“Why did the colonists declare independence?” Children’s Book

This lesson can be used with The United States: An Open Ended History, a free online textbook.  Adapted in part from open sources.

If you had to explain the causes of the American Revolution to your kid sister, how would you do it??  Believe it or not, being able to streamline and simplify your explanation of key events is a great way to check your own understanding.

Start with:

  1. Agitation, Taxation, and Representation by Other Means
  2. The Shot Heard Round the World, Common Sense, and Independence

For tomorrow: Take one page of notes filled with basic facts and chronology of the colonies from French and Indian War to American Revolution, drawn from the pages above, all with the general question in mind — “Why did the colonists declare independence?”

Use the information contained in these notes to create a minimum eight page storybook, illustrated, answering the question — “Why did the colonists declare independence?”  Your book should tell the story of how the Revolution came to be – roughly from the French and Indian War to the Declaration of Independence.  It should utilize at least 10 vocabulary words or key terms and tell a story that makes sense.

Your book will be read aloud during a class-wide story time – so make sure it has cadence (and maybe rhymes?)

Bonus points if you include a cute talking animal to gloss over uncomfortable social truths.

Take a Guided Tour of Maya Mexico, 2017

Explore the ruins of Ek’ Balam, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza, scramble through streets of colonial Merida, and sample the cuisine and culture of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on this guided photo essay (complete with suggested activities for use in your social studies classroom.)

This photo essay works perfectly in conjunction with the rest of our free Maya unit.

Suggested Activities

  1. Choose any topic described in a photo or caption in this album. Do deeper reading and research on that topic, creating a presentation to share with your class.
  2. Research and plan a realistic travel itinerary through Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula that focuses specifically on its Maya and colonial histories. Explain the historical or cultural relevance of your choices. Present the final itinerary with photos and estimated costs for the whole trip.

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Open Ended Social Studies has the chapters that your world history textbook is missing

What is the root cause of our world’s troubles?  

If you ask me, it’s not a trade imbalance or a terrorist threat.  If we’re talking about the problem that lies at the heart of everything, it’s got to be a severe, devastating lack of empathy – the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Continue reading “Open Ended Social Studies has the chapters that your world history textbook is missing”