'Tis the season to receive packages.  The doorbell rang.  I peeked outside the window and there was the USPS truck. I went downstairs, opened the door and found this...

Hmmmmmm, who could possibly have sent this????? 

Colonial Williamsburg????  I thought back to my mental list and checked it twice...I was certain I had received everything I had ordered from Colonial Williamsburg.  They were already gift wrapped and under the tree.  Then I looked more closely at the mailing label and saw this...

How in the world do I type the sound for:  "deep intake of breath"...???  I was stunned!  I was speechless! Colonial Williamsburg is my favorite place in the whole wide world!!!!! I want to visit there again!  I want to live there! I want to work there!  (I bet none of you had ever guessed that!)  I was sooooooo excited! I called to the kids and told them we got a gift from Colonial Williamsburg!  They got bubbly with anticipation! We opened the tube and found a lovely letter from the Education Outreach Department. 

We've been privileged to be able to do the Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips. The last page of the lesson plans invites the teacher to mail in some samples of their students' work.  This was in response to the samples I had sent for the Yorktown EFT.  I had mailed in a thank you letter and transcripts of my kids' presentations and pictures of them in costume.  My son had portrayed the Marquis de Lafayette

 and my daughter was one of the "baggage" at Yorktown, who wrote a letter home of the experience.  

Reaching further into the tube, we pulled out a poster size copy of the Stone version of The Declaration of Independence with activities!

I couldn't remember what the Stone version was. The kids knew about it though. ;)  They kept teasing me because I'm the one who taught them!  I did!?  Well, my brain is usually full of various lessons.  I started reading the accompanying activity booklet.  Oh that's right, even Lafayette got a rare copy of this document!  We laughed!  I remember most anything that involves Lafayette!  I remember teaching about it now! The activities look great!  I can't wait to do them!  I love studying the Declaration of Independence.  I had devoted an entire week to studying this document last June, I had my son memorize the first part of it for our American Revolution unit celebration, and then we took turns reading portions of it on the 4th of July.  Then when we were in Revolutionary City at CW last Aug, one of the scenes involved the different actor/interpreters reciting this terrific document!  

We were able to really get into the moment!

In fact, we are currently studying the American Declaration of Independence, as my kids are doing their research papers on the comparison between American Independence and Texas Independence.  Even Texas has a Declaration of Independence from Mexico!  My son is reading an interactive book on the Declaration of Independence right now! 

My wheels are already turning on how to incorporate these great activities.  I'm thinking we can do the elementary activities next summer in preparation for our next 4th of July.  And then when we study the American Revolution again at the Rhetoric level, the secondary activities will be incredible...like doing a debate!  I do want to get to that level in our unit celebrations!  

Thank you to the Education Outreach Department for this surprise gift!  We have an incredible amount of fun learning with the Electronic Field Trips! They are a nice sparkle to our daily work, giving us a bit of refreshment, taking a detour on our daily history journeys.  Huzzah to all of you for your great work in producing the EFTs!