Maryland History Projects

This unique book combines state-specific facts and 30 fun-to-do hands-on projects. The History Project Book includes creating a cartoon panel to describe how your state name may have come about, creating a fort replica, making a state history museum, dressing up as a famous explorer and recreating the main discovery, and more! Kids will have a blast and build essential knowledge skills including research, reading, writing, science and math. Great for students in K-8 grades and for displaying in the classroom, library or home.

The definitive account of the lynching of twenty-three-year-old Matthew Williams in Maryland, the subsequent investigation, and the legacy of "modern-day" lynchings. On December 4, 1931, a mob of white men in Salisbury, Maryland, lynched and set ablaze a twenty-three-year-old Black man named Matthew Williams. His gruesome murder was part of a wave of silent white terrorism in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which exposed Black laborers to white rage in response to economic anxieties. For nearly a century, the lynching of Matthew Williams has lived in the shadows of the more well-known incidents of racial terror in the deep South, haunting both the Eastern Shore and the state of Maryland as a whole. In The Silent Shore, author Charles L. Chavis Jr. draws on his discovery of previously unreleased investigative documents to meticulously reconstruct the full story of one of the last lynchings in Maryland. Bringing the painful truth of anti-Black violence to light, Chavis breaks the silence that surrounded Williams's death. Though Maryland lacked the notoriety for racial violence of Alabama or Mississippi, he writes, it nonetheless was the site of at least 40 spectacle lynchings after the abolition of slavery in 1864. Families of lynching victims rarely obtained any form of actual justice, but Williams's death would have a curious afterlife: Maryland's politically ambitious governor Albert C. Ritchie would, in an attempt to position himself as a viable challenger to FDR, become one of the first governors in the United States to investigate the lynching death of a Black person. Ritchie tasked Patsy Johnson, a member of the Pinkerton detective agency and a former prizefighter, with going undercover in Salisbury and infiltrating the mob that murdered Williams. Johnson would eventually befriend a young local who admitted to participating in the lynching and who also named several local law enforcement officers as ringleaders. Despite this, a grand jury, after hearing 124 witness statements, declined to indict the perpetrators. But this denial of justice galvanized Governor Ritchie's Interracial Commission, which would become one of the pioneering forces in the early civil rights movement in Maryland. Complicating historical narratives associated with the history of lynching in the city of Salisbury, The Silent Shore explores the immediate and lingering effect of Williams's death on the politics of racism in the United States, the Black community in Salisbury, the broader Eastern Shore, the state of Maryland, and the legacy of "modern-day lynchings."

Grades K-8. Features 30 history projects for kids to complete-and includes actual state facts. Each project is quick, easy, and inexpensive! Projects include: creating a cartoon panel describing how our state name came about; writing a state constitution for the 21st century; creating a topographic map of the state; dress up as a famous explorer and recreate their main discovery; and more! Students will have a blast creating projects sure to end up as part of a history resource center-all about your state! Most projects use ordinary, easy-to-access materials. 32 pages.

Exploring Maryland through Project-Based Leaning includes 50 well-thought-out projects designed for grades 3-5. In assigning your students projects that dig into MarylandÕs geography, history, government, economy, current events, and famous people, you will deepen their appreciation and understanding of Maryland while simultaneously improving their analytical skills and ability to recognize patterns and big-picture themes. Project-based learning today is much different than the craft-heavy classroom activities popular in the past. Inquiry, planning, research, collaboration, and analysis are key components of project-based learning activities today. However, that doesnÕt mean creativity, individual expression, and fun are out. They definitely arenÕt! Each project is designed to help students gain important knowledge and skills that are derived from standards and key concepts at the heart of academic subject areas. Students are asked to analyze and solve problems, to gather and interpret data, to develop and evaluate solutions, to support their answers with evidence, to think critically in a sustained way, and to use their newfound knowledge to formulate new questions worthy of exploring. While some projects are more complex and take longer than others, they all are set up in the same structure. Each begins with the central project-driving questions, proceeds through research and supportive questions, has the student choose a presentation option, and ends with a broader-view inquiry. Rubrics for reflection and assessments are included, too. This consistent framework will make it easier for you assign projects and for your students to follow along and consistently meet expectations. Encourage your students to take charge of their projects as much as possible. As a teacher, you can act as a facilitator and guide. The projects are structured such that students can often work through the process on their own or through cooperation with their classmates.

This unique book combines state-specific facts and 30 fun-to-do hands-on projects. The People Projects Book includes using sidewalk chalk to draw a life-sized state People on Parade, making a diversity flag, writing a poem about a state poet, designing a scrapbook of famous state women and more! Kids will have a blast and build essential knowledge skills including research, reading, writing, science and math. Great for students in K-8 grades and for displaying in the classroom, library or home.

This unique book combines state-specific facts and 30 fun-to-do hands-on projects. The Current Events Projects Book includes writing a current event news story that takes place 100 years from now, creating a timeline of recent state events, editing state stories in a current newspaper, writing and broadcasting a short news story and more! Kids will have a blast and build essential knowledge skills including research, reading, writing, science and math. Great for students in K-8 grades and for displaying in the classroom, library or home.

Grades K-8. Features 30 geography projects for kids to complete-and includes actual state facts. Each project is quick, easy, and inexpensive! Projects include: constructing a replica of the state's capitol building; creating a montage of the wildlife that lives in our state using cut-out pictures; recreating the path of a state river using a wire coat hanger; building a state tree from fresh or dried leaves/ needles from as many trees as possible; and more! Students will have a blast creating projects sure to end up as part of a geography resource center-all about your state! Most projects use ordinary, easy-to-access materials. 32 pages.