History Units: Year in Review 2015-2016 (Grades 2, 5, 7)

American Revolution

This year we started off with a unit on the Causes and Events Leading to the American Revolution.The girls were watching the series Liberty’s Kids (affiliate link) and we had also done trips to Washington’s Crossing, Valley Forge and Yorktown. It made sense to do a unit on the causes of the American Revolution. We covered the French and Indian War, the various acts that were passed by Parliament (Stamp Act, Tea Act, Intolerable Acts, etc.) as well as the response to that in the U.S. (the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, etc.). The kids then spent 2 1/2 weeks working hard to put on a play (which was about an hour long when we performed it!) all about the events leading up to the American Revolution.

Our play was quite long and involved… and because of it DD became really interested in drama.  She auditioned for a community production of the musical, Narnia!

Middle Ages Unit

Last spring, we studied the early Middle Ages.  We stopped because of summer vacation. We did our unit on the American Revolution before delving back into the Middle Ages again.   We picked up where we had left off and studied the Crusades, the Hundred Year’s War, and the Black Plague.

Some of the posts in our Middle Ages Unit:

• Vikings, Norse Myths and a Woodburning Craft
• Middle Ages: King Arthur, Charlemagne
• Middle Ages Unit: The Medieval Church and Monasteries Worksheets
• Feudalism in the Middle Ages Notebook Pages and Simulation

• Middle Ages Projects and Books

• Middle Ages – Notebook Pages on England and France (800-1200)
• The Crusades
• Middle Ages in the 1300s: Black Plague Simulation, Hundred Years’ War, Crusades
• Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan Free Notebook Pages
• Marco Polo – Notebook Pages, Books and Resources

Next, we studied the Renaissance and Reformation.  The kids *loved* studying the Renaissance. We spent a lot of time looking at the relationship between the patrons (like the Medici and the Popes) with the famous Renaissance painters.

Renaissance Posts:

• Early Renaissance: The Medici Family and Renaissance Art Notebook Pages

• Renaissance Artists and Their Patrons (and Notebook Pages about da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and their patrons)

Renaissance Worksheets – Holy Roman Empire, Albrecht Dürer

Reformation

Then we went on to study the Reformation

• Reformation – Martin Luther Notebook Page and Lapbook Pieces

U.S. Presidents

Around President’s Day we spent quite a bit of time reviewing some of the well known U. S. Presidents.  You can find our U.S. Presidents review sheets here (plus, the lyrics to the U.S. Presidents Song!)When Nancy Reagan died earlier this year, we took the opportunity to talk about and study Ronald Reagan.  There’s a notebook page about his presidency here: Ronald Reagan Notebook Pages. We took the opportunity to learn a little about the Cold War, the Berlin Wall… and Reagan’s role in during Perestroika (political reform) in Russia under Gorbachev. We will need to study this in more depth at some point, but I wanted to at least touch on this period since we haven’t studied this in depth (yet!!).

Finally, we did another unit about some of the Native Americans of the West. We focused on the Navajo, Cheyenne, and Sioux.

Navajo Indians and the Long WalkPlains Indian Wars from Sand Creek to Wounded Knee

A year or so ago, we had studied many of the tribes of the eastern U.S. You’ll find some of those posts here:

• Native Americans of the Northeast (Part I: The Algonquian Indians)
•  Native Americans of the Northeast (Part II, Iroquois Indians) where I shared our Wampum belt project and the printable you see below:
• A Visit with Pocahontas’ Great (Gr, Gr…) Granddaughter
• Native Americans of the Southeast: Cherokee, Seminole Indians, Trail of Tears

• 6 Native American Picture Books for Kids

U.S. Civics and Government

Finally, at the end of the year we spent some time reviewing the U.S. Constitution and the 3 Branches of Government. You can find our more about our Civics and Government Unit here.

Our Other History Units:

If you are interested in finding links to our other history units, be sure to click on the History Tab above.

We have other free packets and notebook pages on

• Africa Learning Packet
• The Transatlantic Slave Trade
• India Learning Packet (plus individual notebook pages on Marco Polo, Genghis Khan, Gandhi and more)
• China Packets (including notebook pages on the ancient Chinese dynasties)
• World Religions Pages – Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism
• Civil Rights Movement
• And much more!!

Europe Flag Map

Earlier this semester I shared a free flag map printable here: