They started by singing America the Beautiful all together and then each student made a short monologue in character. A couple of the kids had to play more than one part but they handled it well. The line up included Leif Erikson, Columbus, Capt. John Smith, Billington child from the Mayflower, a drummer boy, Paul Revere, Jefferson, Washington and Madison. Then they joined together again to sing God Bless America.
This made for a great review of the founding of our nation after just finishing the unit on wisdom prior to this. If you remember correctly, the wisdom unit contained a subunit on government. We plan to practice it some more and then use it for our upcoming talent show. Making this play not only a great way to review but also a practical way of ensuring that each of the kids perform something for our groupwide talent show coming up very soon!
Just after the play we piled the kids onto a blanket on the lawn and Lucy talked about what it means to be a citizen and how you go about becoming a citizen if you were born somewhere outside of the U.S. She then asked the kids questions from the list that immigrants use to study about our country. We started with the idea that we would only ask a few but the kids were doing so well and enjoyed it so much that she managed to get all the way through the list.
We ended our celebration with desserts and a red and white pinata. (I know, not American but we had this pinata and my son wanted to use it so I told him if he decorated it in some patriotic fashion than we could use it.) Along with the usual candy, we filled the pinata with some fabulous American tatoos from Kim. At the end of the day, the kids were covered in red, white and blue tattoos, all sugared up from cupcakes, strawberries and cookies and playing in the sandbox. Doesn't that sound like a good old American kids party?
