Today is Patriots’ Day here in Maine, in Massachusetts, and in a handful of other states. It’s a day to mark the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. As a good New Englander and a former U.S. History teacher, every year at this time I like to share a handful of resources for teaching and learning about the American Revolution. 

Pictures of the Revolutionary War is a compilation of images about the Revolutionary War. The images in the collection chronicle the stirrings of rebellion in the pre-revolution years, the war from both American and British perspectives, and events following the Revolutionary War.

The Massachusetts Historical Society offers fourteen lesson plans that are aligned to the theme of The Coming of the American Revolution. The lesson plans include a mix of document analysis activities and group discussion activities. 

Creating Google Earth tours of Revolutionary War battle sites is an activity that I did for many years with my U.S. History students. Students would create multimedia placemarks for each battle in sequence. The placemarks contained information about the outcome and significance of each battle. Here’s a video on how to make a tour with with the browser-based version of Google Earth.

Video Lessons
Keith Hughes has a popular video in which he explains the American Revolution for middle school and high school students.

Crash Course has an extensive series on U.S. History. Included in that series is Taxes & Smuggling – Prelude to Revolution.

Mr. Betts has a YouTube channel on which he posts cartoons and song parodies to teach U.S. History lessons. Here’s one he did about the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

For Red Sox Fans!
This is usually the day that the Boston Marathon is held and the Red Sox play a morning game. That tradition has returned this year! For my fellow Red Sox fans here’s a famous clip from the 2007 Patriots’ Day game.