Salt Dough Maps and Battles of the Revolutionary War

We ended our history studies in Tapestry of Grace year 2 with the ratification of the Constitution and the Presidency of John Adams. Prior to that we learned about the revolutionary war, the events that led to up to it, some of the people who played key roles during that time (on both sides), and the course of the war itself ~ where the battles took place, how they fought in those days, and how George Washington (who is now even more of a hero in my mind than he ever was when I learned about him as a schoolgirl myself!) managed to keep a starving, half naked, discouraged, ill equipped and outnumbered, underpaid ragtag army together during 8 long years. Truly amazing!

It was fascinating to learn about different battles of the war, those the Patriots won and those they lost. Some, like the Battle of Bunker Hill, were technically wins for the British but were rallying points for the Patriots. Some, like the siege of Long Island and later the march of British General Burgoyne south along the Hudson River, "should" have been overwhelming victories for the British but turned out to be either times of secret retreat to safety (Long Island) or victory for the Patriots (Saratoga). We learned that the Battle of Saratoga is considered one of the 5 most important battles of all time, because the Patriot victory there caused the French to join the war on our side and the course of world history since then has been radically different than it would have been otherwise. I could go on. It's really fascinating stuff!

So to help cement this knowledge we were learning about the battles in our minds, as well as work some more on the geography of the eastern seaboard of the United States, we made salt dough maps of the east coast. Then each of the older 4 children chose 5 battles to mark on their maps and write a bit about. They wrote about these battles on little flap books which I will show later.

We started by looking at a map of the east coast and just freehand sketching it in pencil on a long piece of cardboard. Then we put chunks of salt dough on the cardboard and began shaping it to the edges of our pencil lines. We had to be sure and mark the battles before the salt dough dried! (which, in hind sight, was not a big worry as the dough took DAYS to dry).



After carving out state boundary lines, each child painted their map.



The last step was making a key to the map.

Here is son G's map and key up close.

And here is daughter G's map. She even painted waves with whitecaps on the Atlantic Ocean! She is also the only one who included the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Son C's map (shaped by me, painted by him).

Son L's map (shaped by him, painted by me). One of the battles he chose was Camden, which you can just see down in the lower left corner on a tiny part of the state of South Carolina (painted green). He chose this battle because it was a terrible defeat for the Patriots BUT they kept on going! Just like the energizer bunny!

This was a really fun project and a great hands on activity to end our year. It was also a great learning tool for me, personally. I finally know *exactly* where New Jersey and Delaware are!!!