I heart our expedition!

So today I really just got into our expedition lesson.... Despite the mild to annoying disruptions from the unfocused kids, most of the class was able to completely jump into the expedition writing and creating. In terms of Bloom's taxonomy my kids would have been at the top since they were using their background knowledge to create a story/ character and write a letter to someone. That sounds super disorganized but basically they created a character who would have lived during the pre-revolutionary time period and would have been involved in one of the major political events (i.e. Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre etc etc). It was awesome to see them coming up with names and back stories and really looking at the political event. Granted we are still struggling with the concept of if you are a member of parliament you are NEITHER a patriot nor a loyalist you are simply a British parliament member who does what Parliament does. A patriot or a loyalist had to be a COLONIST above anything else. Also, if you are a group of people living in the colonies are you a colonist? or a group of colonists? tricky tricky tricky....Adding to that, what does the word whom mean and how I can interpret the question "to whom is your character writing the letter?"..... But despite all of these little things I have to say this was one of the best lessons I got to teach. I created the model and worked through the writing process with my kids (and will continue to...) and it was SO much fun. Mostly because this is my (grape) jam. I LOVE creating things like this, getting to delve straight into historical time periods and forget the here and now... I mean, hello, HOW many books/movies do I own about the Elizabethan time period? yeah I thought so...Stay tuned as my draft continues and I'll be sure to pull some awesome quotes from the kids.... So the quiz is... can you figure out my character with just the beginning of the letter??


My dearest sons,
I can only hope that you were not a part of that ridiculous attack on trade ships. Learning of this wretched attack not only worried your poor mother but also made me regret allowing you to move to such a volatile place. I need you to understand the danger you are in. Return home. These reactions to our thoughtful laws are simply irresponsible and uncalled for. Do you not understand that the government is acting with the best interest of the colonists?