Paul Revere

This week we focused on Paul Revere and his famous ride.  With our visit to Boston it seemed like the perfect time even if it did not fit sequentially.

Since Froggy is somewhat familiar with the Revolutionary War and its purpose talking about Paul Revere became easier.  We read The Start of the American Revolutionary War: Paul Revere Rides At Midnight.  It had lots of good information in it but was dry and neither one of us wanted to read it again.  To liven things up a bit we watched The Shot Heard Round the World  from Schoolhouse Rock and took a tour through a virtual museum dedicated to the Midnight Ride which included a neat version of Longfellow's famous poem. Froggy enjoyed listening to the poem more than I expected. It was fun to then go into Exhibit Hall 2 and contrast fact from fiction, a great reminder to Froggy that not all the things she reads even about real people are real.  Exhibit Hall 3 encourages kids to make a scale model of Boston but we skipped that. Instead we used it as an opportunity to work on our itinerary.  In Exhibit Hall 5 we listened to Yankee Doodle Dandy with verses we had never heard before.  I could see the light bulb go off in Froggy when she realized that George Washington sang this same song.

We also read Which Way to The Revolution?  which is much more a book about maps than about Paul Revere but which captured Froggy and let us talk about Paul Revere while building our map reading skills.  It was really neat because we brought the book with us to Boston and let Froggy use it to direct us while we were standing in the same place she found in her book.

We did not trace all of Paul Revere's Ride but we did see his house, the old north church, the docks and Bunker Hill