American Revolution Maps and Task Cards

As promised, I am back to share another lesson idea with you! We finished up our unit on the American Revolution last week. It was a long haul as we study the events leading up to the Revolution before breaking for the holidays. Then we come back and hit 'em hard with some major battles and the famous names from that era for three weeks. Whoosh. We are done.

This year I thought I'd try something a little different and have the students recreate the famous battles using play-doh. They were to draw the map on 9 x 12 construction paper and use the play-doh to highlight how the rebels used the geography around them to help. For example, at the Battle of Bunker (Breed's) Hill, the Minutemen hid behind trees and fired on the advancing Red Coats. So they students made trees and little soldiers out of the play-doh.

I had them work in groups of 4-5. When they were done we took a little 'field trip' around the room. Each group had to explain what battle they were representing and how they used the play-doh to show geographical features.

In honor of all their hard work, I made a little set of task cards to help them study for the exam. It's a simple set of 20 cards with an answer key provided.

We had two exams with all of this material. One before Winter Break called Road to the Revolution and the other after break called Revolutionary Battles. My students did really well with the Road to the Revolution. But not so great on the battles. Hmm?

You can pick up this Task Card set here for $2!