Overwhlemed and frustrated.

This is going to be a vent, so if you're not in the mood to "listen" to it, feel free to click back out of my blog.  :) 

I am SO overwhelmed looking at this final project.  Having never done an interactive notebook before, I'm struggling with getting it started and adapting all my lessons from Social Studies to work with it.  Since it won't be colonial America in nature - I don't get to that on our curriculum until wayyyy after Thanksgiving, I need to do it on the Spanish Explorers.  That and my map skills unit are the only two units I am sure to finish in SS before T-giving.  Science takes up the bulk of content area time because of teaching the scientific method to the kids so they can do a science fair project due just after the Winter Break.

There are SO FEW primary sources I can find from that time period.  Most of the pictures I'm finding are interesting - but are secondary sources, having been painted in the 1800s.

The three primary source things we have to use are LOC, other online resources for Primary Sources, and Resources from PHMC and when I googled that, I got something about Health and Medicine.  I did find a letter translated to English that Columbus had written after finding "India."  However, the wording of it will be very hard for 4th graders to decipher.  Ten primary sources in three focus lessons will be a LOT to find for this unit - judging by what I'm able to find so far.

I found some pictures of tools that were used for navigation back in the 1400s but they aren't really primary sources because they are either reproductions or modern drawings showing what they looked like. 

I will figure it out, I'm sure, but right now I'm pulling my hair out.  Thanks for listening.  I hoped that putting it here some of you might be able to commiserate.  Anyone starting to plan this yet and feeling like me? 

How Historians Work

Historians and their work is honestly a topic I never considered too deeply until recently.  Now that I'm thinking of it, though - the amazing part is simply the sheer volume of the evidence they need to go through to make sense of the past.  If the rest of us want to research a topic, we need only to go to the library and read what historians have painstakingly put together from primary sources, sometimes in other languages or in writing that is nearly inscrutable.  Historians have a large and ever-changing job because they are always finding new pieces of writing, a new picture or painting, or new artifacts that have been in someone's family barn or attic for a hundred years.  Each of those things might add a new piece of information to what we "know" about the culture of those who lived long ago.  With each new piece of information comes a different puzzle piece, which requires the puzzle to be put together in a different way - perhaps pushing out another piece, perhaps adding to the size of the puzzle, or perhaps creating an entire new puzzle of its own.

Historians' work is essential because as we look back over the past, we can use the issues and solutions of long ago to assist us with the problems we face today. 

Military Aspects of Revolutionary War

Reading Wood's book, chapter 4, about the military aspects of the War was difficult. I fear I have been forever ruined for reading boring textbooks!  I found myself wanting to read Hakim or to go to the archives and piece things together for myself.  My mind kept drifting to Thomas McGuire's presentation a couple of weeks ago.  Honestly, I don't think I learned any more big concepts from Wood than I did from Mr. McGuire. 

One thing that surprised me greatly was how badly the colonists did in just about every battle.  I'm definitely more understanding now about how they felt by the time they arrived at Valley Forge in 1777.  It's amazing any of the soldiers stayed that long. 

Another thing that struck me was the characterization by Wood of the British on p. 78.  He states that they "never clearly understood what they were up against" with the Americans.  They didn't understand that this was a war about a principle, freedom, whereas most of the wars Britain had fought were financial in origin.  Wood describes there that the Americans did very little by way of large battles, but used their own strengths in small skirmishes, stealth, etc., using guerrilla war tactics.  The fact that we were on the other side of that "not understanding what we're up against" issue during the Vietnam War occurred to me as I was reading.

In contrast to the Wood book, the children's book, The American Revolution, was interesting.  I liked the fictional letters for many parts that reinforced the idea that there were REAL PEOPLE involved in the events of the Revolutionary War.  It was helpful, as well, in giving a brief biography of many of the people involved and how they were important to the American Colonies during the years of the Revolution.