"In Lesson 4 from The Way We Saw It – The American Revolution in Illustration and Art, pg. 17, the picture depicting Mary Ludwig Hays preparing a cannon to be fired would be a great attention grabber for third graders to find out more about women’s roles in the American Revolution. Using the format from What Questions Do We Ask of the Past – Thinking Like a Historian you can write third grade appropriate questions for each step of the process. The primary resources you listed will definitely give students background knowledge to be successful in their discoveries and they research and participate in real experiences (e.g., sewing bee).
I did some of my own research to find primary resources for this topic. There are a vast amount of images you can access through Google that show the different roles women played during that time period.
Video Clips about Women and the Revolution
- Women of the American Revolution
- Women of the American Revolution
- Republican Motherhood: Where did they fit after the Revolution?/Raising patriotic sons/Being a mother becomes a political act
- Women of the American Revolution: Brief histories
- Tribute to Women in the American Military: From the American Revolution to the present
- The Betsy Ross Home Page: Take a virtual tour of her house
- Petticoat Ladies – Perform the lives of women in the American Revolution: Free lecture video
Additional Resources for Teaching about Women and the Revolution
A great website of resources for kids on the American Revolution:
http://www.kidinfo.com/American_History/American_Revolution.html
I even Googled liberty cloth and got this resource. It’s a readers theater play from Scholastic Printables titled Daughters of Liberty—Spinning for Liberty (4 – 8 grades). You have to subscribe to this site to print it. It could possibly be rewritten for third grade readers. This activity would help build oral literacy and reading skills."
Another idea would be to contact a local chapter of the Daughters of Liberty to come to your classroom to do a presentation.
Revolutionary Women and Bloom's Taxonomic Levels
All of these primary resources would lend themselves to all the level of Bloom’s taxonomy:
Knowledge
- List jobs women had during the American Revolution
- Name some famous women of the American Revolution
- What made women fight during the American Revolution?
Comprehension
- Compare and contrast mothers then and now.
Application
- If you were to interview a women of the American Revolution, what questions would you
Analysis
- What did you discover about the women of the American Revolution.
Synthesis
- Predict what would of happened in women did not take on the jobs of men during the
Evaluation
- Do you agree with the actions of the women of that time: boycotting, creating jobs,
