Soon, our family will be traveling to Washington DC and Colonial Williamsburg. We are very excited for this opportunity! Our niece, Whitney, who is just finishing her freshmen year in college, will be moving in with us this weekend and is joining us on our trip!
The last time we were in DC was 2 1/2 years ago. Ben was in first grade and we did the Five in a Row unit The Glorious Flight to go along with our trip to the Museum of Air and Space. You can read more about that unit and trip as well as look at pictures in this blog post from then. It was a great trip and the perfect unit study. We had so much fun!
For this trip our focus is on the Revolutionary/Colonial times. So, we’ll learning a lot about George Washington, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. In addition to spending time in DC and Williamsburg, we’ll be taking a tour of Mount Vernon as well. Amanda Bennett has written two Download-n-Go’s that fit well for our studies of this period. One is about George Washington and the other is about Ben Franklin. We’re not going to completely do these units until the fall–there just won’t be time– but we’ll have them on our laptop with us to read a few things and peruse the links and videos. We are, however, going to take a few books and videos with us for the drive. I thought I’d share those here in case you’re looking for some ideas.
Books
- tour the U.S. Capitol
- tour the Bureau of Engraving and Printing
- C & O Canal tour
- see a play a Ford’s Theatre
- visit some of the Smithsonian museums (Postal, Air and Space and American History are on the list)
- Arlington National Cemetery (Ben loves watching the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns)
