We know the songs but not a lot about the man. “Hamilton” debuts on Disney + July 3. It’s a worthy vehicle to teach history and understand more about this famed Founding Father in your homeschool. Check out EduHam at Home for free! It’s available through August and incldues a personal welcome videof from “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, tipd from EduHam teachers to assist kids in creating their own work, free materials, key documents and a chance for kids to submit their own work.
The Disney Plus version is sans cuss words. The show starts off with a song that fuses all of the young Hamilton’s experiences together before he finds himself on the shores of the 13 colonies. The show is peppered with words kids may not know, from Absurdity to Zeugma. Grab one of the teacher’s guides below for a thorough run down of these words that make the lyrics zing.
Mom tip – If you have Kindle, many of these books are free!
$9
This is a thoroughly entertaining guide if you want to go all-in on “Hamilton.” It not only goes into the symbolism, metafiction, allegory, metaphor and irony of the wordplay chosen by “Hamilton” author Lin-Manual Miranda, the guide gets into the logical fallacies and top argumentation strategies, themes, allusions and motifs, among other main points of the fast-paced rap-based hit Broadway show. There’s also a handy dictionary for the clever words Miranda used.
This is for seroius “Hamilton” lovers.
$3-$10 (buy used or new)
This is more for 6th-12th grade, but we all know in homeschool those grade levels are arbitrary. This would be a worthy follow up you can use after watching ‘Hamilton’ if your kiddo is really into the show.
“Hamilton: An American Musical” has activities and questions for students to hone research-based literacy skills. Includes:
- close reading tasks
- text-based vocabulary practice
- cross-curricular activities
- text-dependent questions
- reader response writing prompts
- leveled comprehension questions
- story elements comprehension tasks
- diverse and relevant assessments
$5
If you haven’t tried the “Who Was” history series, then you are missing out! I can get bored with some of the kids’ history books, and I looooove history. These are fun and provide good context for kids to understand more of what was happening in the world around the historical person.
$5
A worthy summary of the scholar’s life that can be read in an hour. Delves into debate and the tragic early youth of the future aide-de-camp of General George Washington. The quick read offers quite a lot of background and points of interest to give a well-rounded view of the famed Founding Father. It also gives just enough intrigue for kids who get interested to further research on the History channel or Biography.