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DD will be studying early American history this year...up to George Washington and the time shortly thereafter and I wanted to integrate some relevant field trips into our year. Any suggestions of places to go? We are in the western side of the state, near the mountains, about 45 minutes north of Charlotte.

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Greensboro has Guilford Battleground Park, and they do a re-enactment of the Battle for Guilford Courthouse every year.

 

Also, I think a park in Alamance County holds "Revolutionary Days" every year - or is it "Colonial Days?" I can't remember. It's probably coming up - I remember it was on dd's birthday last year and we weren't able to go for some reason. Her birthday's coming up. I'll see if I can find out about that. The kids love it, I guess, because who doesn't love real-live cannons? :tongue_smilie:

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Oh, if you want to take a nice long trip, you can drive down to New Bern and do one of their historical tours. We did a tour a few years ago of I think it was the Governor's house? It was very cool - my dd thoroughly enjoyed surprising the tour guide by telling her what a chamber pot was. :D (I think she was about 5 or 6 at the time.)

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Oh, if you want to take a nice long trip, you can drive down to New Bern and do one of their historical tours. We did a tour a few years ago of I think it was the Governor's house? It was very cool - my dd thoroughly enjoyed surprising the tour guide by telling her what a chamber pot was. :D (I think she was about 5 or 6 at the time.)

 

You're talking about Tryon Palace in downtown New Bern. That is a neat tour. The gardens surrounding the palace are also lovely. If you go during homeschool days they have all sorts of activities going on -- palace tours, working kitchen/stables/etc., period lawn games, arts and crafts for the kiddos, etc. There are also several historic homes downtown that are free and open to the public year-round.

 

I don't know that I'd make the drive from the western half of the state to see it, but we live in New Bern so we've been many times.

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Check out the following sites:

http://www.learnnc.org/discover/

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/

 

Around Charlotte:

Latta Plantation (runs a tad bit later than GW)

Historic Rosedale (ditto)

Charlotte Museum of History (fits perfectly)

Schiele Museum in Gastonia (has a Carolina Backcountry farm and Catawba Indian village)

Reed Gold Mine

 

Farther afield:

Old Salem

Old Fort has Colonial Days in April http://www.oldfort.org/events.htm

Fort Dobbs is up near Statesville http://www.fortdobbs.org/ (French and Indian War)---they have an event this weekend

 

Look at upstate SC as well, since there were many battles fought there--http://www.sciway.net/hist/periods/revolwar.html

 

You might find some of the following books of interest:

http://www.sandlapperpublishing.com/YrAmericanrevolution.htm

 

We read "Black Crows, White Cockades" in place of "Johnny Tremain" when we went through colonial American history for elementary. It's set in upstate SC, and has a female protagonist, mentions lots of areas around here that were important in the Rev War.

 

Don't forget to look at the online resources from the NC Museum of History http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/edu/index.html

Edited by KarenNC
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Wow! Thanks for the responses! I am going to go check out all the referencs!

 

 

I have been to New Bern but it was a LONG time ago....way before marriage and kids. lol. I think that might be too lengthy a trip for us, but I will definitely keep it in mind if we plan to do anything else on that side of the state!

 

I plan to take the kids to Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg when we travel to VA to see my parents sometime in the next year. I had heard they had homeschool days, so I'm going to look further in to that.

 

Thanks again everyone!:)

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Oh, and I looked at DD's curriculum again, and it even goes as far as Abraham Lincoln this year.

 

Not as many Civil War sites in the Charlotte area as there are Rev War, but some of the same places do Civil War re-enactments through the year. Mint Hill has a nice Veteran's Day activity with a great re-enactor, Deacon Jones, who portrays an free black man who fought for the Confederacy and was listed as a slave owner. The slaves were his wife and children (he was allowed to buy her, but not free her), and he fought to protect his land and family. It's a story from the area, but a side that I'd not heard growing up here.http://www.minthillhistory.com/Calendar.cfm

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Alamance Battleground was mentioned. Their living history day is next week, October 14th from 9:00-2:00. We've been several times. Some years it was fantastic, other years, not so much. School groups are there the same day so it can get a little crazy.

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Old Salem in Winston-Salem

 

Edenton down at the coast, combine it with a trip to Roanoke Island and festival park which is a mini-Jamestown focused on the Lost Colony. Go in the summer to see the outdoor drama.

 

As well as Guilford Courthouse battlefield, you'll also want to check out King's Mountain which does a reenactment as well. Both will have the dates on their website, but generally the scheduled at the same dates or close to the actual battle dates.

 

There's a revolutionary outdoor drama done a Snow Camp. They also do an underground railroad one.

 

Depending on how much after GW you are looking at then you could add on Unto These Hills and a visit to Cherokee.

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