it is from.  Which side do you think it is from... why?  

We then go on to the Boston Tea Party.  We read a little play that is just fabulous.  I showed a clip from Johnny Tremaine (classic!) We talked about how the colonists aka the Sons of Liberty dressed up as Mohawk Indians and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor in order to protest the tea act of 1773.  The amount of tea they destroyed was worth close to $18,000.  The British were outraged at what they saw at the Boston Tea Party.  King George III decided to punish Massachusetts for the Tea Party.  Those Laws were known as the Intolerable Acts.

We then talked about protesting.  I then had the students create a protest poster on one of the laws that the British passed.  Those 8th graders came up with some real "classy" protests such as, "No more taxes on Molasses or will kick your... " Oh 8th graders.  This lesson just makes me a little bit giddy to think about it! 

My cousin Ashley and niece Celeste share their birthday with the Boston Tea Party Anniversary.  So a big shout out to them.  Ashley and I even went to see the sight of the Boston Tea Party.  Too bad it was closed for renovation.  You see what it says, "open year round,"  yeah well, not so much.  

Family Pictures

There are a lot.  If you want to let us know some of your favorites, that would be great!  They are all numbered.  Thank you to our friends Shelly Shayden for taking them.  She did an amazing job.

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What do these two ladies have in common?

Mulan and Deborah Sampson. Deborah Sampson is one of my favorite heroes of the Revolutionary War. She and Mulan are like the same person. She dressed up as a man to fight in the war. She wasn't caught until she got injured. When she was sent home, many people shunned her for doing such a thing. Years after the war, President Washington sent her a medal of honor for her service in the war. For more information on Deborah Sampson or Robert Shurtleff (her alias) go to: http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/womansoldier.html

The Revolutionary War

I miss teaching. I miss teaching a lot. Especially the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas when I would be teaching my ALL time favorite unit: The Revolutionary War. So in honor of this time of year, I thought I would do a couple posts on The Revolutionary War. My cousin Ashley showed me this video and I love it. Unfortunately it was after I stopped teaching so I never got to use it in the classroom, but it would have been great!

Thanksgiving of PIES

Check out our amazing Thanksgiving of Pies here and here. It was amazing. Thanks Richard and Jackie and Julee and Nate and Ashley and Kelly and Fabulous DC 5.