Archive for the ‘Classroom Resources’ Category

You may be wondering why we have posted so many lesson plans lately, though we hope you have enjoyed them. After six months of development, we are SO pleased to announce our new CD-ROM of teaching materials, George Washington: Lessons from Mount Vernon, which includes the lesson plans that have been recently posted. The CD has over thirty lesson plans (searchable by elementary, middle or high school), a dozen activity sheets for elementary students such as word searches and coloring sheets, pre-visit materials and Teacher’s Guides, and even a PowerPoint of Rare Facts & Curious Truths about George Washington. One of the neatest features of the CD is an Image Gallery with downloadable, high quality images of paintings of Washington and his family, pictures of Mount Vernon Estate, and artifacts from our Collections. If you would like this free resource for your own classroom, email your mailing address to cmccliggott@mountvernon.org and we will get your copy in the mail asap!

On March 15th, 1783, George Washington faced a group of angry officers, upset that they had not been paid yet for their years of fighting in the Revolutionary War. Congress had no funds and the new states were refusing to pay the pensions that had been promised to the soldiers. As the soldiers sat around their camp in Newburgh, New York contemplating mutiny against the U.S. government, Washington wrote a speech that would become known as the Newburgh Address. He called his officers together and begged them not to, “open the flood gates of civil discord.”

As Washington began to read a letter to the officers, he stumbled over the words. He paused as the officers looked around uneasily, then to the astonishment of his audience, he pulled out a pair of glasses. “Gentlemen, you must pardon me,” he said softly. “I have grown gray in the service of my country, and now find myself growing blind.” Reminded of Washington’s own sacrifices, the soldiers fought back tears and later voted to give Congress more time. This astonishing moment in history, where an outbreak of mutiny was prevented by a simple act of humility, is a wonderful lesson for the classroom. Teachers’ Institute alumnist, Stacia Smith, has written an elementary school lesson plan, “Washington’s Newburgh Address,” where students examine primary and secondary sources in order to learn more about the Newburgh Crisis, which she presented at the NCHE conference in Boston this past weekend.

On the night of March 5, 1770, a crowd of “unruly” Americans taunted British soldiers by brandishing clubs and calling them “lobsters” (red coat, get it?). As the crowd closed in on them, the frightened soldiers opened fire and after the smoke cleared, five colonists lay dead or wounded. As news of the “Boston Massacre” raced through the colonies, Paul Revere engraved the famous, but inaccurate, print that Samuel Adams would use to justify his battle cry for American independence.

If you have seen HBO’s “John Adams” series, you may remember the poignant scenes of John Adams defending the British soldiers in court because he believed that every man in America had a right to a fair trial. When the trial finally ended in December, only two of the eight soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter, and their thumbs were branded with an “M” as punishment.

The Sons of Liberty, a Patriot group founded in 1765 in opposition to the Stamp Act, proclaimed the Boston Massacre to be the first battle for American liberty. Several songs about the Boston Massacre, written by the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, spread quickly through the colonies. To bring this to the classroom, the middle school lesson plan, “American Colonists Protest Song,” by our Teacher Institute alumnist, Andrew Ragan, has students research the events leading up to the Revolutionary War, such as the Boston Massacre, and write their own “protest” song. The example lyrics by Andrew’s students that are included in the lesson plan are fabulous!

That is the title of February’s issue of Scholastic News, featuring Mount Vernon’s bronze statue of George Washington on the cover. The “news” about George Washington includes the discovery of his childhood home by archaeologists recently, as well as the analysis of a set of George Washington’s fake teeth that showed the materials included elephant tusk and gold! There is also an article about the forensic figures of George Washington in the new Reynolds Education Center here at Mount Vernon. The issue is a wonderful resource for elementary teachers- look for it in February!