Junto Society Tea

Last week we had our Junto Society Colonial Tea party.  Students were to bring a dish to share made from a colonial recipe as well as their Hot Topic discussion questions. I provided a variety of teas for them to sample as well as Goat's milk (the earliest colonists in America brought goats instead of cows). Here are some pictures of the fun...

Sampling Goat's Milk (some of their expressions are priceless!)

Tea Party Fun

Hot Topic Discussion Questions

Each week while in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin got together with members of the Junto Society, his social networking group.  He prepared a list of Hot Topic questions for the group to discuss. As preparation for their own Junto Society meeting, the students were asked to 'decode' eight of Franklin's questions.

First, they were to use the dictionary application on their laptops to look up all vocabulary in the question that they didn't know or that I thought may be more complex...words like 'folly', 'remarkable', and 'vice', for example.

After the words in the sentence were defined, the students were asked to rewrite Franklin's question in their own words.  For example, "What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? Or of any other vice or folly?"  Defining key vocab first helps them decode the question.

After they figured out what the question was asking and had written it in their own words, they were to answer the questions based on what is going on in their lives, their community, and their world today.  So, the question above is asking if they've witnessed any bad habits or wicked behaviors lately and they were to answer with their own experiences.  On the day of the Junto Society tea, they brought their list of questions and responses.

Cordially Invited...

Stay tuned for details and pictures from our Junto Society colonial tea!

Curious Colonial Punishments

As an end of the unit activity on the American Colonial Era, we had a round-table discussion on common colonial punishments.  In advance, I researched and compiled a list of historical crimes and punishments that had happened or typically happened in the 13 American colonies and put them on slips of paper.  Each student had to choose a slip, then read their crime and their punishment for said crime.  Some of the crimes include:


"You will be set in the pillory for delivering false dinner invitations and for being the author of a rough practical joke."

 (The Pillory)

"You were caught gossipping...you are sentences to wear the 'gossip's bridle'.  This was a sort of heavy iron cage, that covered the head; a flat tongue of iron, sometimes spiked, was thrust into the mouth over the criminal's tongue."

(The Gossip's Bridle)

"You stole a pair of breeches in 1638 and are sentenced to 'sitt in the stocks on the next Sabboth day...from the beginninge of morninge prayer until the end of the Serman, with a pair of breeches about your necke."

(The Stocks)

The students LOVE this activity! Their fascination probably stems from the fact that in pre-Constitution times there was no such thing as protection from 'cruel and unusual punishment' so the punishments they received were very interesting!

New England or Chesapeake?

As a quick review and as a way to practice classifying information, we played a matching game where teams of students had to place images onto one of two colonial figures.  One figure was a Puritan who represented the New England colonies and the other was a picture of John Smith, who represented Jamestown and the Chesapeake region. 

The pictures represented characteristics of each place.  A school house, for instance, represents the high level of education of citizens in Puritan New England, while the cigarettes represent the fact that tobacco became the number one cash crop in the Jamestown settlement.

The teams competed with one another to see who could classify the pictures the fastest with the least mistakes. This is a great review because the students have to do the same type of classification on the end of unit assessment and having the visuals in the game helps them recall information.

The Jamestown Draft

This year we've been able to add additional instructional time to our schedule in a period called Enrichment.  During this block, we do activities that enhance and 'enrich' what we are learning about in our core U.S. History class time.  It allows me to create and implement many new activities and lessons that I haven't had time for in past school years.  One new activity that we recently completed was called the "Jamestown Draft". 

I modeled this loosely on the concept of a sports draft, like that of the NFL, to get the kids engaged in the activity.  Each student randomly chose a slip of paper with a description of an occupation really held by one the settlers in the Jamestown colony.  Two 'team captains' were picked to be the leaders of two new fictitious American colonies.  The team captains had to decide, based on the 'value' of each occupation, who they wanted to draft into their colony.  The object was to build the strongest colony of workers and thus survive longer than the opposing colony. Here are two teams of colonial workers who have been 'drafted':

In the end, each team had to convince me why they were the strongest by explaining the value of each of their occupations.  It was a fun way to debate and learn a little more about colonial America!

Maine Author Visit

Today (October 14th) we were fortunate to have Maine author Lea Wait come to speak to the US History classes about writing historical fiction books for young adults.  Students are in the process of writing their own historical fiction books on the American Revolution that will be shared with 5th grade students in our school district.  We thought this would be a great opportunity to bring in Ms. Wait so she could speak to the students about the writing and research process for this type of book.  You can visit her website here if you'd like to learn more about Lea.  Here are some pictures from today's event:

Lea brought in several historical items, including this map from the 1700s, which students could reference for place names to be included in their stories.

Here the students are checking out the other items that Lea brought...she is holding a portable tin oven!

Lea explains the different types of clothing worn in the 1770s.

Helping with questions and research

The students had time to work in their book project groups, discussing and developing ideas for characters and plot as well as incorporating historical events into their stories.

Working cooperatively!

Once the books are completed, I hope to post more pictures when we take a field trip down to the 5th grade classes to have those students read the stories back to my students!