C leland’s 5th Grade Project:
Project Title: Tea Party Smarty
Project Idea: Students will develop empathy for the early colonists of Boston as they read Johnny Tremain with the class. As we read the book together,
students will select a founding father which particularly interests them and will begin to “document” events from the perspective of that founding father as they
occur in the book. Students will supplement the novel with other print and electronic resources to fill in the gaps of their founding father’s life. This research
and understanding will be represented in an interactive timeline to be presented to members of the New Bern Historical Society.
Driving Question: How can we create a historically accurate interactive timeline about a founding father to communicate the events that led to the American
Revolution for an audience of members of the New Bern Historical Society?
Content: Reference attached planning guide with content addressed from different subjects.
Major Student Product: Students will create an interactive timeline of the events leading up to the American Revolution from the perspective of a founding
father. Timelines will include written journal entries, video journal entries, journal entries in the voki format, etc. Journal entries will reflect a sound
understanding of the voice/characterization of the selected founding father. Journal entries will also explain the reasons for immigrating to Boston and the
political strife surrounding the conflict between Whigs and Tories including the Boston Tea Party and the origin of the Sons of Liberty.
Resources:
-Johnny Tremain (1773 - ?)
-“How Many days to America?” by Eve Bunting
-“Can’t you Make them Behave King George?”
Prior Reading: -Witch of Blackbird Pond (1687-1688)
Prior Fieldtrip: -Tryon Palace
-NC History Museum
Language Arts:
Math:
RI.5.3. Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more
individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or
technical text based on specific information in the text.
-Students will create a timeline of events of a founding father’s life
leading up to the American Revolution.
Maintained Skill: Selecting and creating an appropriate graph to
represent data.
RL.5.2. Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text,
including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the
speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
RL.5.6. Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how
events are described.
RI.5.6. Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important
similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.
RI.5.7. Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources,
demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a
problem efficiently.
RI.5.9. Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to
write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
-Students will create a line graph of population of Boston along spectrum
of timeline of events. Accompanying this line graph will be an analysis of
why population increased/evolved as it did. (This will tie in nicely with
the social studies content of reasons for immigration to the early
colonies from England.)
-Students will create a line graph to include changes in specified weather
conditions as they change throughout the seasons and course of the
journal entries.
-Students will create print or animated journal entries from the
perspective of a founding father as they relate to the events of Johnny
Tremain. These journal entries will be hyperlinked
along a timeline.
Driving Question: How
- Students will need an understanding of the
selected founding father to be able to emulate his we communicate the
voice in entries.
can
events that led to the
American Revolution for an Social Studies:
audience of members of
-5. L.2.1: Students know that there are different
-5.H.1: Analyze the chronology of key events in
the New Bern Historical
types of ecosystems (terrestrial and aquatic).
the United States.
Society?
These ecosystems can be divided into two types according
to their
-5.H.1.2 Summarize the political, economic and social aspects of colonial
Science:
characteristics: Oceans are large bodies of saltwater divided by
continents. Oceans have many types of ecosystems depending on the conditions (sunlight,
temperature, depth, salinity) of that part of the ocean. Most organisms live where the
ocean is shallow (from the shoreline to the continental shelf) because sunlight can reach
deep and the water is warm making food abundant. Some examples of organisms that live
in the shallow ocean are drifters (jellyfish or seaweed), swimmers (fish),
crawlers (crabs), and those anchored to the ocean floor (corals).
-Journal entries of founding fathers will reflect consumption of natural
resources of Boston such as shellfish collected from the wharf.
5.E.1.1:compare daily and seasonal changes in weather conditions
5.E.1.3: The Gulf stream moderates weather along the eastern
seaboard, warming the air and land there during the cooler months.
-Journal entries will reflect presence of Gulf stream winds and weather
changes which correlate to the seasons based upon research.
life in the thirteen
colonies.
-5.H.2: Understand the role of prominent figures in shaping the United
States
-5.G.1.4 Exemplify migration within or immigration to the United States
in order to identify push and pull factors (why people left/why people
came).
-Students will create a timeline from the perspective of a founding
father which documents the major events which contributed to the
American Revolution. Journal entries will reflect political affiliations and
actions of founding fathers and causes for immigration to Boston.