Exploring the Civil War

With only 3 weeks left of schools I am running out of time to teach. In history we are a bit behind because I didn't take over until October, so we are trying to cram in everything before the end of the year. The last unit I am teaching is the Civil War. Anyone who has been around 10-11 year olds know that they LOVE learning about war.


We started the unit with two wonderful picture books by Patricia Polacco. We started with Pink and Say, which I was familiar with, and a wonderful colleague let me borrow Just in Time Abraham Lincoln. I have to say Patricia Polacco knows how to write informative and interesting books for children. My students beg me to let them borrow them. If you haven't read them I recommend you getting your hands on a copy!

How do you engage students in an event that happened more than a hundred years ago? We reenact the Civil War with an easy-to-implement, weeklong simulation. Students assume the roles of Union and Confederate soldiers and discover what it's like to live in an encampment, march into war, and fight for their beliefs. I use the Easy Simulations Civil War series produced by Scholastic. The books includes step-by-step directions, plus reproducible student worksheets, charts, maps, and rubrics. 

Ms. Tuthill